© Janet Davis
One of the great pleasures of living in Southern Ontario is being in close proximity to the Royal Botanical Gardens.
Located
halfway between Toronto and Niagara Falls (about 45 minutes from each) and
straddling the boundary between Hamilton and Burlington, the gardens –
including the cultivated gardens, Mediterranean greenhouse and the natural
lands over which the RBG has stewardship – stretch over a vast area of 1,100
hectares (2,700 acres).
History
The history of the gardens reaches back to 1925, when Hamilton parks board member Thomas Baker McQuesten succeeded in mounting a protest that prevented Crown lands in the Dundas Marsh (containing Cootes Paradise) from passing into private hands. This paved the way for a 1927 provincial order-in-council declaring the marsh a wildlife sanctuary and setting up a commission to direct its development and operation.
In 1936, the Royal Botanical Gardens was incorporated by the Ontario Government and in 1941 it was formally established under the Royal Botanical Gardens Act. Mr. McQuesten – then Highways Minister -- was selected to administer the new garden, which included the area that is now the Rock Garden and Cootes Paradise. A list of recommendations was prepared to enhance the gardens for tourism: mass plantings of lilacs, crabapples, flowering cherry trees, roses, herbs and spring bulbs. The following year, 500 acres of land was transferred from the Department of Highways (eventually becoming the Arboretum), followed by acquisitions of two 20-acre private properties.
When the war ended, Thomas McQuesten was
named the first 
president
of the Royal Botanical Gardens. The
year 1946 was a busy one for the new garden: memberships were offered, a children’s teaching
garden was opened and a large peony collection donated, which became the
core of the lovely peony display in the Laking Garden. By 1949, the RBG was managing 1,800 acres
extending from Dunddens were developed and work had begun on the
Arboretum. In 1957, administrative
headquarters were built and in 1967, the Centennial Rose Garden was inaugurated
in Hendrie Park. A decade later, a pavilion was approved for the Rose Garden
and a new road built to the Arboretum.
In the late 1970s, a large new headquarters building was erected,
including a gift shop, staff offices, horticultural hall, library and
herbarium. The herb garden opened in
1985 and a bright new greenhouse featuring plants suited to a Mediterranean
climate debuted in 1986.
The Gardens in Spring and Early Summer
In early spring, the place to be is the Rock Garden. Here, thousands of spring bulbs bloom in beds on the valley bottom and along the pathways up the steep incline, where pale magnolias, pink flowering almonds and alpine perennials such as moss pink (Phlox subulata), catmint (Nepeta x faassenii0, and (Aurinia saxatilis) add to the scene.
The Scented Garden down Plains Road in Hendrie Park also has a good collection of perfumed spring bulbs, including early tulips and the
At the same time, the Magnolia Collection in the Arboretum comes into flower, with some wonderful old specimens with low, sweeping branches. This is one of the few places where you will see a mature cucumbertree magnolia (M. acuminata). And if winter has been kind, the aged Yoshino Japanese cherries (Prunus x yedoensis) nearby will be covered in fluffy, white blossoms too.
Native spring wildflowers such as trillium, Jack-in-the-pulpit and dog’s tooth violet grace the slopes of the Arboretum leading to Cootes Paradise and the woodland floor in Hendrie Valley.
In May, the Lilac Dell in the 
Arboretum
comes alive with the largest collection of lilacs in the world. In all, over 800 species and cultivars of Syringa
are featured in the Katie Osborne Lilac Collection, with the show usually
peaking the second and third week in May, depending on spring
temperatures. Warm weather can advance
things considerably and wreak havoc with the planned events for the Lilac
Festival, held the third and fourth weekends of the month. Fittingly, the RBG is the international
registrar for all new lilac cultivars.
(Read about how to
care for lilacs, my interview with the RBG’s former lilac curator, Charles
Holetich.).
And I love the May-blooming Crabapple Collection, with the grizzled old trees flowering in rose, carmine-pink and pure white in an orchard-style setting adjacent to the Arboretum’s circular driveway.
The Iris Collection in the Laking Garden is not be missed, with its rainbow parade of dwarf iris, spuria iris, Siberian iris and six-hundred cultivars of bearded iris (Iris x germanica). Flowering here stretches over several weeks from late May through mid-June. The Peony Collection is also spectacular, with tree peonies starting the bloom sequence in May and herbaceous peonies continuing through to late June..
Summer Flowers
The spectacular
show in the Hendrie Rose Garden features approximately 2,650 roses and
begins with the blooming of the species roses, hybrid Rugosas, fabulous
Explorer roses and once-blooming old shrub roses such as the Albas and
Mosses. Flowering continues throughout
summer with floribundas, hybrid teas, David Austin roses, modern shrub roses,
large-flowered climbers and small-flowered ramblers. Flowering near the roses are many cultivars of clematis which
are trained, along with a large selection of woody vines and espaliered trees
and shrubs, on the handsome wood pergola that bisects the rose garden.
In the Laking Garden just a short distance west on Plains Road, the Barbara Laking Memorial Heritage Garden is dedicated to the memory of the wife of Leslie Laking, the former RBG director for whom this entire garden is named. Here, in an old-fashioned garden set around a pretty blue cottage are plants that would have been grown in southern Ontario between 1880 and 1920.
Past the Knot Garden and down the stairs, visitors come to a splendid show of sun-loving herbaceous plants in the Perennial Garden. Arranged in deep “twinned” borders on either side of a handsome latticed screen. Included are popular new cultivars of salvia, veronica, perennial geranium, heliopsis, achillea, phlox, coreopsis, eryngium, veronica, veronicastrum, perovskia, sedum, aster and many more summer and autumn flowers. Here visitors can glean all kinds of great design ideas starting with the gorgeous sages, yarrow, cranesbills and veronicas of early summer and moving through the heliopisis, Culver’s Root and extending Included are many brand-new, desirable cultivars.
Visitors who stroll in one direction from
this location will find themselves at Hosta Walk; in the opposite
direction is the Monocot 
Garden, featuring a handsome selection of ornamental grasses and other
monocotyledonous (one seed leaf, parallel leaf veining) plants such as
daylilies.
Back at Hendrie Park, the World of Botany is a colorful summer crowd-pleaser with its numerous beds and borders featuring plants that share either ecological relationships -- all from the mint family, for example -- or characteristics -- such as the drought-tolerant sun-lovers pictured below. There are also seed trial gardens and an AAS Display Garden containing flowers that have been award-winners of a coveted All-America Selections award and many small landscapes executed on specific themes by guest designers.
West of the World of Botany is Lily Collection. a spectacular big, open plantation showcases many types of true lilies from the genus Lilium. It includes martagon lilies and many Asiatic lilies. Nearby, behind a pretty picket fence is the Kids’ Gardening Zone containing the abundant little vegetable, herb and flower plots of the Junior Gardeners program.
Keep walking further west and you’ll come to eye-catching beds of colorful daisies such as sunflower, echinacea, cupflower (Silphium), feverfew and blackeyed susan, as well as edible flowers. Near them is the Herb Garden with its linear beds of culinary and aromatic herbs set on either side of a handsome wrought-iron fence.
The Medicinal Garden is an interesting enclosed space containing beds that focus on specific parts of the human body and the plants that have been used traditionally to treat the ailments of those organs and systems. For example,
The Scented Garden is an enclosed garden featuring boxwood parterres filled with fragrant spring and summer bulbs as well as perfumed summer annuals and perennials. Centered around a striking water feature, its outer beds are planted with scented flowering shrubs such as Koreanspice viburnum.
In 2004, the RBG launched a new display called Hammocks @ HENDRIE. It features four small gardens with highly artistic takes on a favorite garden furnishing.
There are many other plant collections (e.g. narcissus, thyme) and natural garden areas (Cootes Paradise, Morrison Woodland Garden) at the Royal Botanical Gardens – enough to find something to thrill the senses all year long.
Like many other display gardens cobbled together through public, rather than private, initiatives -- that is, without a primary benefactor like Winterthur’s Dupont or Old Westbury’s Phipps with the financial means to set up a foundation to sustain the garden indefinitely into the future -- the RBG has endured a series of financial crises ever since its inception. It is the steward not just for the display gardens along Plains Road, but large nature sanctuaries on the Niagara Escarpment nearby. A back-and-forth history of chronic operating deficits, government cutbacks, last-minute funding appeals and “renewed-with-strings-attached” provincial financing has left the RBG perpetually underfunded and in a near-constant state of turmoil. Although hard decisions clearly need to be taken, gardeners remain hopeful that a permanent solution can be found, given the work so many have put into the garden; the depth of its plant collections; the strength of its research and teaching programs; and the sheer joy it brings to its members and the people of Ontario. Long may it live.
The Royal Botanical Gardens is open daily from 9 a.m. to dusk, except December 25 and January 1. Admission fees apply except for members. Start your tour at the RBG Centre, 680 Plains Road West, Burlington, Ontario. For more information, call 905-529-2920 or visit their Web site.