Gardening is big and hard and heavy
March 21, 2010
Trish Crawford
STAFF REPORTER
Gardening isn’t all pansies and petunias.
Rocks, dirt, concrete, wood — and muscles — also play a major role, as was proved by teams of community college students who “landscaped” for the record crowds attending this year’s Canada Blooms show.
“I grew up on a farm and I’m used to hard work, says Melissa Sparling, 22, of Bayfield, as she lugged 30 kg stones around the patio she was building. Then she grabbed a wheelbarrow full of bricks adding, “I love plants — but it is a lot more than plants.”
Sparling and fellow Fanshawe College horticulture technology student Allan Campbell, 21, won the gold medal in landscape gardening awarded Sunday by Skills Canada (Ontario), a non profit agency promoting post secondary education in skilled trades.
As people celebrated the first days of spring smelling the hyacinths and daffodils which festooned the Direct Energy Centre, students from four colleges toiled with saws and shovels to create identical stone garden structures. This part of landscaping is called “hardscape” while the plants are called “softscape”.
The students were marked on their ability to follow the plans drafted by experts and execute a variety of difficult tasks such as cutting stone.
Campbell, who spends his summers working for a landscaper in his hometown of Grand Valley near Guelph, says there’s nothing more satisfying than turning a blah yard into a thing of beauty.
“I love the hard work. At the beginning there is just grass and a fence and at the end of the day there is a waterfall. That’s beautiful.”
Almost half of gardening isn’t about plants at all but the structures that decorate and support the growing part of the yard, says Fanshawe teacher Michael Pascoe, who runs a landscape design company in London, Kernow Garden Inc.
All of the school’s teachers work in the field, he says, adding there is a lot more to the subject than people might think.
“I teach a plant identification course that uses Latin, it’s one of the tougher courses. There is math, chemistry, soil science, accounting, business management, customer service and sales.”
T.J. Kotyk, 21, of Amherstburg, spends his summers working at a local golf course. Having a job that lets him work outside is important, says the St. Clair College student in landscape design.
This summer, he has a surprise for his parents. He’s going to build “a large deck with a pergola” in their back yard.
Fellow student Richard Pichette, 28, enrolled in the Windsor area college after years of working in a variety of jobs from call centre to computers. It was when he was hired to tend the grounds of the military base in his hometown of Trenton that he found his calling.
“That’s what got me interested in landscaping. It’s nature, being outdoors and you have a finished product at the end of the day,” he says, pointing to the stone patio, bench and flower box his team created.
There’s another benefit to landscaping he adds, “It keeps us in shape”.
Waterdown landscaper Jason Hinkley, who acted as technical expert for the contest, says the students’ projects would probably cost a homeowner around $5,000 for supplies and labour. After judging was finished, the students turned around and tore down their creations, something that took a lot less time than the 20 hours of construction.
This year’s Canada Blooms Show drew a crowd of 90,000, up 20 per cent over last year, reports Gerry Ginsberg, the show’s general manager. The warm weather that greeted the show’s opening last Wednesday and lasted for its first three days helped draw the crowds as well as an appearance by celebrity Martha Stewart on Saturday, the first day of spring.