Paul Craig, volunteer, was busy watering at the Battleford Memorial Rose Garden Sunday. It’s been a good year for the garden, he says, and it’s at one of its best times right now.
Not just roses – although they are the building blocks of the garden design – but lilies bursting with colour, groundcovers, tiny violets gone berserk and dozens more plants are celebrating 16 years evolution.
The Battleford Memorial Garden, a Communities in Bloom project in partnership with the Town of Battleford, was established on an otherwise unsellable lot donated by the town, and a good deal of volunteer labour and community sponsorship. It is now blooming on the 100 block of 15th Street.
When the Battleford CiB was started, each member was asked to come up with an idea for a project. A memorial rose garden had always been a dream of charter member Elaine Poirier. So a fence went up, a weeping watering system was installed, soil was brought in from Poirier’s Prongua-area farm and a design was plotted. By 2014, planting had started in earnest.
The design, by Judy Bishop, centres on four separate beds, each devoted to one colour of roses, white, red, pink and yellow. Along the walkways, granite memorial bricks can be found interspersed among the edging bricks. Most are names of folks who have passed on, but not all. Some have purchased bricks for themselves or family members who want to be remembered, but who are still with us. Throughout the beds are four types of thyme used as a ground cover and wood chip mulch helps keep the weeds down.
Now that the garden is established, the ongoing care falls mainly to Elaine and her husband Henri, who now live in North Battleford, as well as a handful of volunteers, including Craig, who works at Northern Nurseries.
