Bloomin’ wonderful

Waterloo Gardeners Fair is growing passion

WATERLOO — Grace Baer gardens to remind herself that she still has room to grow, at 94.

She points to her bright yellow marigolds, and to her dark geraniums that change colour depending on the light.

“When I see these on the windowsill, they’re mine. I did that. I grew them,” she says.

Grace is a pretty good gardener, too, winning ribbons at Waterloo Gardeners Fair and Competition on Saturday. She grows her flowers on her long balcony, and beside a window in her building.

She moves slowly by walker. Her hair is white but her gardening ribbons pop with colour. She still cherishes the feel of dirt on her fingers.

“It makes me feel as if I can do something still,” she says, smiling.

Grace’s competitors have their own reasons to garden but there is a common thread. Gardening it seems is about time and life and memories.

Lex Landon, 62, grows white cosmos and orange nasturtium flowers to honour her grandmother.

“She lived in a little farmhouse. And she had a great big side garden with a cutting garden for flowers,” Lex says. “She always had little bouquets in the house, as well as growing vegetables to feed her family.”

Her name was Minerva Hammond. Years later when Lex drove past a flower bed, a familiar scent filled her car and for a magic moment, Lex was a child again in her grandmother’s garden.

Bill McFaddin gardens to dazzle, looking to combine colour and texture. “A creative, beautiful garden is an art,” he says.

At 61 it has taken him a long time to do it well.

But when it works, he feels like the 19-year-old who went to Holland and was bowled over by the scale of beauty of a massive tulip garden.

“That’s when I got hooked on it,” he says.

“Something sort of clicked in my head.”

When he competes at the garden show, the years melt away and Bill feels like a farm boy again, competing at the Wellesley fair.

You won’t get rich showing your best at the Waterloo garden show. First place gets you $3, third place gets you $1. It pays for seeds at best.

But you know, bragging rights. Bill beat out a friend for the best cantaloupe and he doesn’t plan to let her forget it.

“There’s a lot of pride when you do win,” he says.

Plus you see life take root. And the garden helps you remember when. Priceless, really.

ANDREJ IVANOV WATERLOO REGION RECORD Brenda Stericker teaches a workshop on flower arranging. Flowers and gardening bring pleasure not just to the grower, but to those you share them with, giving beauty to homes and producing memories, say growers.

ANDREJ IVANOV WATERLOO REGION RECORD Lex Landon shows her first place winning flower arrangement in the ‘Foliage’ category. Entries in the ‘Foliage’ category could not include any flowers, just green leaves. Gardening brings back memories of Landon’s youth and her grandmother’s garden.

ANDREJ IVANOV WATERLOO REGION RECORD Bill McFaddin with his first place winning cleome. McFaddin entered in some 40 categories. When he was 19 he travelled to The Netherlands and was awestruck by its flowers and, hence, began his passion.

ANDREJ IVANOV WATERLOO REGION RECORD The three winning arrangements in the “miniature, under five-inch in any direction” category at the Waterloo Gardeners Fair and Competition.