News from the Garden

Issue 23 I October 2024

Hey, I’m Simone! I’m the daughter of Kent and Hadley, the owners of Western Hills Garden (with their friends Laura and Michael). I'm a multimedia artist, currently working with clay and photography. I graduated from high school last June and moved to the garden this summer with my folks. I’m taking a gap year and planning to travel abroad this winter.

Getting to spend my waking and sleeping hours on this property is a blessing. I have a ceramics studio 10 steps from my room and a wonderland of vegetation 100 steps away. The serene setting of the garden bodes well for a ceramicist. I am very prone to keep a steady hand on the wheel with the soundtrack of birds all around. The creatures that are lured here by the garden’s biodiversity inspire my craft. I think abstractly about the cohesion between my spirit and the birds. As I sculpt, my mind wanders through the garden, the choir of birds fills my head, and I am at peace.  

I am at home within the garden and I encourage anyone who visits to find a spot that inspires and then just sit within the greenery to observe the interconnectivity around you. I’m planning to start selling my artwork in the garden very soon. Come by to check it out!

We are closing in on the end of our fall programming at Western Hills Garden with a few remaining blockbuster opportunities.

This Saturday, Hannah Muller, from Full Belly Farm, will offer two special programs. Her flower crown workshop is a must for anyone who needs a little more delight in their life. And her book talk will shed light on her experiences growing up on the farm along with her learnings about the many ways to use dried flowers.

Then, on 11/2 join us for HONOR, a seasonal celebration to hold ourselves and our ancestors close. It will be a day full of introspection and connection, of great food, tea, garden wanderings, and live music. Bring a natural object to add to our ancestral altar. Load up your family and friends and join us for a lovely, peaceful, reflective experience. Space is limited so purchase tickets soon!

Greetings from the compost pile! One of the projects I identified when I first came on the job this past spring as the garden’s horticultural manager, was to create a closed-loop green waste stream that would minimize outputs and inputs, save energy and resources, and recycle plant nutrients. With this new system, none of the plant parts taken from the garden (weeds, prunings, leaves, cuttings) would need to be hauled away or take up valuable garden space. 

With the help of retired microbiologist and long-time garden volunteer Dick Miner, our new green waste system is up and running! We now turn 99% of our green and brown waste into a nutrient-rich compost that we use as a soil amendment and main potting mix ingredient (we don't compost bamboo or diseased plant parts).

It feels good to have this behind-the-scenes operation up and running. It's good for the plants, good for our finances, and good for the Earth. What more could you want? Now, who wants to help chop up all these trimmings? Come join us on volunteer Tuesdays!

We love to share the garden with visitors and build partnerships with other organizations. We’ve been tracking Fibershed and their important work for some time. When it came time to cut down our yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) last week we reached out to them to see if anyone might be interested in weaving with this fibrous plant material. We were hoping to give it another life (it doesn’t compost easily).

Elissa Callen (@slateandrust), a Fibershed instructor, responded enthusiastically, so we are drying bunches of iris stalks in the glass house. Super happy it will be repurposed. Thanks to the WHG team for pushing the project forward!

We are so proud of Jaden Sicotte, our summer garden fellow who worked and stayed with us at Western Hills Garden from late May to early October. She finished her experience here and left in time to attend her graduation from the Niagara Parks School of Horticulture with a degree in Ornamental Horticulture. We look forward to hosting another garden fellow in summer 2025 with the application going live in January. Jaden set the bar high. We can’t wait to see her career develop (after she takes a break to travel the world a bit). Hooray Jaden!!