Location: Roncesvalles Avenue (East Side of Roncesvalles, North of High Park Boulevard) Approx. 82 feet long x 4 feet wide. The long rock top border means people like to sit/stand with their coffee and the children like to walk along this “upper” sidewalk.

The new perennials, shrubs and bulbs that were planted over the past several years are getting well established. So as is always expected when gardening there were several new additions and some tweeking in the gardens.

Several new perennials were planned to go into the small front garden containing the statue of St. Mary. Unfortunately some vandalism occurred in the spring and with the statue damaged and some plants destroyed we held off with any planting until the church has time to do some rethinking with the area.

There was a bit of a truffle hunt or treasure hunt er I mean baby seedling hunt as various cleome, euphorbia marginata and verbena bonariensis surprised us when they started popping up in the early summer. Some cleome had already been purchased for the area but the additional freebies made the planting more dense which was a wonderful surprise. Some of the verbena were left “en situ” while some were relocated near the aster frikartii monsch near the middle of the garden. The verbena seedlings, if more keep popping up in the future, will be relocated to the back of other areas as their airy nature and lilac colour can compliment many of the other plants. This south garden section with the cleome, verbena, euphorbia, geranium Johnson’s blue, white David phlox and miscanthus morning light really highlighted the Monet inspired colour palette and made for some beautiful photos.

It was year 2 for the native Virgin’s bower clematis both along the back fence and at the street front and it was definitely the “creep” year for them so we will be looking for them to “leap” in 2025.

We “Chelsea chopped” most of the Helianthus near the blue spruce but since it still grew pretty tall and leaned so much towards the sidewalk it will be relocated next year. The helianthus near the south end was relocated behind the chokeberry. The Karl Foerster grasses were also relocated behind the chokeberry and they were replaced with a variegated feather reed grass which should be shorter and hopefully not lean as much toward the sidewalk as the Karl Forster grasses did. The relocated Helianthus with its yellow flowers and the grasses put on a long colourful fall display behind the chokeberry with its orange fall leaf colour.

The native prairie smoke, inspired by a Hort talk years ago, finally lived up to its common name of grandpa’s whiskers. It was a loooong time coming to reach its full potential and provide the payoff we were waiting for.

The three caryopertis shrubs in front of the crèche grew well enough but bloomed very late in the season so they may get relocated next year. Part of gardening is choosing a plant to tick off many boxes but ultimately Mother Nature keeps us humble with how plantings really turn out in their location.

Many many many hours were spent weeding the never ending creeping bellflower or hellflower as it’s often referred to by gardeners. After weeding out a bunch near the caryopteris bushes several low white campanula were planted in pots and then put into the ground. This is an experiment that hopefully if the bellflower weeds don’t return in the area next year we can plant the white campanula into the ground.

Several moonbeam coreopsis were replanted as they were over run by the dreaded creeping bellflower and were hard to separate during weeding. While at the garden center – several plants just managed to jump into the shopping cart – a low double pink dianthus, a fall rose coloured Japanese anemone, and those white campanulas – so they just had to come home with us.

The native chokeberry had beautiful white spring blooms and then a bright orange fall leaf colour. A neighbour’s renovation meant we could repurpose their stone pavers and place them around the base to help keep the grass and weeds out. Various naturalizing bulbs (winter aconite & snowdrops) were planted underneath and we look forward with anticipation to see them come up in the spring.

The public continues to stop by and comment on how it makes their day, how they appreciate the floral changes throughout the season and generally how beautiful the garden looks. The love they share for the garden makes the planning, planting, continued maintenance and hard work worthwhile. We thank the Horticultural Societies of Parkdale Toronto for their support in brightening up our little part of the world.

- Anne Karpynczyk, Cathy Martell & Anne Gudino