2024 - Another "Best Year Yet"

We’ve been at this game for over a decade and we’re getting the hang of it. Each year brings a few new volunteers, but most of us are getting to be old timers and we all agreed that this really was one of our best years yet.

The winter was mild, the snow gone in March. The grass was green and the daffodils were blooming when we started our cleanup at the end of April.

The forsythia and magnolias bloomed and the leaves came out as we began our steady march towards summer. The lilacs didn’t let us down, filling the air with fragrance. Our collection is fairly impressive now, boasting a variety of flower colours and plants of all sizes suitable for gardens in our area, big or small.

Parks & Rec staff are super busy in the spring so when it rained (and hailed) on pond cleanup day, there was nothing to do but put on our boots and get to work. As became the norm for the season, we had a good turnout. We took the opportunity to create a biofilter planting area to circulate water through as we have had challenges with murky water over the years.

It started to rain mid- morning but we hung in there.

Town Staff and our fearless leader were satisfied and called it a win by mid-afternoon. Refilling the pond is an overnight process. By nine pm the rain had stopped and the fish were enjoying the peace and quiet.

Over the years, we have planted some interesting small trees and shrubs that you don’t see every day but are native or well adapted to our area. Our little fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) has been a great addition to the garden.

We love it so much, we planted a second one, right next to a spectacular bearded iris, a happy accident!

June 8th was a big day at Tower Hill. The Tower Hill Gardeners and The Horticultural Society held plant sales and we partnered with the Town of Parry Sound for a Children's Planting Workshop. The children helped plant our zinnias, painted a rock to place amongst them and each child was given a marigold to take home.

At about eleven o’clock, two buses pulled up and 100 visitors rolled out to join the fun. They climbed the Tower, posed with the peacocks, stowed their plant sale purchases under the bus and carried on to spend the afternoon on the Island Queen.

Lilac season wrapped up in June which is also bearded iris season. We think we have found an ideal location for the peacocks, nobody sat on and squished them this year!

In July and August the perennials and annuals give the people what they want - flowers! We had a lot of rain, so some of the annuals were not spectacular but the grass stayed green and the hydrangeas put on a good show.

The foliage was lush all summer and the hostas were huge. So there was plenty of food for Bambi and his mother.

Our Children’s Garden is an ongoing project. The Butterfly Garden is filled with blooms all summer long and our network of paths in Periwinkle Woods is almost complete; wrapping around the perimeter of the Garden from the back side of the Tower all the way around to George Street.

All the flagstones and rocks in the Garden were “harvested” from the islands on the Bay. There are some very interesting ones that we like to highlight. Here are two we moved into places of prominence this summer. We think one looks like a dove taking flight and the other like an Easter Island head.

September is Parry Sound’s best kept secret. Because of our proximity to Georgian Bay summer lingers here longer than it does inland. Once kids are back in school we have lots of older visitors and the flowers just keep blooming. We have been expanding our collection of dahlias over the past few years and they were spectacular in September.

To say October was glorious would be an understatement. We began by welcoming a school group one morning. We told them the story of the Garden, climbed the Tower, took them into the woods to show them how invasive plants impact our forest ecosystem and then wrapped up the morning by having them get their hands dirty planting perennials around the flagpole. It really was fun and we would happily welcome more groups of young people!

October carried on as a gift that kept on giving.

There was no frost and the leaves kept hanging on until the end of the month, so we did too.

Another special tree you don’t see every day is the Katsura tree that is planted at the corner of the Ranger Cabin. Its heart shaped yellow fall foliage develops the unique fragrance of burnt sugar (or cotton candy) just as it begins to fall to the ground. Check it out next fall.

Can you think of a better place to spend a golden afternoon than here?

We wrapped up the season as usual, putting up holiday lights only days before the first snow.

It really was “our best year yet”. Never before have we had so many volunteers show up week in and week out and by the time we gathered for our Christmas Potluck lunch we had put in 750 gardening hours. That is the equivalent of one gardener working full time for six months.

Well done Gardeners!

See you in the Spring. We’d love to have you join us!