For all of you Killarnians that are gardeners, the joys of spring and how much we long for it are no surprise. The Calgary Horticultural Society prepares us for it all year long.
It is a truly amazing organization that got its start in Calgary in 1908 as a social movement to support the effects of turning the prairie landscape into the Calgary we have today.
Look around the outskirts of Calgary and it’s easy to recognize what Calgary looked like then. The only trees were those that grew along the rivers. As a garden speaker, I remind gardeners that virtually all trees in Calgary were planted by human hands.
In 1908, William Reader, a gardener and plant lover came to Calgary from Britain, hired by Pat Burns to be his private gardener, and soon after, he was hired by the City of Calgary as Superintendent of Calgary’s first Parks Department. He ensured that the budding Calgary Horticultural Society and the City of Calgary would always be in lock step together.
In 1914, the Society planted 10,000 tree seedlings and the City of Calgary planted another 10,000 tree seedlings. When you look around, remember that almost every tree your eye lands on was planted by our ancestors. Their foresight at the importance of those trees at that time is truly astonishing!
Central Memorial Park on 12 Avenue SW was designed in 1911 as an elaborate representation of the lush Victorian Parks of the time. Today, much of the park remains as it was more than a century ago thanks to Calgary’s current Parks Department, so that we don’t forget our roots.
Another character arrived in Calgary around that time, William Pearce, described as having “unchecked arrogance and a great vision”. He saved the land along the Bow River that we now know as the Bow River Pathway, the Bow River Islands that are now the Calgary Zoo, and Prince’s Island Park, as well as the land that is now the Shaw Millennial Park.
In 1930, he donated his own Pearce Estate that is at the curve in the Bow River and Pearce Estate Wetland in Inglewood. We have much to be grateful for from these early pioneers.
There are also 1,400 archeological sites within Calgary’s boundaries, as of the spring of 2018. Many of those sites have become parks and remind us to honour those who lived and cared for this land before we arrived.
The Calgary Horticultural Society (the Society) has recently moved to 2725 33 Avenue SW, by the tennis courts, a stone’s throw from Killarney Glengarry. This group of amazing people are there for us all the time!
When they moved to their new site, the City generously gifted them two of their redundant sheds and with the Society’s usual verve and creativity, they turned them into a thing of beauty!
From this to this!
Photos by Deborah Maire
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