For the 23rd year, the Cranbrook Garden Club is hosting a tour of six of Cranbrook’s distinctive gardens — and one garden on Simms Road — at the lush beginning of summer, in all their full-blooming glory.
The labour and love of the gardeners will be on full display Saturday, July 13, from 10 am to 3:30 pm. Tickets are $10, available at Top Crop Garden, Farm and Pet, and Huckleberry Books on 9th Avenue.
A map to the seven gardens is included with the ticket.
• On 2A Street South, the “Ro-Aker Garden” of Dean and Angel Romano and Shannon and Malachi Baker aims to create separate garden rooms while maintaining a “food forest” theme throughout.
“We are striving to produce a sense of harmony and fusion with plantings of veggies, flowers trees and shrubs alongside entertaining spaces with the sound of falling water in the background,” the Ro-Akers write.
• The lawns, garden locales and plant choices of the Trudy and Brian Clifford’s place on 16th Street South have been dictated by the dozen fir trees that surround their 40-year-old-home. These trees allow ferns, hostas, astilbes and lilies-of-the-valley to grace the rock/fountain arrangments. Minimum sun allows some vegetables, strawberries, rhubarb to share this yard. “It all equates to a peaceful shaded space to enjoy an hour of tranquility,” the Cliffords write.
• The vision for Rosemary and Rick Nelson’s garden on 11th Street South comes from a watercolour painting of an English country garden from Rosemary’s grandfather. Creating this on their sloped lot involved terracing, making soil, removing some trees and building fence so plants could flourish. “It has been hard work, but we have the start of the country garden I had envisioned,” Rosemary writes.
• Anita and Kareen Peters’ garden on 6th Street South started as a bare lot in 1995 and has matured and changed over the years. 2019 marks the mother-daughter team’s garden’s third time in the Garden Tour, and features a large fish pond with water lilies and waterfall and a rugosa rose hedge on two sides of the corner lot.
• The front of Rick Ferrier and Corinne Holden’s house on Oak Drive South features a stream from the house to the road with an underground reservoir. Basalt rocks direct the flow and wood inserts create cascading rapids. There are two separate intriguing entrances to the backyard, with a large swimming garden populated by Koi. The luxuriant flora is mostly Sone 3 variety, but the garden experiments with Zone 4 and 5 plants as well.
• Water features also figure prominently in Frank and Kathy Fiorentino’s garden on 22nd Avenue South, which was installed to pull in an “awkward” corner of the yard. The water feature, surrounded by greenery, provides sound and relaxation to those out on the sun deck.
• Up on the mountainside off Simms Road (off Wycliffe Road), Judy and Roger Chapman have created an informal, low-maintenance perennial space. Natural vegetation makes up most of the property, while rock beds, gravel paths and mulch gardens surround the house. Hints of whimsy throughout the property add fun and character.
Also included on Saturday is the Garden Club’s Plant and Craft Sale at 224-14th Avenue North for great bargains from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.