History Repeats
Submitted by The Fenelon Falls Horticultural Society
Fenelon Falls Horticultural Society began its second century exactly as it began its first: postponed by a pandemic. The founding meeting of 1918 had to be delayed until 1919 due to influenza but we kept going.
Even though we couldn’t meet in person this year, a lot was accomplished in the gardens while practising social distancing guidelines. As well as maintaining our current gardens and growing vegetables in the Victory Garden for the food bank, new projects were undertaken.
Several grants (from Kawartha Conservation, City of Kawartha Lakes and others) enabled the creation of a rain garden in 2018 and a large expansion this year. Previously, stormwater rushed down the street across a boggy area into the canal between Cameron and Sturgeon Lakes on the Trent-Severn Waterway. This boggy area became the rain garden to filter stormwater. The area was excavated, filled with sand, topsoil, river rock and native shrubs to absorb the stormwater. Native plants include red osier dogwood, snowberry, high bush cranberry, big bluestem grass, asters, hyssop, echinacea and rudbeckia.
A 450-seat outdoor amphitheatre is being built in Fenelon Falls and the horticultural society was asked for advice on how to enhance the tree canopy to keep the setting secluded in a grove of trees. We embraced this request enthusiastically and a substantial grant allowed us to dream big. Plans were drawn up for each area: backstage, seating area, entrance and parking.
Immediately backstage there are high bush cranberry, purple sand cherry, nannyberry and ninebark. Further back we have linden, ginkgo, Rinki columnar crabapple, sugar maple, Autumn Blaze Maple, Kentucky coffee, white spruce, white pine, basswood, beech and trembling aspen.
The sloping sides of the seating area are planted with smokebush, cranberry, northern bush honeysuckle, Firefly Nightglow honeysuckle, Coppertina ninebark and hedging cedar.
The entranceway includes blue spruce, pagoda dogwood, linden, Royal Raindrops flowering crabapple, purple sand cherry, meadow rose and snowberry.
The parking area now has a row of red-osier dogwood, serviceberry, elderberry including common, black lace, black tower and golden to demarcate the swale running along one side. We are excited to see how this huge planting will fill out in future years. We will continue with more planting next year adding perennials (mainly natives) and more trees.
We received an anonymous donation to plant trees in Fenelon and used this money to replace the dead trees along the lock. Lock 34 on the Trent-Severn Waterway is the centre of our village and a focal point for visitors watching boats going through the lock. Here we planted 3 common hackberries and are hoping they live up to their reputation of ‘one tough tree’. We also planted 2 Royal Raindrops crabapples and sugar maple.
Hanging baskets of cascade geraniums decorated the downtown all summer. The baskets were cleaned out, cuttings taken and then filled with greenery and sumac and rehung for the holiday season. As well we planted hundreds of daffodils, grape hyacinths and alliums to add a burst of colour in the spring. Every fall we do a walkabout and examine the gardens noting what adjustments should be made for next year. Plans are well underway for next year’s gardening season with some new ways once again to enhance the beauty of Fenelon Falls.
