Celebrating Wildlife In A Family Garden

A wise person once said, whatever you were doing passionately between the ages of 7-10 is what you were probably meant to do as your full time employment. I was hiking the fields, climbing trees for hide and seek, collecting snakes, bugs and animals and frogs…my mother was sure she had 6 boys not 5. I had so much energy I once caught a wild jack rabbit and brought it home. My Dad made me return him to the wild.

In our day (now that makes me sound old) although I am a new ‘gramma’, we were not allowed to stay indoors to play because we’d get the house dirty or be under foot. I am the middle child of seven.  My mom had a wringer washer and an outdoor clothes line. She used cloth diapers and with seven children there was always someone still in diapers…whew…my parents had a lot to do.

We entertained ourselves outdoors all day until meal time...there was seldom adult supervision. The general rule in our neighbourhood was to count each other before we left for our bewitching adventures and hopefully return with the same amount of children. The older kids watched out for the younger ones. It was the way of our community.

We gathered fallen logs from the maple bush down by the salamander pond, tied them with grapevines and made them into rafts. We would set sail on our rafts, float out on the pond to catch our salamanders and frogs…sometimes someone fell in…someone always had a soaker (that’s when the water went over the top of your rubber boot)…but we were ok…we burned energy and we slept well at night.

The problem today- the villain of our future generations is development, progress, and growth. As we speak more and more buildings of concrete are being constructed, asphalt is rolling out of huge smelly dump trucks, subdivisions are sprouting up everywhere and our land and our trees are bulldozed to make room for it…we are not going to stop it!

But we do need to take charge and fix it. We need to replant our forests, wildlife gardens and fields of flowers. Or else where are our children going to play? The sun is hot and shade is required to keep us cooler while supplying birds and animals protection, food and habitat. 

I loved and still love the magic of nature and it has been my personal goal to bring   plants and people together in a natural sustainable way.

A garden that thoughtfully combines adventure for exuberant children and attractive plant combos is now within everyone’s reach regardless of the size of the property, space or budget. I want to show you plant-loving adults that nature, family and functionality can co-exist in the same place. Please visit us at our 11 acre design centre to experience it first hand.