When the Big Rock Garden Tours comes to town Saturday it will feature an unusual returning winner. Each tour highlights as many new gardens as possible but it also invites back its previous year’s best garden selection. That means the 2010 recipient of that honour, the backyard growing space of Diane Moodie, will be on the supplied maps again Saturday.
The champion garden is an unconventional combination of plant life and found objects designed to be welcoming and not stiff or regimented.
“It certainly isn’t immaculate,” Moodie explained. “I tend to let things grow and do their thing. I may trim them in the fall or early in the spring but that’s about much it. ”
Because the garden gets lots of shade, it’s not dominated by flowers requiring lots of sunlight. Moodie instead has selected many striking yet hardy plants as well as unusual combinations of rustic objects.
“I have rusty pot bellied stoves, old washers, cream cans, lots of rock and an old shed,” she said. “Everything I have is used. Our shed is from the old gas plant up there on the hill. They gave it to us and we moved it down here. The shingles are from the roof of the old folk’s home. There are also the old windows from the Sheep River House from when they replaced them.”
Christa Michailuck, Okotoks’ opens spaces team leader, said Moodie’s backyard refuge stands out in terms of originality.
“It’s a very interesting garden,’ she said. “Last year’s winner kind of takes it to the height of sustainability and reusing materials. It’s just beautiful.”
The Big Rock Garden Tour used to have a judged component but the now winners are solely the people’s choice. Moodie’s backyard plot, which has a new water feature, is ineligible for awards consideration this year, but will likely remain a highlight of Saturday’s green thumb journey. The tour goes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $10 and available at Harvest Moon Health Foods in the Cornerstone shopping area.
Michailuck explained people taking the tour will not have advance knowledge of where they are going.
“The tour maps are provided the morning of the event to ticketholders,” she said. “They don’t get to drive around a head of time.”
Saturday tickets and maps will be available not only at Harvest Moon Health Foods but at the individual garden homes as well. People can start their tour at any on the featured homes which will be indentified by having a large “A” board sign in front of them.
While Michailuck could not reveal actual home addresses, she did reveal two signs will be out on Cimarron Drive in south Okotoks Saturday. There will also be one to the north on Crystal Shores Road. Once participants complete their tour they will be able to leave their choice for best garden in a ballot box at the last home they visit.
The Big Rock Garden Tour is not only democratic, it’s also instructional.
“It’s a great way for residents, who are trying to get gardening ideas, to come see what they can do in the Okotoks climate,” Michailuck said.
She expressed her hope many people will take the tour Saturday as it benefits an important local cause.
“One hundred percent of the ticket sales are being donated towards the establishment of the gardens at the Foothills Country Hospice,” Michailuck revealed
