Gardening Blog

Once the third largest city in Florida, Lakeland is a quiet, pretty place with three lakes within its downtown core. This is a college town, home to the University of Southern Florida and Florida Southern College, where the latter’s campus boasts a number of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. It’s also been the spring training camp of the Detroit Tigers baseball team for 70 years.

Known as the “city of swans,” Lakeland is also home to Hollis Garden, a formal, neoclassical-style beauty spot located on the shores of Lake Mirror and a very pleasant place to spend a few hours.

Established in just 2000, the garden has matured well and packs some 10,000 plants on its 1.2 acre grounds. There you will find Florida natives, as well as annuals, fruits, vegetables and herbs in some 16 garden rooms, along with water features, grottoes and more.

The garden has other, quirkier, charms. A number of offbeat sculptures keep the space from looking too prissy. And I was especially enchanted by the historical Trees of America section. There, pollarded to maintain a manageable size, are trees with a direct connection to their famous owners—some of them come from seedlings or the original trees found in their gardens. You can admire the Abe Lincoln overcup oak (Quercus lyrata), the Elvis Presley weeping willow, the George Washington tulip poplar and the Patrick Henry osage orange, to name just a few.

Seldom-encountered curiosities, such as this Buddha’s hand (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylus), above left, from China may also be seen. Yes, it’s a citrus and loaded with Vitamin C, but according to our guide Stacy Smith (shown in middle photo, above, with sugar cane) it must be cooked before it’s eaten. Another interesting plant is the popcorn cassia (Cassia didymobotrya), above right. Native to South America, it’s so named because it really does smell like buttered popcorn.

Once you’ve strolled around the garden, you might want to head over to the nearby Hotel Lakeland Terrace, which also overlooks Lake Mirror, for some refreshment. Originally built in 1924, the hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a member of Historic Hotels of America. Its impeccably restored interior, including the beautiful pecky cypress ceilings, makes it a fine spot for a relaxing drink or a full meal.

Some gardens need more space than a mere blog can give them. To explore central Florida’s historic Bok Tower Gardens, view Lorraine Flanigan’s slideshow.

(www.terracehotel.com)

Next: Citrus groves and more

Relaxing on the train back to Edmonton, I think back over our journey (and am comfortable now with the train’s rhythm, which, due to the reality of being shunted aside by freight trains from time to time, seems less schedule-driven than destination-based). No matter. I’ve been sitting in the catbird’s seat, leisurely gazing at the beauty that is Canada—by turns rugged, gentle-looking, majestic and surprising, and always, always inspiring; it makes my heart swell with pride.

I’m lucky to have had the opportunity to sample part of the Via Rail Garden Route. It’s been so much fun I decide one day I’ll make the time to travel from Halifax to Vancouver by train—from sea to shining sea—stopping off at various locations to see the gardens, get a sense of the cities/towns, meet the people. I reckon that doing it this way and at a leisurely pace would likely take about a month, but that’s okay—what a fabulous experience. In fact, it’s one I would heartily recommend to any Canadian to add to their “100 things I have to do before I die” list; our own Canuck version of the Grand Tour, by train. One thing for sure: getting there (wherever “there” is) would certainly be half the fun.

Another beautiful day in paradise. For breakfast, Carol, Shannon and I yum up some delicious spicy sausage rolls from the local bakery, washed down with lattes, then set off to visit four private gardens. They’re very different from one another—one is stuffed full of colourful annuals, another focuses on native plants, a third has charming vignettes and pretty corners galore and the final one is very shady—offering ample proof (as if I needed it) that you can create really lovely spaces even in a place with a really short growing season. Afterwards, we head for the famed Jasper Park Lodge to have a look around its stunning grounds. Talk about picture-postcard perfect.

Many of the lakes up here are jade green or bright, swimming-pool-turquoise in colour. I’m told this is caused by stirred-up sediment in the glacial runoff, which also gives me a clue as to the water’s temperature. Brrr. As someone who doesn’t venture into the water unless I can put my toe in without flinching, you won’t catch me going for a dip anytime soon. Come to think of it, I don’t see anyone else swimming, either.

At lunch, I devour a massive Cobb salad. Where is this appetite coming from? Thank heavens I don’t eat like this at home, for never mind gardener at large—I’d soon be known as the large gardener.

That afternoon, Shannon drives us to an area just beyond town known as the bench, where there are wonderful lookout points and numerous small lakes; even a path that takes us to a little island in the middle of one. Our feet are silent on a soft carpet of pine needles, and the sun-warmed conifers release their resin scent into the air. There are a few other people there, but nobody speaks. Too gobsmacked by beauty, I reckon.

(By the way, Shannon passed along the names of some of the plants that have proven to be elk-proof in her municipal displays. These include snapdragons, marigolds, alyssum, verbenas, salpiglossis [a.k.a. painted tongue], ‘Victoria Blue’ salvia farinacea, bidens, dusty miller, zinnias, gazanias and so far—those gorgeous godetias. Not a bad list for carefree colour.)

Later on, we return to our base and rest up to be ready for that evening’s excitement, courtesy of Jasper Adventure Centre. It’s a wildlife adventure tour, followed by a visit to Miette Hot Springs where we will take the waters—all told, a four-hour excursion by minivan. We see a female elk browsing by the side of the road, a bald eagle high up in a tree, and a little black bear. We don’t see a grizzly, which is another possibility, but that’s fine by me. Nothing scary or dangerous, thank you very much.

At the hot springs, which are sulfurous and smell a bit like rotten eggs, the water temperature is 104 degrees—now THAT’S more my kind of pool. Carol and I gratefully sink into its warmth and have a good, long wallow. It’s a perfect ending to our visit, for tomorrow we head back to Edmonton on the train to catch our red-eye flight home.

The town of Jasper is adorable–a small, sweet, neighbourly sort of place, with just two short main shopping streets that run parallel to each other, set in an immense and unspoiled national park. We disembark at the well-preserved and tasteful old railway station, and look around at the pretty buildings—a number of them lovingly restored—in their soft, natural colour palettes. The town has kept the architecture on the down-low (no highrises, and the very few fast-food joints are discreetly clustered together at one end) in order to let the stunning natural beauty of the setting take centre stage, and does it ever. I half-expect to see a young Julie Andrews whirling down a mountainside, singing “High On the Hill Was a Lonely Goatherd.” So I hum a few bars of it and do a little limbering-up yodel to get into the mountain mood (my travelling mantra, which allows me to great leeway for making a fool of myself, has always been “they’ll never see me again…”).

Carol and I are picked up at the station by Shannon Smith, who works for the Municipality of Jasper and looks after a phenomenal number of plantings around town–displays so lovely, they’ve been Communities in Bloom winners in past years. They’re not entering this year, because they’re short-staffed, so Carol and I especially appreciate the fact Shannon’s giving up a day to show us around–a day she can ill afford, and which will mean putting in extra hours to try to get all the work (and the weeding) done. I only wish we were around longer so we could pitch in and help.

Despite Shannon’s disclaimers, the town’s plantings are over-the-top luxurious and look award-worthy to me. She says another problem is browsing elk that like to come down into town at night looking for a floral feast. I marvel at a particularly effective display of brilliantly coloured godetia, planted en masse in one of the beds, which the elk haven’t yet discovered, and make a mental note to both avoid solitary, night-time walks and watch where I step.

The local merchants have gotten in on the floral act as well, with almost every little shop boasting a humongous hanging basket or overstuffed window box. All this floral splendour is especially impressive when you consider Jasper’s growing season is very short and its planting zones ranges from 2 to 0, depending upon how high up we’re talking. Jack Frost is definitely be making an appearance very soon.

As you might expect, there are lots of various gift shoppes and expedition outfitters in Jasper. And loads of little local restaurants, too (some of them are a tad pricey, but you can find value if you look). I discover that, for a nominal corkage fee, you can buy wine at a local shop and take it into some of these restos. How civilized.

And the air! My city-toughened, oxygen-deprived body gratefully sucks it in, then immediately starts clamouring for food and sleep. Shannon’s friends Kim and Sharon Rands, who offer accommodation in their home for visitors (according to Shannon, some 40 per cent of Jasper’s residents do this), have kindly agreed to put up Carol and me in their pretty, well-equipped and conveniently located home. Our quarters are separate from theirs, and each of our bedrooms has a television, so we can watch a bit of the Olympics, too. Tomorrow we’re off to the Jasper Park Lodge and other beauty spots, but for now it’s lights out and zzzzzzzzzzz.

Heading toward Jasper, the mountains sneak up on us. Flat, flattish, less flat then foothills. The train flashes past deep gorges and gleaming, silvery lakes, my view is intermittently obscured by groves of trees, by hillocks and berms and rusty red freight trains. And then we round another corner and pow! There they are: The Rockies.

Are we almost there yet? Yes!

I’d just scarfed down my blueberry breakfast pancakes as the train pulled into Edmonton station, an out-of-the-way outpost with nary a restaurant or shop nearby (apparently, some brain trust decided to move it from town to the boonies). Ordinarily, this would have meant a hefty cab ride in, but John Helder, Principal of Horticulture, Edmonton Community Services, kindly picked us up.

Compared to Winnipeg, Edmonton is a young city. As we got closer, there was plenty of interesting modern architecture. And unlike the railroad station, our host hotel, the Edmonton Delta Centre, can be found smack in the middle of everything, at the edge of a sprawling shopping complex called the Edmonton City Centre West (a great location if you want to take in a movie or do a little window shopping without braving the elements).

Once we’d dumped our stuff and gulped down a coffee, off we went to tour some of the municipal horticultural highlights, sweating prodigiously, as it was a blisteringly hot and humid day. Thank God for my sturdy water bottle and large-brimmed hat.

It’s amazing how much ground you can cover mostly on foot in four hours or so. To start, we saw tasteful planting beds around city hall close by the hotel and then the handsome legislature building. Unlike many of the modern structures, it’s traditional in style, and it was delightful to see families frolicking in the large ornamental pools in front of it.

“This is great. I once tried to dip my feet in a fountain in Boston, and got shouted at and threatened with arrest,” mused Carol.

John provided a wealth of information about many local community initiatives, including Partners in the Parks. The results of those collaborations are evident everywhere in tidy, well-kept grounds, pretty planters and hanging baskets.

Next, we visited the Lois Hole Memorial Garden, then headed off to see a co-op flower and vegetable patch. We also checked out gardens near the River Walk, including the Chinese and hardy rose garden {“just to show Edmontonians you can grow hardy roses here,” said John).

The three of us meandered along a path—part of Edmonton’s North Saskatchewan River valley parks system—crossed the river by footbridge and came upon the renowned Muttart Conservatory, which is home to more than 700 species of plants of arid, temperate and tropical climates—when it’s open, that is. Unfortunately, it’s closed for renovations until next spring, but John managed to sneak us in to see the species orchid collection, which is one of the top 10 in North America. I especially loved the Anacheilium radiatum, whose beautiful, jasmine-like fragrance perfumed the air.

Back at the Delta, Carol and I parted company and headed to our rooms, anxious to jump into a shower, rinse out a few smalls and just relax and read. (Right now it’s Elizabeth Hay’s Giller-prize-winning novel Nights on Air, and it’s terrific—all about a Yellowknife radio station in the 1970s).

The next day dawned much cooler, so the two of us rented a car and headed out toward the Devonian Botanic Garden, a pleasant half-hour drive. We loved the Japanese and the Patrick Seymore Alpine gardens, though a few of the other beds were looking a tad…um…sparse. Drought? Bad soil? Midnight five-finger discounts?

On the way back, we nipped in to the West Edmonton Mall to have a quick peek. Imagine a large shopping centre with a hockey rink, a huge water park, boats you can rent and more, and you get the general idea. Despite the beautiful, sunny day, it was packed. Apparently, some people even spend their entire holidays there.

Am I the only one who finds this odd?

Some people imagine the Prairies to be flat and uninteresting. More fools them. There’s a subtle beauty and a luminous colour to the fields and sky, and a wide horizon. In many places, the land undulates, catching patterns of light and shade, a bit like the sea.

The train chugged along toward Edmonton while I sat in the panorama car and drank in my fill of the view, and then went downstairs to meet Carol and have a drink of another kind. There we struck up a lively conversation with Dave, a good-looking, friendly Brit on the first leg of his round-the-world journey, which he reckons will take about a year (he’d hopped on the train in Halifax and was going to Vancouver en route to points south). We spent the evening swapping yarns and having a really good laugh. Cheers!

That’s the thing about train travel–you have the time to get to know all sorts of people if you’re so inclined. On this leg, there was also Amy from southern Ontario, a youngish married woman travelling to Vancouver with her spry old granny—both of them heading west for the first time. We heard all about it at dinner (I had butternut squash soup, salad, wild Pacific salmon with a melon salsa, baby carrots and garlic chive mashed potatoes and chocolate truffle cake). And the happy couple from Prince George, who were celebrating their anniversary and had booked the Romance by Rail package to Halifax. This meant two compartments were combined into a single luxurious one, with queen-sized bed, fresh flowers, sparkling wine—the works. Come to think of it, we didn’t see too much of them…

While there are many lovely things to recommend traveling by train, there is a caveat: it’s vital to leave the rat-race mentality behind. I was told that VIA runs on CN tracks where freight is king, so passenger trains have to give way and delays are common. “Schedules are subject to change,” means just that, especially if, like us, you’re planning to hop off and spend a few days at various destinations. My best advice is to get into a slower, gentler rhythm and let your holiday start when you climb aboard. Then, to keep your blissfully zen-like mood, do not under any circumstances schedule any connections you need to make even remotely close to your E.T.A.—in fact, schedule them for the next day if possible so you can truly rest easy.

The next morning, James Houldsworth, coordinator of downtown maintenance and Bill Ward, marketing technician for the City of Winnipeg picked us up in a snazzy truck and whisked us around to see some impressive and colourful municipal plantings and Kildonan Park, where we met head gardener Jan St. Hillaire and her co-hort Dave Chervinski. Like Toronto, Winnipeg has had an unusually rainy summer, so everything everywhere is lush and green and the plantings are all in very good shape—James informed me the containers are fed every two weeks with a dilute solution of 20-20-20. We also saw some of the interesting redevelopment taking place in historic old sections of the city core, which now has new condominiums, snazzy boutiques and even a fancy and well-used skateboard park. Then it was back to the Delta to pick up our bags and head for the railway station to continue our journey across the Prairies. Next stop, Edmonton.

Click here to read part one of my Winnipeg trip.

Photo: Flower bed in Kildonan Park

After we arrived at Winnipeg’s railway station smack in the centre of town, a $6 cab ride whisked Carol and me to the centrally located Delta hotel, which was hosting our stay. It has two swimming pools, a sauna and a large workout centre—I feel fitter already.

There’s nothing like seeing somewhere new to you in the company of someone who knows it well and loves it dearly. On the first day of our visit, Dorothy Dobbie, president of Pegasus Publications, Inc., was that person for us in Winnipeg, and she is passionate about her hometown and lots of fun to boot. I’d never met Dorothy before (though Carol had) and although her magazines are competition for ours, in the small and (mostly) friendly gardening world that matters less than you might think. We took to each other immediately.

Much of my previous, vague knowledge of Winnipeg had centred around three words: “brutal winters” and “mosquitoes.” But my first impression was of a gracious, prosperous city with leafy streets, some lovely old buildings and a well-kept infrastructure (what a joy to ride along roads without potholes). There’s plenty of new development, as well, particularly around the forks where the Assiniboine and Red Rivers meet. Cross the bridge and you’re in St. Boniface, the French side of Winnipeg with a vibe all its own. Along that bridge, granite plaques tell the story of the historic Forks in English, French and Cree.

Being plant nuts, we spent a considerable amount of our day with Dorothy in Assiniboine Park, designed some 100 years ago by Frederic Law Olmsted, who also laid out Central Park in New York. It’s home to a zoo and a conservatory, the gorgeous English Garden (which was thick with plants in bloom—I especially liked the tall, fantastic-looking golden spikes of a mullein called Verbascum Nigra) and the renowned Leo Mol sculpture garden. Fortified by a delicious lunch (Dorothy’s treat), we also took in some interesting art exhibitions, supported the local economy (code phrase for shopping) then wrapped things up with a big East Indian buffet dinner (my treat). Along the way we toured some of the pretty and interesting residential neighbourhoods, with their varied mix of housing, while Dorothy filled us in with a running commentary about Winnipeg’s lively cultural scene (which includes the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Manitoba Theatre Company, among others. Good naturedly, she informed us that her city was the centre of the universe for almost everything! You go, Dorothy.

Photos from left: Verbascum nigrum in the English Garden; Dorothy Dobbie and Carol Cowan; a sculpture in the Leo Mol sculpture garden.

We’re on our way at last on The Canadian, a historic, gleaming silver train. At first glance, my roomette seems impossibly tiny, but I soon figure out it’s designed to maximize every square inch of space. The Murphy bed folds down neatly and is very comfy—a little nest from which you can look out the window (I brought a pillow from home so it’s extra cozy). The little sink even has a separate tap with drinking water. There’s a basket filled with toiletries and towels, like at a hotel. And although the car has a toilet (with a solid, box-like lid on which you can stash some stuff), I decide I’d rather use the big public bathroom a bit farther down. Nearby, there’s a separate shower room as well.

You could spend the trip sitting in your roomette and looking out the window, but unless you’re anti-social or have a communicable disease, I reckon exploring is way more fun. So Carol and I dump our bags and head for an observation car, which has a second story with a glass-domed ceiling and panoramic views (there were four of these on our train, and they’re popular, though so far people seem good about not hogging the seats).

En route we pass a dining car, which looks like it could be a setting in an Agatha Christie novel. Elegant, etched-glass panels book-ended a space with tables set with pink and white linens and fresh flowers.

Following a “welcome aboard” champagne reception, it’s lunchtime. I choose the vegetable soup, a pulled pork sandwich with barbecue sauce and coleslaw on a tasty bun along with salad and a chocolate-coconut brownie, washed down with a pot of tea. Yummy. And then I head off to “read my book” (translation: have a little snooze, which I never seem to have time for at home).

Along with Canadians, we have already met a number of folks from England and Scotland and a tour group from Germany. The train seems pleasantly full of travellers, including families with children, and most are making the trek to Vancouver.

The staff is amazingly friendly and hospitable. Faith, the lovely young woman who is in charge of our car, bends over backwards to make us feel at home—you can tell she’s proud of “her” train. When we hit Sudbury, she urges me to look out and see how once-sterile land has been reclaimed and is now dotted by healthy young trees. I figure it must be her hometown, but I’m wrong. She’s from Winnipeg.

Some things we’ve observed: if you’re used to rushing around on a tight schedule, you have to consciously slow down when you travel by train and get into its slower rhythm. And just like on a plane, there’s no smoking on board, so if you need a regular nicotine fix, it can be a l-o-n-g haul between stops, as Carol discovers. Although there’s an activity centre with lots of board games and regularly scheduled movies and stuff, I’m glad I have a bag filled with books, but I wish I would have brought some music.

That evening, the train makes a few quick stops in the middle of nowhere to pick up passengers, some of them who board with canoes (apparently, you just need to give VIA 48 hours notice and they’ll make unscheduled stops to pick you up—how Canadian is THAT?). The rain glistens on the windows, and once in awhile there’s a flash of lightning. Everwhere I look there are gleaming lakes and stands of birch, spruce, pines and tamarack, punctuated from time to time by a lone cabin, or a small settlement of a few homes. I don’t see any people or animals. We are deep, deep into northern Ontario and it’s vast.