Gardeners, there are a lot of wonderful things coming up for us to enjoy! First of all, congratulations to everyone connected with the Yorkton In Bloom competition: those who organized the event, the judges, and of course, all the gardeners! Your efforts are adding to the beauty of our fair city! Congratulations to not only the winners of the various categories, but to all the gardeners who entered the competition. Good for you, I applaud you! The rest of us can be inspired with the Yorkton In Bloom tours, happening on Friday, July 24. There will be two tours, one at 9:00 a.m. and one at 3:00 p.m. Tours leave from the north parking lot of the Yorkton Public Library. There is no charge for this lovely event, so take the opportunity to see some outstanding gardening!
(And while you are there, stop in at the Library and check out their great variety of gardening books: perfect for some summertime reading while sipping iced tea and sitting in the shade when it is too hot or too wet for us to be out in the garden!)
Next, get out your calendars and mark down Tuesday, August 11, the day of the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society annual “Fruit, Flower, and Vegetable Show”. It begins at 1:00 p.m. and goes till 5:00 p.m. at St. Gerard’s Parish Complex on Third Avenue North. This is your chance to see a wide and beautiful selection of plants, fruits and veggies, and floral displays while you enjoy tea and dainties and a good visit! What a lovely way to spend a summer afternoon! Please plan to join us, and bring a friend! That’s Tuesday, August 11.
I was recently gifted with an assortment of gardening books that belonged to two talented gardeners we were privileged to know, Marg and Henri Blommaert. Their garden was a stunning, terraced paradise that gave lucky garden visitors something new and wonderful to observe at every turn. Strolling through that garden, it was obvious that this was a place of peace, tranquility, and love. I thank their sweet daughter Lindy for sharing those books with me.
There are many that I would like to tell you about, but one of the first that I browsed through was a book entitled “In A Cold Land” by Sara Williams. This book chronicles the amazing people who developed plants that have become part of our prairie landscape. We take so many plants for granted, but years ago things were quite different. In the introduction, Ms. Williams says “To appreciate the full magnitude of their accomplishments, let us go back to the early 1900s and realize that there were no hardy fruit trees on the prairies at that time. In order to get raspberries, it was necessary to bend them down each fall so that the fruiting canes would be protected by snow. Most ornamental trees and shrubs brought from eastern Canada simply died.”
It is fascinating to read about these horticultural pioneers, quietly making their plant crosses and starting their many study seedlings that hopefully would work successfully in our climate. We enjoy the results today: the “Thunderchild” flowering crabapple developed by Percy Wright and chosen as the tree to mark Saskatchewan’s 75th Anniversary; “Scout” and “Wescot” apricots, as well as the “Sutherland Golden” elder developed by Les Kerr; and many lilies developed by Bert Porter, including “Redland”, “Gales’s Favorite”, and “Happy Thoughts”; and the beautiful lily “Edith Cecilia” by Cecil P atterson in memory of his little daughter.
As my sweet Mom and Great-Grammie always said, we never stop learning! Have a great week and be sure to wear a hat!
