At the March 2015 meeting of the Garden Club of PEI, Dr. Don Ridley and his wife Bev spoke about their five-acre garden in Rice Point.
This is the inspiration we needed to make it through this never-ending winter!
The Ridley's garden has won numerous awards, and has been featured in number of gardening publications. The pictures for this blog have come from an article in Canadian Gardening magazine:
Don and Bev moved to PEI after retiring. They looked for two years before finding a piece of land with 320 feet of water frontage. In 2003, some of the land was cleared to build their house. In 2004 their house was built, and then they started working on the gardens. They have planted 100 trees, 350 shrubs, 125 conifers, 12 magnolias,13 Japanese maples. Every year, they plant 850 annuals and thousands of spring bulbs.
The property is divided into a number of gardens: the water garden, the secluded garden, the vegetable garden,the meadow, the spring garden, and the front garden. They also built a screened gazebo as a refuge from mosquitos. The gardens are at their most colourful in June. There does not seem to be a problem with getting rid of fallen leaves - they all blow away.
The vegetable garden has raised beds and every year it is amended with plenty of mushroom compost to add organic matter. Everything is covered with black mulch, which reduces the need for weeding and watering. Mulch should be kept well away from the trunks of trees, which can cause disease. He cautions against using fresh horse manure because there are at least 1,000 weed seeds per square foot!
The Ridleys spend a lot of time maintaining those gardens:
- 2 weeks for spring clean up (Don jokes that with all the snow, it will be a summer clean-up this year)
- 1 to 2 weeks mulching
- 1 week planting annuals
- 1 week other plantings
- daily maintenance
- 3.5 hours per week cutting grass
- half a day weekly trimming the edges
Plant sources
Don talked about where he finds the plants for his garden. He says the sources are limited on PEI. He finds plants and trees from British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick,and Nova Scotia,
Plant choices
- a hedge of Austrian pine for a wind screen
- Golden sequoia, Dawn Redwood, green redwoods all grow well here and are fast-growing
- Beauty bush - dark green and golden varieties
- Magnolias: varieties including Merrill, Anne, the girl varieties
- many varieties of dogwood
- Korean Spicebush is planted close to the seating area to take advantage of the lovely scent
- Katsura is Bev's favourite - she says it smells like candy apples when in bloom
