Welcome too our virtual tour profiling biodiverse gardens in the Kingston area! Each of these gardens is in a different stage of development. Each one offers something unique. Each one demonstrates design principles that embrace biodiversity, climate resilience and a new garden ethic. Each one supports local food webs, regenerates the soil, absorbs and conserves rainwater, supports pollinators and other beneficial insects and sequesters carbon. Each one increase the health of the surrounding neighbourhood, including the mental health of the people who live or walk in the neighbourhood.
Designed with sustainability as an overriding principle, as resilience becomes paramount in our era of climate change these gardens are wonderful examples of how each of us can make a difference by changing how we steward the land to support the web of life!
Food forest & pollinator ditchscape
Garden steward
Sean Harrap
Age
3 years
Three years ago Sean’s ¼ acre property was a vast expanse of lawn with a gazebo, a cedar hedge and many invasives including dog strangling vine, garlic mustard, periwinkle, goutweed and perennial sweet pea. Interested in food forests, Sean planted a variety of apples, pears, peaches, plums, sour cherries, pawpaws, currants, grapes, gooseberries, haskaps, saskatoon berries, goumi berries, blueberries and blackberries. His long ditch is turning into a pollinator patch, with swamp milkweed, joe pye weed, asters, goldenrod, coneflowers, senna, woodland sunflower, New Jersey Tea, meadowsweet, agastache, cardinal flower, Baptisia, beggarticks, native sedges and grasses. Carolinian and Southeast tree species include Tulip Trees, Redbud, Blackgum, Yellowood, Sassafras and Carolina Silverbell. His well protected backyard includes five large raised vegetable beds. This spring he planted a pocket forest of 10 native trees and shrubs to increase support for lepidoptera caterpillars.
Wildlife: Toads, frogs, snakes, hummingbirds, nesting song sparrows, wrens, foxes, a ditch humming with insects.
Future plans: Weed out the remaining grass, relocate berry bushes to an easier to harvest location and continue to tackle invasive species. Introduce more guild plants around the fruit trees. Add more native sedges and grasses in the pollinator patches. Design a wildlife pond to capture rainwater from the roof.
Lessons learned: Deal with invasive plants ASAP, otherwise the work to remove them increases significantly. Think twice before planting sunchokes and garden sorrel. Consider ease of harvest when planting berry bushes. Spend time the first year to get to know the different microclimates.
Serenity in an urban woodland
Garden stewards
Joyce Hostyn & Rob Harrap
Age
30 years
Profiled in the Kingston Whig Standard and in Edible Ottawa Magazine, Joyce & Rob’s garden is the epitome of the biodiverse property. The garden features oaks, hickories, black walnuts, white pines wild plums, hop trees, redbuds, serviceberries, buckeyes, dogwoods, fringe trees, seven sons flower, spicebush, Carolina allspice, persimmons and paw paws along with two wildlife ponds. Hugelkultur raised beds create visual interest, planted with a wide variety of primarily native plants including goldenrods, asters, ironweed, sedges, mountain mints, Solomon seal, anemones, and Virginia waterleaf.
Wildlife: Wide variety of visiting and nesting birds and insects, including the Spicebush Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail, Cecropia Moth, Catbirds, Owls, Hawks, Nuthatches, Fireflies, Hummingbirds, Wrens and Wood Thrushes. Wrens are currently nesting in the birdhouse mounted on a Mountain Ash along the back path.
Future plans: Removed the overgrown cedar hedge on the south side of the house, now replanting with food producing species. Landscape a new rockery for invertebrates, amphibia and reptiles along the front path. Continue to fill gaps in the forest floor with native sedges and grasses. Redo the ditch, removing daylilies and landscape fabric and ditchscaping with native species, wood and rocks. Redo the gutters and downspouts, using them to fill the ponds.
Lessons learned: Embrace the serendipity of what wildlife brings to your yard (squirrels planted many of the nut trees, birds contributed some of the understory trees and shrubs). Do most of your shopping at native plant nurseries. Avoid landscape fabric — there are better ways to create a dry streambed. Build you own soil with leaves, woodchips, compost… purchased soil was a disaster. If you remove a driveway, don’t simply remove the asphalt… decompact and remove the gravel as well!
Not your typical community garden
Profiled in seven community food forests around the world and in Edible Ottawa Magazine, Lakeside Community Garden is home to a large food forest, edible and wildlife hedgerow, a medicine garden,100 10×10’ allotment plots, a natural children’s play area, a butterfly garden with 12 butterfly host plants, a KASSI seed-saving garden, a pollinator patch featuring large sweeps of asters, goldenrods and milkweeds, several donation gardens, a pawpaw patch and a Miyawaki inspired Little Forest (200m2 600 trees and shrubs, 40 species).
Wildlife: Birds of prey from a nearby woodland regularly visit the garden and keep the rodent population low. With the hedgerow and food forest the bird population has increased dramatically with nesting Song Sparrows, Goldfinches and Robins. A Killdeer family chooses a different plot each year for their nest. Teaming with bees (Leafcutter, Squash, Blue Orchard Mason Bees, Bumblebees), solitary wasp (Gold Digger, Mud Dauber, Great Black) and butterfly populations attracted by the Butterfly Garden, fruit trees and other pollinator gardens scattered throughout Lakeside.
Future plans: Plant a pollinator and edible meadow (Feddoe) on the south side of the property once the Canada Thistle and Bindweed are eliminated. Fill in guilds around the fruit trees. Plant an edible hedgerow along the North side of the property. As the little forest grows and shades the forest floor, introduce native forest perennials, sedges and grasses. Add accessible paths. Expand acreage, potentially with agroforestry. Increase the number of native plants and grasses around the vegetable plots to support beneficial insects. Create a beetle bank.
Lessons learned: Don’t use mulch to try and smother Canada Thistle, turns out a thick mulch kills everything but Canada Thistle, eliminating its competition and increasing the problem. Timing is critical when planting in 95% clay soil, fall plantings much more successful and fruit trees need to be planted on mounds.
Edible front yard oasis
Garden stewards
Susie Everding and Steve Gammon
Age
3.5
This stunning garden catches your attention immediately as you pass by the impressive front-yard vegetable garden with espalier apple and pear trees bordering the east side. Though Susie and Steve‘s garden is a mere 4 years old, the progress is astounding. Newer plantings are focused on increasing biodiversity. On the west side of the property a native shade garden with shellbark hickories, red oaks, serviceberries, wood poppies, foamflower and wild geranium is filing in. On the east side moisture from the road feeds a rain garden of sedges, swamp milkweed, joe pye weed, elderberry and purple flowering raspberries.
A trellis of concord grapes camouflages two 800-gallon containers that collect rainwater for irrigation. Last year Steve built a beautiful bubble fountain for thirsty wildlife.
Wildlife: Fox den in the culvert. All the creatures love the bubble fountain!
Future plans: Start as many native perennial species as possible from seed in order to save money and fill the spaces between the plants before invasives beat them to it.
Lessons learned: Don’t be afraid to have an unconventional garden in your front yard; the conversations that garlic and artichokes can stimulate are heartening. Start small and grow the beds slowly to prevent burn-out and a sea of mulch.
Garden design showcase
Garden steward
Nancy Shepherd
Age
6 years
Nancy’s garden is a beautiful example of how to create a garden design that includes ornamentals, vegetables, native and nativars for pollinators, hardy roses, native and ornamental grasses, fruit trees, berry bushes, and shrubs and trees for wildlife. Plants most popular with the many pollinators that visit her garden include the single roses, Culver’s Root, Arabis, Goldenrod, Senna, a vast collection of asters, Tradescantia, Comfrey, Borage, blooming herbs and annuals such as tender Salvias, Gaura, and Tropical Milkweed.
Wildlife: Gold Digger wasps, attracted by favourites such as Culver’s Root, build their nests in Nancy’s stone dust path. Nesting birds include wrens, song sparrows and robins. Visiting birds of all kinds. Numerous species of native bees: Bumblebees, Sweat Bees Carpenter Bees, Squash Bees, Leafcutter Bees, Wool Carder Bees, Cellophane Bees, Mason Bees, Resin Bees and numerous beneficial wasps, flies, and beetles. Large variety of moth and butterfly species.
Future plans: Remove some non-native plants when more native alternatives become available. Continue to enrich the soil, improving the compaction and low organic matter content. Plant an oak (somewhere).
Lessons learned: Control impatient or spontaneous purchases, do your homework, and get advice when you can.
Meadow by the lake
Garden stewards
Anne and Rob Bremner
Age
8 years
This stunning 2 ½ acre property is located on the east side of Collins Lake just 15 minutes from Kingston. Anne & Rob, over the last 8 years, removed invasives and planted over fifty white pines across the east side of the property, bordered the long driveway with native Staghorn sumacs on one side and beautiful exfoliating river birch along the other. Anne has been growing thousands of native plants each year from seed winter sowed in custom designed raised beds. The native woodland includes basswood, red oaks, black cherry, red maples, bitternut hickory, and ironwood. As they’ve removed invasives Anne & Rob have been planting the forest floor with diverse woodland natives.
Wildlife: Foxes, frogs, snakes, bees, butterflies, moths, large variety of birds and much more!
Future plans: Maintain and nurture the existing landscape while adding more trees. Continue to remove invasive plants, especially invasive grasses.
Lessons learned: Reduce expectations of what can be accomplished in one year.
Island paradise on thin soil
Age
9 years
Garden stewards
Astrid Muschalla & Kim Christensen
Astrid and Kim have been gardening on their 3.25 acre woodland lot on the north shore of St. Lawrence River for 9 years. The sandy loam soil is thin on limestone bedrock which makes growing a challenge so Astrid started building soil with hugel berms and lasagna beds (sheet mulching). She uses many composting methods, including green manure.
Now they live in an oasis where every day brings new sensory pleasures. There are 5000 sq ft of artfully cultivated areas surrounded by temperate hardwood forest featuring many beautiful shagbark hickory, blue beech, sugar maple, big-tooth aspen, serviceberry and a terrific ephemeral display every growing season. Astrid cultivates enough fruits and vegetables for year round eating thanks to almost 200 edible trees and shrubs. She emphasizes perennial food plants including very attractive crambe (perennial kale) and skirret (perennial carrot). She’s also planted thousands of trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs in ecological plant communities, observing the 70% native guideline.
Wildlife: Milk snakes, osprey, bald eagles, owls, blue-spotted salamanders, red-bellied woodpeckers, orchard and Baltimore orioles, deer, foxes, titmouse, star-nosed mole, nessus sphinx moth, clearwing moth, hummingbird clearwing, walkingstick insects, wood ducks, chorus frogs, minks, otters.
Future plans: Thinking lush…enjoy watching everything fill in and shrinking the grass each year. Fencing in the main vegetable garden.
Lessons learned: Check out the soil you buy, BEFORE you buy it. Don’t underestimate the deer, bird and chipmunk predation on food plants.