Beware. Gardeners love to share.

When you tell someone that you are making a garden, invariably they see it as a chance to give you something out of their garden.  Have you noticed that?  And will they be sharing part of their very rare and slow growing treasure that a friend smuggled into Canada from Outer Mongolia in their suitcase one year?  You bet they won’t. They’ll be sharing some fast growing, dare I say it, invasive monster that will take over your entire garden in a couple of years, and that you will forever be trying to dig out … and failing.  So it has been my experience with Vinca minor, comfrey, Rudbeckia (20 years of pulling it out every year and it still thrives) to name a few.  I really don’t know if it’s due to a lack of ruthlessness (gardeners are so kind that they can’t bear to throw any plant into the compost heap), or if they are just being well-intentioned and wanted to give you something easy to grow.


Lesson #3.  Beware of gardeners wanting to share from their garden … unless you really know what you’re getting. 

In the Beginning was ...

The Lake Lookout from the other side of the lake.

When you have almost 5 acres to plant, it's a daunting task to know where to begin. My only experience up to now is with a suburban garden – fenced, regularly shaped, flat, with a lawn. If you wanted to plant something, you made a bed by removing the sod and perhaps adding some soil and fertilizer and then your plants. I got very good at lifting sod which then went to patch holes in the lawn, or into the composter.

Kelly Gardens is a whole different ball game. There is no lawn. It’s not flat, in fact the previous owner had named the property “Hazell’s Heights” because it is very hilly.

The old sign still exists, though it's on its last legs

Luckily, he had a road put in from the entrance almost to the top of the point – a distance of about 800 feet, and he had built bridges to 2 islands.

Bridge to the small island

Bridge to the  large island

There was a nice clearing where we could camp, a shed, an outhouse, and a couple of fire pits. He’d also built some very makeshift stairways from railway ties and a dock from skids weighted with stones and sunk into the lake.

David in the shed

The outhouse

But he wasn’t a gardener. He and his wife had planted a few of those bright orange day lilies that you see on road sides in July and a couple of spruce trees, which hadn’t really had a chance to grow because of the competition from the native underbrush, but the rest was typical of the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Forest region.  White Pine, Hemlock, Cedar, Yellow Birch, Sugar Maple, Red Maple, Red and White Oak with an understory of shrubs.

The road through the woods in Fall 2005

Oh, and did I mention the rocks?  Lots and lots of rocks.

A few of the rocks we dug out to build the deck

David and I have had Kelly Gardens since 2005. We’ve planted a few things here and there over the years, but we weren't seriously gardening till 2010. And we really, really wanted to make a garden.  The first few years we learned some valuable lessons, and these early experiments obviously need to be documented because David looked at some pictures of our first plantings and he couldn’t remember them, because they’ve since died.  In order to be able to learn from our mistakes we have to remember them…

Lesson # 2 Keep Records. Make sure you cover the 3 W’s - What, Where, When and take a picture. Next year you may need the picture to locate the plant.

Lake Lookout before picture

Site of the Lake Lookout Alpine garden

This was taken in 2010 before we began work on the Lake Lookout garden.

Lesson #1. If you want to document your progress, then take a picture before you begin to dig!  We didn't. This was taken as a view of the lake rather than a view of the garden.  Still, you get the picture. (No pun intended)

Not much of interest here except the lake. Note the boring hillside with pile of twigs in the foreground. This is where we began our alpine garden.

A landscape of possibilities

There's something really wonderful about creating and nurturing a garden. I've gardened, off and on, for about 30 years, but always in someone else's garden. It fed the need to get dirty and smell the earth, and I've learned many things over the years. 

In 2005, my husband, David and I bought a waterfront lot 40 minutes north of Kingston and we now have the chance to create the garden of our dreams. 

It's a challenge on many levels.  It's on the Canadian Shield. We don't have any top soil. We have a lot of rocks... sometimes too many. Luckily we have such a lot of land, that we can toss the rocks somewhere else.  I'm sure that one day we will regret that.  We have deer. We don't have a tap. The list goes on and on.

It's been 6 years now and every year we add a little. I decided that it's time to document our progress as when we've finished, we won't remember what hard work went into making our dream. This is a good way to remember.