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Gardens Gallery

Gardens Gallery 2009

Early May

Click on any picture to enlarge it.

1.Bing cherry tree, the first fruit tree in Dufferin Grove Park. Planted in 1999. Ari Kamp decided to prune all the bottom branches off, so now the kids have to climb up to get cherries. Bing cherry trees are good for climbing, though.	2.The little Bing cherry tree, planted by Annick Mitchell in 2005, when she heard that Bing cherry trees like to cross-pollinate. The first Bing cherry tree was not very productive before this tree arrived. Now it does better, although the kids, the birds, and the raccoons eat so many cherries that nobody else gets many. The apartment building behind is the one where Ben Figueredo used to live before he died. He helped out with the grapes particularly.
3.The sour cherry tree. We bought it by mistake, thinking it could cross-pollinate with the Bing cherry tree. But this one doesn't need a mate, and its cherries are so sour that it doesn't get robbed as much. Anna Bekerman had enough to make a pie for Friday Night Supper once. The tree is between the split rail fence of the first children's garden, and the woodshed. It seems to like that space.	4. For about four years running, Pat MacKay gave the park bags of tulip and daffodil bulbs from Cruickshank's nursery. These are some of the tulips, still going strong by the rink house entry.
5.Pat MacKay's tulips in front of the rink house, with a view down toward Dufferin Street. The bushes in the photo (at the centre) are one of the last two Parks-maintained gardens in the park.	6.The last ornamental crab apple tree in the park, from before any of the current park friends got involved. Carol Cormier was the Park supervisor then. There used to be a big tulip bed beside this tree, but it was removed when all the flower beds were taken out, in 1992.
7. One of the wild plum trees (donated by former City Councillor Mario Silva) was planted in the centre garden in one of the first native-species beds. It has lots of room to spread out, and it takes the space. The little plums are hard as rocks fro most of the season, but the birds and small animals like them.	8.One of the two little forests put in by the city's tree program in 2006, with the help of City staff Uyen Dias. The ridge is the bank of the old Garrison Creek.
9.The little forest gardens on the Dufferin Street side have two rows of serviceberry bushes in bloom. Birds love those berries, but so do children. This is looking north, toward the old interlock path (almost grown over now) and the second Canada Trust "Friends of the Environment" garden, planted in 1997.	10. The "little forest" is in the foreground, planted b y the city's tree program. The serviceberry bushes are in ful bloom and there are also some narcissus and daffodils, planted by Anna Bekerman's garden club.
11. The south garden is called "Memories of Garrison Creek," since the former creek bed is right here. The three flowering wild plum trees were a donation from former City Councillor Mario Silva (now the Davenport Riding member of parliament in Ottawa."	12.The first cob courtyard garden. The tulips were a gift from Parks manager Leslie Coates. There are two black maples in the same bed, a gift from Mary Wigle in memory of her husband Ziggy Kapsa.
13. This ornamental tree was planted only a few years ago, as a large-caliper tree, on the Havelock Street side of the park.	14.This garden was planted by Gene Threndyle in 1996, as a little tree nursery. It contains some chokecherry bushes, always full of birds, three oaks, an aspen that planted itself (Gene says from a seed in a bird dropping, maybe). There are also three oaks and two white pines. One of the white pines was planted ceremonially by then-Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario Hilary Weston in 1997.
15. People were sleeping, or otherwise, in this garden so Jutta Mason bought a few stinging nettle plants at Otto Richter's Nursery up near Markham. They've multiplied nicely, so that there are enough to put on pizzas from time to time. A sign warns people to stay out, and they mostly do, now.	16. More of Pat MacKay's tulips. These give spring colour to an otherwise mainly native-species garden. They also gain points with those park neighbours who feel that a garden that looks like a little woods is not a garden at all. This garden originally raised the ire of the park's dog walkers, who felt that more and more of the park was being made unavailable to them. Parks have many contested uses!

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posted July 25, 2006

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Table Of Contents Clubhouse Entrance Gardens Production Gardens Vegetable Gardens 2007 Decorative Gardens Around The Ovens Bush And Sculpture Gardens Cob Courtyard Gardens Fieldhouse Fenced Garden Gardens Around Outside Fences

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See also:

The Eden Project

Gardens In Paris

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