About our country garden
and how to make arrangements for a tour
were there in the beginning, but we added all the other plantings Photo: ©Y.Cunnington
When we bought the property in May 1998, we found a simple home-built bungalow on 10 acres that had been rented out for years.
This meant that the grounds were so neglected that our friends thought we were brave, or crazy, to take it on. They were probably right on both accounts, but the location was ideal.
It was in the country, near Hamilton (we are about an hour's drive from Toronto), and an easy 15-minutes to my husband's job. Located across the road from a golf course and a horse ranch, it also had terrific views.
Creating the garden one step at a time
Anne's lace in our planted meadow Photo: ©Y.Cunnington
We spent our first summer in cleanup and bulldozer mode.
Before we could start to lay out garden areas, we had to remove masses of burdock, brambles, poison ivy, buckthorn, falling-down fences, and concrete and stone from the farm's original barn, long since torn down.
Since our second season, we've planted hundreds of trees and shrubs and turned a hayfield into a native plant prairie (above). The prairie is my favorite part of the property: it teems with birds and butterflies and looks amazing from mid-summer well into the fall.
Photo: ©Y.Cunnington
Around our pond, we planted native wetland species, and in the space around the house, we laid out several huge beds of perennials and ornamental grasses.
My husband, who wanted to do his own thing, then created a rock garden out of old barn foundation stone that had littered the property.
Garden design inspiration
Our farm is a fantastic garden lab for trying the plants and garden design ideas that I write about.
I'm a great admirer of the new wave garden styles of Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, author of Planting the Natural Garden, and of American landscape architects Wolfgang Oehme, and James van Sweden, author of Gardening with Nature.
Both Oudolf and Oehme van Sweden use masses of ornamental grasses, which are among my favorite plants.
Photo: ©Y.Cunnington
Together with flowering perennials - many of them tough, drought-tolerant North American natives - these plants are perfectly at home in our hot and humid summers and our cold winters.
By following the example of these brilliant designers, I have managed to design and plant flower beds that are at their most colorful from July and August through the fall. This is a time when many gardens - and their gardeners - have given up the ghost for the season.
If you would like to visit our garden
Over the past few years we have welcomed bus tours, but to simplify our lives (we're not as young as we were when we started this garden!), we are no longer open to bus tours, except in special circumstances.
However, individual tours and small groups under 10 people are welcome to tour by appointment from mid-June to mid-September. We don't have set opening hours, but are flexible (most day-times and weekends are good).
Admission: $5.00/person, kids under 12, free. If you would like to arrange a tour, please use the form on this page to send an e-mail, or call (905) 304-0766 to arrange a time and get directions.
More garden day trip attractions: Our area has excellent garden attractions: More information and links to gardens worth visiting.
If you would like to visit our garden, please fill out form below: Please include dates that you would like, and be sure to double-check to make sure your email address is correct, if you make a typo, I can't reply to you.
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More information:
More country garden design information
How I came to garden writing
and how I created this site
