A few years ago, I was probably the youngest member of the Lynn Valley Garden Club. I think I was about 29 at the time. We had moved into a place with a backyard and I wanted to enhance this part of our rented unit. After a few visits to the local nurseries, I quickly figured out that this hobby could get expensive. AND, I couldn’t really take the plants with me when we moved out. Lucky for me I met someone in an exercise class who told me about an annual plant sale and I ended up joining the club that put it on. Once you were a member, there were plenty of opportunities for free plants and trades.

Other bonuses included the speakers that came to the club once a month for the education component of the meetings and the garden visits arranged by the club. One such outing was to the Park & Tilford Gardens, which, at the time, I really snubbed as I considered it to be quite “small time”. I still went, though. I was surprised by the enthusiastic manager of the gardens and by the enormous kiwi vine running throughout the park with kiwi fruits hanging off of it. The manager told us all about the gardening specialist that came in just to care for the Japanese garden area. Overall, it was a very interesting tour of the grounds. The president of the LVG club thanked the manager for the special tour and let him know that the club would be making a donation to the gardens. He thanked us for the donation, and then said, “We would prefer that people show their support to The Park and Tilford Gardens by using them and visiting them rather than through gifts and donations of money.”

Since then, whenever I’m in the neighbourhood, I stop by the gardens and have a look. I will usually check out the display they have about composting and being environmentally friendly. I was there this week, and although there’s not too much in bloom yet besides the mini daffodils, the Japanese garden looks lovely.

Okay, I also wanted to use this photo in a post. Also, it’s free and a quiet place to have a coffee or lunch during the week. The weekends can be busy, but it’s still free to hang out there.