A Pretty Watergarden

Every year I try to do my small part to support garden themed events for worthy charitable causes.  One such garden tour is the annual Pond Tour for the Hospice, which raises much needed funds for the Dr. Bob Kemp Hospice for Palliative Care in Hamilton. 

The hospice is a non-profit organization that provides supportive care to patients who are facing a life-threatening illness. A portion of the hospice's operating budget comes from the government, but the rest must be raised through special events like the annual pond tour.

Amber Downes of Clearwater Ponds, who helps to organize the tour each year for the hospice, emailed me the other day to let me know that they have set the dates for this year's tour. This summer the two day watergarden extravaganza will take place on Saturday, June 22nd and Sunday, June 23rd.

To coincide with this announcement, I thought that I would showcase one of the prettier ponds from last year's tour. 

I have already shown you a few sneak peaks of this terrific garden. Today, I will place them back in context and show you the full garden and pond.

Before we head into the back garden, we'll pause for just a quick second and admire the colorful container plantings at the front of the house.

Now let's go down the pathway leading to the backyard.

Beautiful blue-grey stones edge the stone path.

As we round the house, a mix of trees, shrubs and perennials partially obscures the view, 

making what comes next a bit of a surprise.

Looking back the way we came. 

If you like your garden to be neat and tidy at all times, this is a good example of what you might want to consider planting. 

Provided they are well watered and the slugs are kept at bay, this planting combination, which includes magenta astilbe, mixed hostas, pale pink spirea, pyramid-shaped boxwood, assorted hydrangeas and a Japanese Maple, are going to look great for the full gardening season.

As we round the corner, we get our first glimpse of the pond.

As you can now see, the pond is quite expansive and takes up a good portion of the back garden.

Amber Downes of Clearwater Ponds tell me that, "When Clearwater Ponds first met these clients, they had a brand new pond built by another contracter. Unfortunately, the pond was not functioning properly. The pond had good "bones", but not enough "muscle" to keep it functioning properly."

A stone patio runs along the back of the house and overlooks the pond.

To get the pond functioning properly, Clearwater Ponds increased the pond's filtration and improved the pond's circulation by adding an additional pump and a surface skimmer. They also reinstalled the existing filter properly.

Amber says, "The clients are so happy with the final result. Their pond is beautiful to look at and is always crystal clear."

The waterlilies in this pond are quite colorful.

One final project that Clearwater did was to redesign and rebuild the previously existing waterfall. The newly installed waterfall is much more natural looking and visually pleasing.

For those of you that live in the GTA, mark your calendars for this year's pond tour. It is a wonderful event for a great cause.

To see more ponds from last year's tour, be sure to check out this virtual Pond Tour for the Hospice on Facebook. There will be a different pond each day for the next few weeks.

A Natural Curiosity

I don't know why I had never noticed them before; there were after all, hundreds, or even a thousand of them. Perhaps it was because, for once, I was in the passenger seat of the car. Without having anything on the road to demand my attention, I was at leisure to look out across the Hamilton harbour. As I looked out over the water, the sight of so many birds in the air, on the water and nesting in trees was arresting. 

I have seen plenty of gulls in my days, having grown up in Nova Scotia. The focus of my attention was rather the black birds sitting atop huge nests that filled the skeletal branches of several small dead trees. On a small man-made jetty that extended out into the harbour there were numerous colonies of these almost sinister looking birds. 

Even more bizarre was the industrial backdrop for the large flocks of birds. 

On the right you can see Hamilton, Ontario is pretty much in the center of the North American Continent. On the right you can see that Hamilton is in the crook of Lake Ontario.

Hamilton is an industrial city, known for years as "Steel Town". Its deep harbour is notorious for its polluted waters. In recent years, the city has made efforts to clean up its reputation and its harbour, but as you can see from my pictures, the first view you get of the city as you cross the Skyway Bridge is still one of billowing smoke stakes and dark piles of coal.

How strange it is that so many birds thrive in this industrial setting! (I am not sure that I would want to subsist on fish caught in the Hamilton harbour.)

The black birds are actually double-crested cormorants. These sociable birds are the only fish-eating species commonly seen in bodies of fresh water. Nesting cormorants generally lay three to four light blue eggs which they incubate by wrapping in their webbed feet.

Considered "nuisance" birds, they have been persecuted for generations and were almost wiped out by the middle of the 20th century. Since the banning of DDT in the late 1960's however, their numbers have bounced back tremendously.

There are many reasons for the cormorants apparent lack of popularity. Large populations are seen to compete with commercial and sports fishermen. Their acidic excrement is reputed to have caused the death of trees all along the shores of the Great Lakes.

And then there is the issue of smell. Just imagine the stink that would arise from the droppings of hundreds and hundreds of birds! When we stopped to take some pictures, the stench of the ground littered with excrement, feathers and dead baby gulls was certainly an assault to the nose.

As creatures go, cormorants don't have great visual appeal. They certainly don't have the cute, cuddly allure of animals like the panda. In the air and on the water, they take on a bit of grace, but on the land they have all the awkward charms of the dodo bird (and we know what happened to the dodo).

In city of Hamilton, the cormorant population is the subject of some controversy in which the cormorants  have probably fewer friends than adversaries. There is talk of submerging nesting sites, like Farr Island, to control the population.  

As caretakers of our little planet third from the sun, it seems we are choosy about what animals and birds we respect and value.

Quest: 5 Waterfalls and Counting

For me, a "quest" or journey of discovery is a compelling idea. The object of any quest, wether the best pizza in your home city, or some rare species, is less important than the journey itself. Discovery is the thing!

This particular quest began with a simple brochure that I inadvertently picked up along with a few area road maps and summer event listing from the local tourist bureau. The  fanfold "Cascades and Waterfalls of Hamilton" brochure, with its striking picture of Borer's Falls, informed me that: 

"In a year long scientific study, the Hamilton Conservation Authority identified 65 waterfalls within her boundaries, so Hamilton could well be known as the City of Waterfalls."

Wow! Who knew that we were living in close proximately of so many natural wonders? And I had always thought of Hamilton as an industrial city. Just think of what we had been missing in our brief, cursory explorations of this nearby city!

I turned to my husband and partner in crime, who was driving at the time, and said, "Did you know that there are 32 accessible waterfalls all listed in a chart in this brochure! You know...", I unfolded the brochure to see the chart more fully and continued to outline my quickly hatching plan, "it would make for an interesting project to visit every waterfall on the chart and photograph it. We could do the photo series in, say...", I paused to calculate, "the course of the summer." 

I looked over at him and did my best to sound convincing, "It could be kind of fun!" 

While I did succeed in signing us both up for this waterfall odyssey, we did not manage 32 waterfalls in one summer. In fact, that was 2 summers ago. The quest continues to this day. 

So far we have seen and photographed 6 waterfalls. Here today, are the first 5.

Our first stop in this post, is Albion Falls. A large waterfall with a cascade of 19 meters, Albion Falls tumbles down a series of shale steps to a gorge far below. 

There is no organized walkway or staircase, and I can tell you, we had to call upon all our very best mountain goat skills to make our way down the steep, muddy slope. (A good set of hiking boots and a walking stick for balance and support are definitely recommended for all these sorts of adventures!)

On the left: a view of the valley below. On the right: Pancakes of shale lie stacked on top of one another.

Huge boulders of shale, which have broken off and fallen down the gorge, lie at the bottom of Albion Falls.

2. Borer's  Fall lies at an unassuming bend in a secondary road and we would never have found it without extra assitance from area residents. Above, you see the falls in the spring, and below in the winter.

In winter, the outer surface of the 15 meter curtain freezes into a huge column of ice. Underneath this translucent pillar of ice, you can still see the shadow of water, as it falls from the top of the escarpment. 

3. With a crest of 30 meters, Webster's Falls is one of the largest, most stunning waterfalls in the Hamilton area. The couple seated on a park bench on the upper left can give you a point of reference as to the magnitude of the scene. In the background, you can see a stone bridge that crosses the Spencer River and surrounding park.

There is a steep staircase that leads to the bottom of the Spencer Gorge. The figures on the upper right can again give you some perspective as to the grandeur of Webster Falls.

In this view, you can see the falls in the depths of winter.

The forest trail leads between Webster Falls and its cousin Tews Falls, provides some amazing vistas. In the picture above, the city of Hamilton is just visible in the distance. 

Below is another view of the steep terrain that lies along the edge of the forest trail that meanders between the two waterfalls.

4. Logi's Creek tumbles 41 meters over the escarpment to form Tews falls. In the winter months, water seeping through the thin layers of rock form long, sharp icicles. 

5. I've left one of the best waterfalls, (so far anyway) for last! Sherman or "Fairy Falls" is not the most spectacular in terms of size or depth, but the setting deep in a secluded, wooded ravine, is unsurpassed.

So, 5 down, 27 waterfalls to go! The quest continues...