Sorry for the delay. I’d promised you this third and last post in the OMG Summer Tour series sooner but, well, life sort of happened. But I do apologize for any confusion. This post covers the last two gardens we visited during the extraordinary tour presented by the Toronto Botanical Gardens and hosted by the incomparable Frank Kershaw. Stick with me, if only to catch a glimpse of the baby elephant masquerading as a weeping conifer.

Now we’re deep in Southern Ontario equestrian country. We passed many a pasture peppered with well-loved horses. In fact, we were very close to the site of the Pan Am Games riding events. This part of Ontario may have many farms but growing things isn’t easy. Typical of land scraped mercilessly by glaciers during the last Ice Age, there’s only a thin layer of topsoil here, spread over rocks of every size. For a gardener, this can be hugely frustrating or an opportunity to get real creative. (Scroll over or click on any photo for more details.)

Rocks are celebrated in this garden (shown below). There are several stone sculptures, including the one seen at the foot of the stone front steps. There are also a couple of large wooden sculptures, too, including this surprising eagle.

Visitors are greeted by a stone sculpture and stone front steps, softened with ground covers.

A wooden eagle stands proud in a field next door to the garden.

Behind the house, a huge rock garden is nearing completion. Rock beds and dry creeks have been formed to mimic the silhouette of a giant plant, complete with leaves and a root ball. The pattern is so large that you’d probably only be able to see the whole thing (once the garden is complete) if you were suspended high up in the air. No matter. The garden is an amazing example of taking full advantage of a site.

One of the dry creeks in the massive rock garden. This creek, if it could be seen from above, forms a stem or leaf in the overall pattern of the garden.

Plants, including many ornamental grasses, have been carefully chosen to survive the harsh climate (including drought, hard winters and wind) and complement the wild flower meadow in the distance.

Parts of the rock garden have been built up into low stone walls.

The native rocks (cursed by local farmers) are celebrated in this wonderful rock garden.

A stone wall edging the lawn at the back of the house borders the top of the rock garden just beyond it. I love how the wall is reminiscent of so many heritage walls found all over Southern Ontario.

Many striking plants have been cleverly positioned to play up their colours or texture.

Mosquito Grass (Bouteloua gracilis) is played up next to a dark bed of mulch.

Yellow daylilies march down a bed that lines the back lawn.

Textures, including the softness of Lamb’s Ears and the jagged hardness of the rocks are played up to their fullest.

The last garden on the tour included sweeping lawns at the front and back of the house with beds complementing the undulating terrain. But I use the word “lawn” creatively, here. A cushiony thyme “lawn” was tucked into the space directly in front of the L-shaped home.

The edge of the home’s thyme front lawn is bordered by a gravel path that leads to the side garden. To the right of the path is an immense grass lawn bordered by the driveway and a long garden bed.

Drain pipes can become informal water features when it’s surrounded by a mini rock garden and a thyme “lawn”.

A large stone becomes a minimalist sculpture, held aloft in the garden bed at the front of the house.

A cascading waterfall tumbled down a rock garden at the side of the house. If you were to turn your back on this fabulous water feature, you’d be looking at a dense forest in which the owners stroll down bark mulched paths they’ve made. A simple log bench deep in the woods offered a cool resting place on a hot summer’s day.

A water fall cascades from the side of the house to the lawn below.

Mulched paths lead from the lawns into the forest that lines one side of the property.

This log bench couldn’t be of a simpler design or more beckoning.

The dark forest made a fantastic backdrop for the collection of specimen trees the owners are nurturing. I couldn’t help thinking that a small tree at the edge of this area looked exactly like a baby elephant. To get to the baby elephant, erm, weeping conifer, you need to stroll past or through a large maze shaped by mowed grasses. A twenty-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture of a praying mantis presided at its centre.

The twenty foot tall stainless steel praying mantis is the focal point of a grass maze.

The white trunks of the birch are played up by the neighbouring forest.

Weeping conifers look like sculptures in this lovely arboretum.

This baby elephant, I mean weeping conifer, is thrown into dramatic relief by the dark forest behind it.

Every garden on this tour was a singular expression of its owner(s). And though most of them had the luxury of huge spaces to grow their visions, they all had plenty of ideas anyone could steal for their own patch of paradise. What was your favourite idea?