Educationally inspiring

Black Walnut Gardens holds late-season open house

In a year when the garden gate remained largely shut to visitors, Black Walnut Gardens decided a fall open house and tour was just what was needed before winter sets in. The sprawling 17- acre property consists of 13 acres of mixed woodland running down to Black River. At its core are four acres of extraordinary gardens divided into 28 garden rooms containing vegetables, herbs, flowers, shrubs and, of course, trees. Much of it rare and unusual species, heritage varieties, exotics, and a lot of the plants are indigenous, with most having been planted from seedlings or seeds by garden owner Carolyn Lecker.

While space was limited and had to be booked in advance, the large property meant remaining COVID-safe wasn’t a difficult task as visitors received a personal tour of the gardens as Lecker shared her wealth of knowledge and her enthusiasm for nature. While the garden is winding down for another season, there was still plenty to see on a glorious autumn day, whether it was an experiential treat in the blind garden, learning about some of the highly fragranced shrubs and plants, visiting the tactile garden, or seeing the living wall and the edible walkway. Or discovering the in-garden library, a unique space housing some 250 books, where huge windows allow for amazing garden views. In previous years, area nursing homes brought seniors to the gardens, and especially to the library. “The library was my centric thing with seniors,” says Lecker. Three mornings a week seniors would come from nursing homes to enjoy what Black Walnut Gardens had to offer. “They would list what they wanted to read and we would have it ready for them, and for those that couldn’t read, I or a volunteer, would read to them.”

The Milford-area gardens were once hayfields, and when Lecker purchased the property 30 years ago, aside from two little gardens, nothing existed. “The farmers said we shall never grow anything else, it’s hayfields.” Lecker began planting and hasn’t stopped since. She has planted 300 trees, 200 shrubs and literally thousands of perennials, vegetables, herbs and more besides. She knows a thing or two about horticulture having studied it, but this human dynamo never seems to stop working, devoting an endless number of hours to designing, maintaining and caring for the vast gardens with only occasional volunteer help. She not only gardens organically, and plants and propagates, but she happily shares her knowledge and her gardens. She has taught in schools and universities; some of those students have visited the gardens. Musicians have performed here, painters have created, photographers have captured, and for 16 years, up until last year, popular seniors’ concerts were held in the gardens.

Volunteer Jocelyn Perry and Black Walnut Gardens owner Carolyn Lecker during the open day last Sunday.

Black Walnut Gardens is designed to be accessible to all with the idea that no one be excluded from being able to experience the gardens, whether physically or mentally challenged, or for economic reasons. “That’s the foundation of here and everything that goes on.” Lecker says the gardens are perfectly designed for COVID because of the sizeable spaces. However, a number of groups who volunteer, often for months at a time, didn’t come this year. “This made it very hard because this year I couldn’t do a lot of the design things that I do, so just in terms of work, financially it was a disaster.” She said it has been hard figuring out how to keep the gardens going this year and was heartbroken that the very people it was designed for, those people couldn’t come.

Lecker’s happy COVID moment involves a little compost pile. While she would ordinarily have started many thousands of seedlings, that didn’t happen this year due to COVID and a number of other reasons. “I went to my little compost and saw what I thought were 60 tomato plants, because the heritage ones do come back,” she says. She removed the entangled mass of plants, only to discover 360 tomato plants, not 60. It was already mid-July, but she decided to plant them, first in pots and she gave them just five days to do something. “There was a root system like I’ve never seen, it really was a COVID miracle; it is mind boggling. It was a magical surprise when there shouldn’t have been anything here.” She said there were lots of gifts this year, including 12-foot high sunflowers that came back, and an alder tree that split and fell yet continued growing. As for the tomato gardens, “It is brimming with enormous tomatoes and it is outrageous, and I had never had such a crop.”

“I have been privileged, as hard as it’s been, to have this involvement,” says Lecker. “I am very lucky that a lot of things make me smile: a child that does something cute, an animal for sure, a beautiful bird. This is a piece of paradise and it’s so filled with life.”

For more information on Black Walnut Gardens, visit blackwalnutgardens.ca.