Tiptoe through the gardens

While they got the day wrong, the Daily News did manage to capture the excitement that the annual Prince Rupert Garden Club tour holds for the residents of the city.

The Garden tour took place on Sunday and not on Saturday as was reported in Friday's paper, as Rupert's lookie loos wandered around town in the rain to check out the offerings of the six participants in the Clubs annual fundraiser.

Interest in garden tours is blooming
By Christian Webber
The Daily News
Friday, July 27, 2007
Page one

The Prince Rupert Garden Club is holding the fifth-annual Garden Tour fundraiser on July 28.
The Garden Tour fundraiser is aimed at raising money for community projects such as the Civic Pride Planters that are downtown and work to improve the cemetery.

The tour is self-guided. Tickets for sale comprise a brochure that shows the gardens taking part in the event and details of how to get there and a little information about teach.

"Then, people are welcome to visit each of the six sites between 12 noon and 3 p.m. then tea and plant sale at Andree's B&B until 4:30 p.m.," said Andree Fawcett, the organizer.

"We chose to do six gardens because that seems to be the right amount for the time they have, but there are lots of gardens," said Fawcett.

After the tour everyone is invited back to the B&B for a classic English tea.

"It's a beautiful tea, it's done up with all the fine china and the silver tea pots, it's a classic tea," said Fawcett.

The gardens were chosen by a committee of three people that had taken suggestions from various people about gardens that they thought would work.

One of the gardens they are including this year is the one at the Pillsbury house, which is a heritage house and a public garden.

The sunken gardens are always on the tour list because the garden club has been helping to restore them for a number of years.

"We're hoping to have everything done. We said we would take five years to finish the Sunken Gardens," said Fawcett.

She said the gardens in the tour are quite diverse. There are shade gardens, gardens that show that you cannot only grow beautiful flowers but vegetables and other plants. And they always try to show a garden with a water feature.

"Our biggest problem is trying to find something we all like and the deer don't, this is the biggest challenge in Prince Rupert," said Fawcett.

She said deer eat just about anything, roses are one of their favorites, and gardeners call them deer candy'.

"The deer are becoming so overpopulated in this area, they are experimenting with more and more flowers," said Fawcett.

She said it is pleasing to show people that even with the big issue of deer, there are still some beautiful gardens.

The gardens are spread out around the city from Atlin Avenue to Summit Avenue and each garden is totally different from the other one, some formal and some casual English-style gardens.
"It's a popular event. I have had people calling me since January. There are only 100 tickets to sell because I can't handle any more than that in my house," said Fawcett.

People can get tickets at the Four Season Flower store on Third Avenue, the Visitors Information Centre and through Andree.