GARDEN TOUR - FLORAL DELIGHT
Grenada awarded 7th Gold at Chelsea in March 2009!
Smithy's Garden - "This garden has lots going on in it!" comment made by Suzann Gaywood, designer for the Grenada at Chelsea exhibit, January 2008. Established during the mid 1950's, the owners of this garden took the opportunity to extend the flowering plants of the garden after the destruction of Hurricane Ivan and to share the informal beauty of the garden with keen enthusiasts.
This year, Grenada has been awarded its seventh gold medal for its Grenada at Chelsea display and numerous silver and silver gilt ones prior to this! Our Grenadian garden tour was constructed by Anne, guest arranger with the Gold Medal Award, Team Grenada at Chelsea 2002. Our cadre of knowledgeable guides, will take you to see "Anne's choice of Gardens." On this garden tour you will see exotic ornamental bananas and giant heliconias as well as Heliconia beharry, in their natural jungle-like setting. You will also have an opportunity to interact over tea or drinks with owners of two of the gardens and learn how they work towards supplying flowers and foliage for Chelsea. "Anne's choice of gardens" includes some of the following:
- Hyde Park Garden -Fay shares her passionate enthusiam for her garden with visitors
- Bay Gardens - This garden is an education in itself
- Smithy's Garden - Anne shares her garden and Chelsea experiences with you.
- Balthazar Estate - Largest commercial garden and grower of giant heliconias
- Tower House Garden - Take a step back in time in this garden
- St. Rose Nurseries - Largest nursery - supplying unique garden plants
- Gemma's Garden - A warm welcome awaits visitors to this hillside garden
- Sunny Side Garden - See the Jade Vine in flower and feel Xoya grass underfoot in this garden.
Each Grenada garden is chosen for a specific highlight that they exhibit - lush and rambling jungle gardens contrasted with colourful, manicured, landscaped gardens!
Price dependant on number in your party and number of gradens visited.
Tour participants are advised to wear sensible hiking or walking shoes that have a grid bottom and NOT sandals or slippers on this garden tour.
This garden tour is a horticulturalist's delight! Here's what's happening in Smithy's Garden:
August - this month we are busy keeping on top of mowing the lawns and keeping the weeds down to a minimum. The garden is producing lots of lovely mangoes, pawpaws and late pineapples and bananas for breakfast . Planting out some string beans and more lettuice. Watering the lillies is down to a minimum as we have showers almost daily!
Junly 3rd Returned from holiday to find the garden well kept, beautifully mowed, green and blooming. Plums and pineapples are finished now, mangoes are in season and we await the avacados which are developing nicely on the tree. The first fruit from the new passion fruit vine in the garden has been used to make juice for visitors and we are looking forward to eating lettuice later in the month. The copper is holding water for the fish and water lillies in it!
June - this was a hard month, as we had a severe dry spell which kept us busy watering the plants. Lost a few. Had a visit from the Grenada Tourist Board staff, who were most impressed with Smithy's Garden!
May 19th The team at Smithy's Garden is celebrating Grenada being awarded its 7th Gold Medal at Chelsea. We supplied 92 stems of orchids as well as foliage to the 2009 display! Congrats to Suzann and the team for a wonderful display!
11th Smithy's Garden supplied 92 stems of orchids to the 2009 Grenada at Chelsea display. Our newest red strap vandah plant which produced two outstanding stems were the best of the lot, followed by four giant red and fucia spiders and 36 yellow scorpion and 15 pink strap vandahs - all that constant watering earlier on in the year paid off!
We are still trying to repair the copper which cracked in two places, so the water lillies are drying out while the repairs are underway.
The anthuriums are blooming more frequently since we renovated the shade houses.
May 14th - checked the new plantings of Heliconia caribee and sexy pinks and am pleased to see that they have sent out new shoots, so all are growing well in the pre-Ivan garden!
May 14th - the crop of red plums is smaller than last year, probably due to late pruning. Still trying to find a remedy for the black ants!
The Passion fruit vine has flowered and has its first fruit on it! There are lots of pineapples for breakfast!
April 6th - Smithy's Garden was visited by garden writers from the BBC, Telegraph and Birmingham Post accompanied by a BBC photographer, Suzann Gaywood and a representative from the UK office of Grenada's Tourist Board. They were visiting Grenada's Gardens as they will be writing about Grenada's successes at Chelsea and its niche market possibilities as a holiday/garden destination.
April 16th - Enjoyed the first pineapple from the garden at breakfast today.
This month we repaired stonewalls and at last, the two shade houses (destroyed by Ivan and Emily). We added two trellises to the garden, one in the new garden, for the Rangoon creeper to climb on, and the other in one of the original orchid beds where the asparagus will soon cover it.
New plantings include the red and the pink tulip ginger, the giant heliconia caribee and sexy pink! The heliconia wagonaria is going off, but the stool of musa velveteen has sent out two bunches of ornamental bananas!
Congrats to Claire who represented Smithy's garden in the flower arranging section of the recent Bi-annual flower show, which the Grenadian Horticultural Society held on Jan31 - Feb 1st. Claire secured a first and second place in two categories of floral arrangements.
Watering is a daily affair as the "dry season" is here now. Mowing the grass is now done every two weeks, giving us a chance to fill bags with compost and cuttings in the shade-house. Citrus is in season now and we are still eating fresh pawpaw from the garden for breakfast. The red Jamaica plums will soon be ripe!
Early mornings and late afternoons are noisy with the calls of nesting birds, including beautiful humming birds, doves and the banana quits as well as the black parrot, the Ani. One green crested humming bird that lives in the garden was quite feisty yesterday - think I spoilt his dinner- he was displaying a brilliant green diamond of feathers on his forehead, then I got shown the side view and finally he gave up and flew away to the next bush. The spotted spider orchids are in full flower, as well as the Vandas. Just have to keep watering every day - takes 1.5hours minimum. Water is too precious to use a sprinkler system, we water each plant directly. Thank goodness we are still getting a good supply from the water authority. White Vandas are often brown from the sun and will soon stop blooming altogether. We continue to propagate white and pink ginger lily plants to fill spaces in the boundary hedge - following the plan to extend the flowering shrubs to the top end of the garden. The Rangoon creeper at the bottom entrance to the garden is in full flower and has started climbing over the new trellis. Have started using the compost formed from the mound of wood chips, which the tree felling last October produced. The new gates, which were installed at both entrances to the garden, seem to be keeping the plant thieves away. Thinking about adding yet another water feature to the garden - probably on the southern end - The new dendrobiums are responding well to the fertilizer, which the Orchid Circle brings in to Grenada.
Last Updated on 19.12.09
