Halifax Public Gardens


Public Gardens
Growing up in Massachusetts 20 some miles outside of Boston, I was lucky enough to have grandparents living in the city and so a reason to go into downtown fairly often. One of the things my Grandmother Curry loved to do was to go to the Boston Common and the Public Gardens. Of course, in Boston that meant swan boat rides were a possibility in summer, as was the inevitable re-reading of the Make Way For Ducklings book (there’s now a statue to the famous ducklings for all to view). My grandmother was always sure to have us read something!
The walks through that public space are among my favourite memories of that time, and so this past week it was nice to go with Norma and my daughter to the Public Gardens when we were up in Halifax. Marsha has inherited both her Mother’s love of gardening and my passion for the outdoors, and so all three of us enjoyed a sunny walk through the reduced, but still marvellous Gardens right in downtown Halifax. The image this week shows a portion of the plantings in bloom, most impressive were the large display of Rhododendrons, some having gone by, but some, such as the one in the image, were still wonderfully full and colourful.
Halifax and Dartmouth are a treat in that they have kept a lot of green space, as Norma and I also walked in “The Dingle”, technically Sir Sandford Flemming Park, while I awaited my appointment at Teichert gallery to deliver to them new art work to display. It is a very soothing thing to be in the city and yet still have some naturalness around one.
Back home, Norma does a lot of flower gardening and I do the veggies, but even if we had no gardens, there’d still be the beauty of nature around us. It’s something we’re both thankful for and which we both so count on, especially these days. As we said to friends this last week who stopped by for a physically distanced chat on our back deck – it isn’t much of a hardship at all to Stay the Blazes Home in such a place.