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Castlegar & Area Garden Tour to include Grandview Heights’ gardens for first time

For the first time, gardens in Grandview Heights will be included in the Castlegar & Area Garden Tour.
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Cathy and Pat Creighton’s garden was a stop on last year’s Castlegar & Area Garden Tour. It features an arch in the backyard overlooking the Columbia River. (Chelsea Novak/file photo)

For the first time, gardens in Grandview Heights will be included in the Castlegar &Area Garden Tour.

Residents only moved into the seniors’ community in 2009, and it’s taken some time for them to build up their gardens, but now they’re ready to welcome the public.

“We moved in, in 2009 and started our gardens from scratch,” explains Nora Jukes, owner of one of the Grandview Heights’ gardens and organizer of the garden tour during its first 15 years.

“It takes several years for the gardens to mature,” adds Freyja ManySkies, who was garden tour co-coordinator from 2006 to 2015.

Jukes had intended to retire after last year and ManySkies retired from the garden tour in 2015, but they both came back to help with this year’s tour after there were a few cancellations and the organizing committee needed help finding replacement gardens.

“It happens every year,” says ManySkies. “There’s always cancellations.”

When looking for gardens to include in the tour, ManySkies says they look for diversity.

“We try to get across the point that every garden doesn’t have to be like this manicured, perfect, absolutely stunning specimen that comes off the cover of some magazine, but it has to have some kind of features or something that makes it notable, but it doesn’t have to be meticulously perfect,” she says.

Two gems on this year’s tour are in Genelle.

The first is the garden of Libby and Wayne Weaver, which features “whimsical sculptures,” a pond, a gazebo, stone walkways and a veggie garden.

“It’s really extensive and interesting,” says ManySkies.

The second is the garden at the Genelle B&B. It features fruit trees, vines, berries, “a stately willow,” a greenhouse and a shrub-encircled sanctuary.

Something else new this year is that two public Castlegar Communities in Bloom gardens will be featured.

The White Garden, located in downtown Castlegar, and the Millennium Park Garden are both stops on this year’s tour. The stop at Millennium Park offers people a spot to enjoy a packed lunch.

“[The park] is an absolutely perfect spot for picnics, because often people come from out of town and they want to have a picnic spot,” says ManySkies.

In the same area of town, participants will find Marcy and Mile Sofonoff’s garden.

“It’s a beginner’s garden; just a couple of years in the making,” explains Jukes. “But her husband has built a lot of raised beds, and a fountain and all sorts of neat stuff in the back.”

The garden features a variety of grasses, perennials and annuals, and the Wind River Quartet will play there from 10 a.m. to noon.

The ninth stop on this year’s tour was also part of last year’s tour.

Kat and Bruce Enn’s garden won the Canadian National First Prize in the 2016 Communities in Bloom, Home Hardware sponsored, Back Yard Contest. Since last year, Kat has also added several new features to the garden.

ManySkies says that while they usually try not to include the same garden two years in a row, it’s not unheard of.

“We try not to repeat gardens, but we have repeated them when they’ve been exceptional or they’ve done a lot and they’ve changed,” she says.

This is the 16th annual Castlegar &Area Garden Tour and it will take place Sunday, June 25 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Brochures for the self-guided tour can be picked up from the following locations:

• Castlegar &District Public Library (1005 3rd St.)

• Castlegar Visitors Centre (open Sunday, 1995 6th Ave.)

• Safeway (open Sunday, 1721 Columbia Ave.)

• Kootenay Market (open Sunday, 635 Columbia Ave.)

• Home Hardware (open Sunday, 652 18th St.)

• Mitchell Supply — TIM-BR MART (0pen Sunday, 490 13th Ave.)

• Community Complex (2101 6th Ave.)

• Castlegar City Hall (460 Columbia Ave.)

• Crumbs Bakery (635 Columbia Ave.)

• Dawn’s Early Rising Sunshine Café (2305 Columbia Ave.)

When getting to the three Grandview Heights’ gardens featured on the tour, do not follow the map on the brochure and take 43rd Street. Instead, take Minto Road to 14th Avenue, go right onto 14th Avenue and then turn right onto 16th Avenue.