Spring Into Summer!!

It's gardening time! Hi everyone!  Just a quick note to let you know the latest news and the upcoming events.  If you would like to invite our members to tour your garden at it's prime, please post the location, date and time on our Facebook group and email thepagc@gmail.com so I can add it to our site's Upcoming Events calendar.  If you hear of any other events happening over the summer, feel free to share on our Facebook group as well :) We have a small group of people interested in helping to shape the program for next year.  If you would be willing to share topic ideas, make phone calls or send emails, please email thepagc@gmail.com to join this group. Our plant sale was a huge success on Saturday!  Thanks to many very generous plant donations and dedicated volunteer work, we were able to raise nearly 5 times more than our recent perennial orders in under 2 hours!  Unbelievable!! John and Donna Silver share their amazing property at 283 Brennan's Road (off Prospect Bay Road) Sunday, June 15 between 12pm and 4pm. The rhododendrons are coming into their own. Please remember to bring a food donation to support our local food bank. See you Sunday! Each member has an NSAGC bare root hosta waiting for them at Bill Mercier's place at 16 Aaron Avenue, Shad Bay.  They need immediate pick up.  If you will not be picking one up, please email thepagc@gmail.com so we can rescue it.

Garden Tour Reminders

Hi everyone....

A reminder that the garden tour list has been posted with a schedule for The Silver Gardens.  Today, Sunday June 10 is one of the dates the gardens are open!

Enjoy your visits!
Val :)

Garden Tours and Announcements

Sending a sincere thank you to everyone who has helped make this garden club a smashing success again this year! You have all been so generous with your time, your help, your suggestions and your enthusiasm!! The fun isn't over yet - now it's time to visit each other to see the drama of summer unfold in our gardens! Various Announcements: Anyone who ordered berries from Bill Mercier can pick them up next Tuesday, May 29. 16 Aaron Avenue, Shad Bay 850-2859 -- Please check our web site's 2012 Garden Tour page to see dates and times to visit member gardens. The first specific date is this Sunday, don't miss out!! Can we visit you too? Just send a note to thepagc@gmail.com We'll contact you for details. This page will keep growing!! -- Our site has a calendar of Upcoming Events. All kinds of gardening events are coming up now!! Please send any calendar additions to Valerie at thepagc@gmail.com -- Dont' forget, we have a Facebook Group!! There is always a link to it in the site's menu. It's a great place to stay connected, share pics and make announcements. -- Wishing you sunny skies and rain as needed!

Touring The Silver Gardens

Our members, Donna and John Silver open their spectacular acreage for touring when rhodos and azaleas around the ponds and woodland trails should be at their best!!

283 Brennan’s Road
(Parking along Brennan’s Road)

Sunday, May 27

Sunday, June 10

Sunday, June 17

1pm - 5pm

Food donations for the local food bank gratefully accepted.

Donna and John's garden began modestly in the 70’s on their beautiful property. Today the garden covers approximately 8 acres and includes a large spring fed pond with two bridges crossing over two small islands. On a large rock in the pond, a bronze frog sits eyeing a bejeweled dragonfly attached to aged iron bulrushes to add a touch of whimsy. Arbours enhance the natural beauty of flowering beds which overflow with a wide variety of perennials, annuals and bulbs. Each arbour is covered with its own flower – roses, clematis, honeysuckle, grape vines and wisteria. A stunning collection of more than 250 different rhododendrons and azaleas, assorted shrubs and specialty trees, such as the stewartia, catalpa and tulip tree add to the splendour. Following the garden paths alongside the ponds, you experience the reflective power of the water as well as the waterlilies themselves and other water and marginal plantings. And, no matter where you are within this garden paradise, you are surrounded by woodlands full of spruce, fir, maples and white birch as well as many native shrubs like the serviceberry, choke cherry, viburnum, rhodora and many more. Advancing up the gradual grade of the garden, the Silver’s have put in ‘roads’ which they have named after each of their three grand-daughters. John continues to manipulate the naturally fed streams into what some day may be a small waterfall feature. Most days however he is heavily involved in cutting up and cleaning up the windfall that has occurred and continues to occur since Hurricane Juan. This only adds to the fantastic view at the top of the garden which overlooks Shad Bay.

October Garden Tour To Italy

Dear Garden Enthusiast,

I am a fellow gardener and member of the Guelph Horticultural Society. I am also an educator and home based travel consultant. While I plan many kinds of travel for clients I am best known for designing specialized small group tours and independent travel. As such, I have designed a garden tour to Italy for October 2011. I am very excited about this tour and am thrilled that Canadian Garden Expert, Marjorie Harris, will be hosting the tour...

This is a small tour with limited space so that it can be personal and provide more opportunity for interaction with Marjorie and the owners or head gardeners at the exclusive private gardens. It is designed to have a good balance of free time and organized garden visits, wine tastings, garden receptions and special lunches and dinners. We will have our own driver, escort and interpreter.

Our tour is a feast for the senses. We will travel to beautiful cities and charming villages and enjoy sumptuous dinners in sublime surroundings. As we wander through intense Tuscan colours and vistas there will be delights enough for photographers and artists alike. We immerse ourselves in wine and olive oil tastings at unforgettable vineyards and family trattorias. The fragrance of flowers will follow us wherever we go: from rolling fields to an organic harvest that results in the aroma of our own gourmet lunch in the enchanted hills of Chianti.

Our tour is also an opportunity to pursue your passion for learning. We are fortunate to have Marjorie and her wealth of experience to guide us through understanding these wonderful gardens. She will put the gardens in context and be a champion of the many intriguing plants we’ll encounter. Our knowledgeable local guides, often the owners or head gardeners, will inform us about their unique and innovative approaches combining ancient and modern techniques, from restoration ecology to sustainable agricultural practices.

Imagine yourself with fellow gardeners on this inspiring, sensuous journey as you explore the details of our personally chosen 12 day, 10 night itinerary.

I am sending you a link to the tour itinerary. http://www.italianvisits.com/garden_tour/ There may be some folks in your membership who would appreciate being notified of a garden tour with Marjorie Harris. Please let me know if I can be of assistance in providing any further information or perhaps a small “blurb” to be included in a newsletter. I would be more that happy to send something to the person who looks after sending information out to your membership.

You can learn more about the tour and Travel Specifics through the link above or the one below.
Please do not hesitate to contact me for more information about this tour or if you would like to talk with me about designing a garden tour to some other wonderful place that your membership would like to visit.
Thank you.

Regards,
Linda

Linda Clay,
linda@travelspecifics.com
519 823 5849 or 1 888 823 5849
http://www.travelspecifics.com/
Italian Garden Tour with Marjorie Harris BOOK NOW!
http://www.italianvisits.com/garden_tour/

June Tours and Upcoming Events

Hi everyone!!

A huge thank you to everyone who brought the great weather with them today for the garden tours - it was most appreciated!!!!  What a great turn-out - it was wonderful to see everyone!!

Be sure to check out the Upcoming Events calendar for the coming weeks as new events have been added and we have received an invite to the PRCC Anniversary Bash and an invite to John and Donna's for a garden tour if you couldn't make it today!

Come Tour Our Gardens!

PROSPECT AREA GARDEN CLUB

GARDEN TOURS 2011

June 12, July 17, August 14

12pm - 4pm

(FREE Admission - Accepting donations to the food bank on site)

Click here to see locations and descriptions!

(Still being updated)

Come Tour Our Gardens!

PROSPECT AREA GARDEN CLUB

GARDEN TOUR 2010

JULY 11th (Sunday)  11:00 am - 5:00 pm

( Admissions are FREE, but we do accept donations to the food bank on site. )

Wendy MacDonald

30 Cathy Road, Brookside (take Brookside, left onto Mitchell, right onto Cathy) 852-4506

Visit a yard full of gardens in every stage of development from new to mature.  This yard includes huge and baby perennials, growing veggies,  and robust herb gardens. Wendy also has a recently started Native American Medicine Wheel garden!  Come see this busy space!

Valerie Wilson

226 Irisweg Drive, Brookside (take Brookside, left onto Mitchell, right onto Cathy and left onto Irisweg) 852-3973

This property is lovingly referred to as a wild-scape in progress. Bucking the traditional gardener's decorum, Valerie leans more toward letting mother nature do her thing and then making use of it! Join Valerie for a cup of herbal sun tea and wander through fields of horsetail, drifts of red clover and sweet clover, waving daisies, clumps of oregano, a row of pin cherry trees and perennials tucked in here there and everywhere. If you look closely, you'll also find a short rustic path leading to the edge of McGrath Lake. (Please park on the street)

Margaret and Alan Sagar

1877 Lower Prospect Road, Terence Bay. 852-4628

(Past Star of the Sea Church and cemetery, first right at bottom of the little hill where the inlet comes to the road. We are on Back Bay.)

I didn't want our new house which replaced our cottage to be plopped in the middle of suburban lawn. So come and see how our still young garden wraps round our house in the midst of the wild. Slate patio and path, large deck, rock garden, flowers and veggies struggling to survive in a very windy spot, fighting the horsetail grass, and coltsfoot!! (Garden is more work than lawn!)

Freeman Dryden & John Speagle

12 Hunters Hill, Terence Bay

(Prospect Rd. to Terence Bay Rd. to Sandy Cove Rd. about 2 blocks in on the right side)

Beginners' Garden - come and see what you can do in 1 year; from blackberry & rugosa bushes, rocks, & weedy grass to flower beds and a pond? Veggies too!!

Nicole Dearman

224 Brennan’s Road (Prospect Rd.  on to Prospect Bay Rd., right on Brennan’s Rd.) 850-2062

No greenhouse or lights in the basement? No problem!! See a garden grown mostly from seeds sown in winter outside , including Hostas, Astilbes, Blue Poppies, and oddities. This property had no gardens and no shrubs in 2001 but now increasingly caters to butterflies every year. I have been raising Monarchs for 4 years. :O)

Marg & Joe Power

580 Prospect Bay Road

Gardens by the Bay” – This is a working garden on a two-acre property bordering Prospect Bay. There are a variety of garden areas surrounding the house and bordering the water that contain perennials and various flowering shrubs. Annuals, such as impatiens and petunias are used to add colour throughout the garden season.   “Gardening hurts nice … housework just plain hurts.” Come for a stroll in our gardens and along the water’s edge. We welcome you.