Dried Flower Garden
Up the slope from the gazebo is the dried flower
garden, maintained by the Friends of the Garden to
grow flowers that can be dried and used in arrangements, wreaths
and folk art. Since most of these plants are annuals, the Friends
spend a lot of time each year germinating, transplanting, planting
out and cultivating. The correct harvesting and drying of these
plants is an art in itself. The preserved flowers from this garden
have been used to give workshops on flower arranging and are sold
in bunches and arrangements to raise funds for Friends of the
Garden projects.
Heritage Garden
Across the way is the entrance to the Heritage Garden. The
heritage, or old-fashioned garden is a collection of plants from
old Newfoundland gardens. Many of these clones have been on the
island for ten generations or more. Started in 1978, this bed lies
to the west of the greenhouse and is sheltered from the north wind
by an old style Quiggly fence, a traditional Newfoundland windbreak
made of vertically woven whips or saplings. With its sunny location
and intensely managed soil, it is one of our best growing areas.
Visitors enjoy over 70 varieties of perennials in this display as
they evoke remembrances of people and gardens past. Even the common
names associated with many of these plants - boy's love,
grandmother's bluebells and live forever seem friendly but these
are tough, hardy survivors of our unpredictable climate and are
often recommended by staff to visitors who want plants that come up
every year and don't require much fussing.
Rock Garden
Perhaps the most well-known component and certainly
the biggest display area is the rock garden. It can be divided into
two sections: the old and the new. The old part, constructed in
1972, is in the traditional style: a sloped bank, located in full
sun, with a series of rocks and terraces to represent a
mountainside. The rocks are fairly small and were placed by hand.
The area was filled with a well-drained soil mix of screened
topsoil, leafmold, and coarse sand (1:1:1), the whole area then
mulched with a two inch thickness of crushed rock. The new rock
garden was made into a scree garden and is a reconstruction of a
talus slope. This section has both a limestone garden and a
mountain gully with a stream. The limestone garden, built in 1989,
is constructed with limestone form a quarry in Corner Brook on the
west coast of Newfoundland. In this bed are lime-loving alpines
including many native plants (mostly from the west coast), such as
yellow lady's slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum), pussytoes
(Antennaria sp.), and several species of dwarf willows. An
obvious difference between the mountain gully, opened in 1993, and
our other rock garden is the size of the rocks. Some are the size
of small cars! Over 200 tons of rock and more than 80 tons of mixed
soil were used to create the mountain gully. A small pool, stream
and a series of waterfalls were added in 1995.
