Do you remember the book “In a Canadian Garden” from 1989?  A series of gardens across Canada were encapsulated as the Canadian garden style.   “All Grown Up”, a recent article in “The National Post”, revisited these gardens to survey their evolution of the past 15 years.  The plant materials in many of the gardens had been changed or amended by time, weather, and fashion; however, the importance of garden structure was underscored with the survival of the good garden “bones”, beyond the lives and ownerships of the builders.  Gracious photographs of Nicole Eaton and Hilary Weston stand guard in this centrefold of Canadian garden style.    

In the book, Nova Scotia was represented by two South Shore gardens:  the Piers garden in Chester and the Ostrom garden near Peggy’s Cove.  Both noted the perils of seaside gardening and both featured local granite.  In the Piers garden, stone was used in formal structures as walls, steps, and raised planting beds with an emphasis on annuals and perennials amidst the white clapboard residences.  Their Chester ambience extends right to the water’s edge.  In the Ostrom garden, the stone is used to support pathways of crushed stone and small informal planting beds through evergreens, rhododendrons and an unsettled seaside terrain.   Though the two gardens demonstrate a dichotomy of styles, both are indicative of the South Shore sense of place—granite is the touchstone. 

In a few days, my garden will be on display for the Horticultural Fair in Mahone Bay.  In July, it will be featured again for the Mahone Bay 250^th celebration Home and Garden tour.  After ten years of tinkering, my garden is still woefully underdeveloped (deer, dogs, and drought).  The lavender beds are gone due to the cold winter.  Still, there is interest in the stone and the ubiquitous view of the bay.  Since my 1890’s homestead sits on a foundation of hand-split granite, I wanted similar granite stones to segue through the garden between the house foundation and the boulders along the shore.  Foundation stones are also used in the back garden to mark the terrain levels.  And in one far away corner, 3 large foundation stones are buried on end—5 feet below the surface and 3, 5, and 7 feet above.  The stones are 3 graces in the garden, our sentinels in the snow.

So what is the South Shore garden style?  I think it’s our use of local natural materials like granite and slate.  I also think it’s our integration of local plants like wild bay, pine, spruce, and maple.  It’s our maintenance of old apple trees and our respect for the introduced lupines and rhododendrons.  And it’s our choice of garden art like folk art bird houses, wildly painted, exclaiming an independent Maritime spirit or the contemporary wind-swept bronze figures of Dawn MacNutt, or even sea-otters suspended in bronze, jumping in and out of a water fountain.  Our gardens have a sense of place.