Visitor turnout and raves about Garden Tour 2013, presented by the South Cariboo Agri-Culture Enterprise Centre in 100 Mile House, indicate it was a success, and reaction from key co-ordinator Rita Giesbrecht validates it.
The self-led tour was held July 20 with a diverse group of nine gardens on the route for visitors to marvel at and admire, Giesbrecht says.
“It was a terrific success. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive from tourists.”
The tour met its target goal of 50 participants who, with passbook in hand, were able to choose their own route and move at their own pace.
Locations and details about the gardens were kept under wraps until the morning of the event when registrants picked up their passbooks at the Ag. Centre.
The tour included three gardens each from 100 Mile House, 105 Mile and Mile 108 Ranch.
The community garden was among those in 100 Mile House and Giesbrecht says some people on the tour were unaware the garden even existed.
Also on the list was last year's winner of the Communities in Bloom contest.
Private gardens featured a wide array of elements, such as water features, a swimmable pond, greenhouses that employed a variety of building materials and styles, from no-frills to state-of-the-art designs.
“Some gardens were constructed on the principal of wildness and others were very formal, with acres of mowed grass. Another served as a display area for art found in nature,” says Giesbrecht. “There was a garden for every gardener.”
Her own garden was on the tour. Above all, she considers it a bird sanctuary and a place where children are free to explore and pick whatever they choose.
She was delighted to find a display of picked plants laid out on a garden table by children who visited that day.
“Gardens are a very personal spaces to the people who create them.”
The garden tour was an annual event originally hosted by Parkside Art Gallery, but it had been several years since one had been held. Now in the hands of the Ag. Centre, Giesbrecht says it will once again become an annual event.
“People have never stopped asking if there would be more.”
She adds it was put together hastily and without much notice this year, but with it now entrenched on the Ag. Centre calendar, they will have a larger timeframe for planning the next one.