Guelph Mercury
Curb appeal? I haven’t seen a curb in months, other than the odd one unearthed by a rogue snow plow, and it was hardly appealing. And yet curbs will be just one of the attractions at Canada Blooms this year. It starts on March 14 and runs until March 23. That’s 10 days where we can feel like spring is all around, even if it is indoors, unlike a couple of years back when it was warm and sunny outdoors … remember warm and sunny?
As for the curbs, they’ll be sort of featured in a contest called Curbalicious Delight. It’s an opportunity for homeowners to win a professionally designed landscaping makeover for their property. Two examples of a beautifully designed front yard with curb appeal will be on display to welcome visitors to the show.
In addition, there will be 24 feature gardens on display, each one unique. For me, this is the main attraction at the show. I’m not much of a shopper, unless I’m looking for plants I have no room for or trying out tools I don’t need, but shopping is all part of the show.
Each one of the display gardens is unique. In addition to being visually appealing, many incorporate practical uses, especially where space is limited and different needs must be provided for, but a dinosaur preserve? I have enough trouble dealing with rabbits, let alone a clomping great brontosaurus. The concept, Earthscape Ontario, however, is designed to capture the imagination of visitors, as I’m sure it will. I’m looking forward to seeing this one especially as it’s by a local company based in Wallenstein.
Another specialty garden is the Otium Exercise Garden, a concept first introduced at last year’s show. This is a garden designed to incorporate an exercise circuit within it. I get enough exercise chasing rabbits, but I can see how this will appeal to the fitness enthusiast who prefers to work out in nature rather than be surrounded by the steel and plastic of a formal gym. Definitely more fragrant, too.
Record Gardens/Jardins de Métis from the Gaspé Peninsula returns to Canada Blooms with another thought-provoking design. This year, the garden will explore the wild and the sacred. In their words: “Sacre potager leads the visitor into a poetic fiction of the sacred side of garden and culinary heritage.”
A garden of special interest has to be the one by the town of Goderich. Gardens there took an awful beating from the hurricane in 2011, but the town has recovered and will be at the show with a garden to represent the countryside and shore of Ontario’s west coast.
Each day a dozen or so education sessions take place covering practically every possible topic. Learn about green living walls, edible gardens, new perennials, new annuals, and get lots of new ideas you can put into practice in your own garden. How about Dancing with Wildflowers? It’s a presentation described as a wildly floriferous user’s manual by Miriam Goldberger. Miriam wrote the book on wildflowers — really. It’s called Taming Wildflowers and in it she teaches how to create a garden with native plants and how to use them to design wildflower bouquets.
For the budding photographer with a garden that doesn’t look quite as good in their photos as the ones in garden magazines, there’s a perfect opportunity to learn more from Theresa Forte with her presentation: The Art of Garden Photography.
There’s so much to see, so much to do and not a snow bank in sight at Canada Blooms. For more information, particularly on speaker schedules, visit the website at canadablooms.com
David Hobson gardens in Waterloo and is happy to answer garden questions, preferably by email: garden@gto.net . Reach him by mail c/o Etcetera, The Record, 160 King St. E. Kitchener, Ont. N2G 4E5
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