Annual Garden Tour 2009

Home & Garden

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Each year, the Southport Horticultural Society holds its annual fundraising Garden Tour in Saugeen Shores.

There are seven gardens featured and each is chosen from a broad spectrum of criteria. Each garden is different but the one thing that they share is that each gardener has a passion and their gardens reflect their individuality. This year's tour was one of the most successful with approximately 200 participants exploring the gardens.

Chantry Breezes

 Chantry Breezes' Jenny Amy explains the gardens to one of the many visitors

The central garden with its dry stream bed and many perennials

 A quiet corner under a pergola

Owned by Jenny and Don Amy, Chantry Breezes is one of the most popular Bed & Breakfasts in the area. Located only a half a block from Lake Huron. The elegant Victorian home and gardens have the challenges of dealing with westerly and northwesterly winds off the lake. When the Amys took possession, the only thing surrounding the stately home was grass that was poorly kept. Lori Eaton designed the gardens that are there today.

Now, the garden is divided into sitting areas providing guests with privacy for conversation. A central garden features a wide variety of plantings with a patio-type seating arrangement on one side and on the other a romantic gazebo-type lounge area.

The Busch Property

 Lush trees and shrubs line the banks of what now appears to be a stream

 A covered bridge is a focal point in garden

Many trees and perennials create a woodland glade feeling
 

What Sheila and Lindsay Busch have accomplished in only a few short years is remarkable. The gardens situated at the rear of the home appear to have been there forever, which they have not. A town storm-water drainage has been transformed and turned into what now appears to be a delightful stream the banks of which are home to shrubs, trees and many perennials.

There are two foot-bridges crossing the water-way, one of which is a mini-covered bridge built by Lindsay Busch. At the back of the property, the couple has a compost surrounded by old barn-board.

What began as a flat open barren property is now a lush garden.

The Land Before Time

Entering Margitta Lange and John Dollaire's gardens, it is hard to believe that they are only three years old.

What began as a barren piece of property with wetland at the far edge, has been turned into a gardener's and artist's landscape. Using the stone and wood that was part of the original, the couple have created artistic interest throughout the gardens

Lush exotic grasses, hidden treasures, driftwood sculpture - all help to create the gardens that entice visitors to explore further. Margitta Lang designed the gardens behind the home to resemble the petals of a large flower. Each petal shape is filled with a variety of plantings and all lead back to a central patio.

This is an unusual garden that illustrates perfectly the artistic nature of its owners.

 A view from the deck of the flower-petal garden

 A giant driftwood sculpture stands at the entryway to the garden

Margitta Lange and John Dallaire with one of their stone sculptures

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06/07/2009 12:21 AM

Myers' Garden

 Vibrant purple salvia in a low maintenance front garden

 A pergola houses a quiet shaded seating area

 The front garden draws visitors along a winding path

 Ferns and fuscia go together in a shaded area
 

On first approaching Joan and Jack Myer's, you are met with the scent of lavender, a striking purple salvia and a winding pathway that beckons to a side deck.

Behind the home is a large pergola with lattice work and comfortable lounge chairs. A fern garden and exquisite fuscia fill a bed nestled against a fence in the shade while a centre bed is home to many perennials that attract butterflies, bees and humming birds.

The Harris Gardens

 Bill Harris explains his eco-pond to visitors

 A flower garden is vibrant with colour while vegetables make up the other half

 A meditation pergola divides the vegetable garden and the flower garden

Joanne Harris is the first to admit that the gardens are the passion of her husband Bill, a retired professor from the University of Guelph.

The couple, who had 'summered' in the area at their cottage, decided to build a new retirement home in Southampton. Next to their property were two vacant lots, which in turn, they purchased. The first was turned into a flower garden and the other a vegetable garden. According to Joanne Harris, the vegetable garden provides enough frozen vegetables to last throughout the winter.

Dividing the two, is a large meditation gazebo structure complete with Japanese lanterns and comfortable furnishings. Woodchip walkways wend their way through the gardens.

At the rear of the house is the 'piece de resistance' ... a large Eco-system pond with a tiered waterfall. The surface is covered with lily-pads in bloom that serve to hide the more than 30 fish from predators.
 

 A little mermaid is only one of the many subtly placed garden treasures
 

For directions to Bud Rier click