Greensville grandmother finds bliss in her garden, a spectacular labour of love

In more than 30 years of garden visits - hundreds of private and public gardens and all of their makers and keepers - I don't think I've ever met anyone who is so besotted by gardening as Susan Chater.

Susan doesn't just fancy the garden she has made. She loves the knees-in-the-mud, fingers-in-the-dirt, soil-in-your-socks process of gardening. When she (youthful but, still, a grandmother several times over) talks about scrambling up a hillside (over and over again) to pull ivy, place rocks or plant evergreens, she almost literally bubbles with enthusiasm. When a visitor expresses amazement at the sheer work that she has put into her gardens, she brushes it off: But it's such fun. It really is."

Susan's garden is one of eight on this year's Secret Gardens Tour, the annual fundraiser for Dundas's Carnegie Gallery.

A visit to her garden, it seems to me, is essential for anyone interested in using conifers in the garden, as well as anyone interested in seeing what can be done with a large suburban property. I wouldn't miss it. However, Susan's proximity to Webster's Falls and other scenic parts of Spencer Gorge means street parking is forbidden on weekends. Secret Gardens Tour visitors will get a 25-minute pass to park near Susan's house for a visit. It's not ideal, but - you'll have to take my word for it - it's worth it.

Back to Susan's garden.

She shows off another part of her garden, resplendent still in the bright colours of spring, and notes that she does accept some help. After the forget-me-nots have faded and gone to seed (for next year), she pays a granddaughter to pull the old plants out. The rate last year was five cents for every plant. Her granddaughter collected $40, plus another $65 for pulling garlic mustard out at the same rate.

Do the math. That's a lot of forget-me-nots.

Susan gardens through a wide-angle lens, seeing the entirety of her gardens, front and back, as a labour of love. Sometimes I think Pinch me. I must be dreaming,'" she rhapsodizes.

Susan has been in her Greensville house for six years. Before that, she lived and gardened in Richmond Hill for 36 years. Her garden there was included in a book on outstanding private gardens and was featured on a TV program. Before Richmond Hill was time in Anchorage, Alaska (a very short growing season, she notes) and long before that, she was born and grew up in Croydon, south London, in the U.K.

The seeds of her passion for gardening were planted there. My grandmother was a very keen gardener," she says. The best thing about terribly boring" visits to her grandmother was walking around the garden with her, learning the names of all the plants. Now, she combines her love of gardening with an artist's sensibility: She's a painter and has a studio on the property.

There was a garden when she bought the property - there were a lot of good things here" - but in these six years, Susan has remade, reshaped and replanted most of it. It's astonishing how mature and established her gardens are after just six years there.

There's a steep hill from the road up to what might at another house be the front lawn. It's the slope that first greets visitors, and it fascinates. After laboriously clearing it of ivy, pachysandra and weed trees, Susan planted a wide mix of conifers, in all shapes, sizes, colours and textures, interplanted with low-growing perennials. The whole is a stunning display, made complete by a diagonal path that leads the viewer's eye through the multifaceted spectacle.

At the top is a crevice garden, consisting of fine stone and larger flat stones on edge. It's home to alpine plants and was backdropped by lavender. But that plant did not survive this past winter. Susan ripped it out; such fun," she says. She likes plants everywhere. I like growing things in the cracks in my driveway," she says with a laugh. You could call me obsessive and you wouldn't be far off the mark."

There's so much more to see. In the back garden, an old deck came out and Susan laid down pea gravel and several varieties of thyme and fescue ornamental grasses. I call it the Thyme Terrace - or the septic bed," she says.

There are dozens of varieties of perennials, along with roses, clematis and many more shrubs and trees. Heuchera and cowslips and irises - lots of irises - and spurge and daphne and phlox and dozens more. Wide, curving beds and borders sweep through the garden. She planted yet more shrubs and trees, choosing them for colour, texture and leaf shape. There's a rectangular pond, built by previous owners, that Susan says is all wrong for her free-form garden. She's hasn't figured out what she's going to do with it ... yet.

The whole garden is totally organic," she says. Susan notes that when she arrived on the property, she couldn't find a single earthworm in all her planting and digging. Every fall, she collected bags of leaves from around the neighbourhood and layered and dug them into her soil. It's taken six years but I finally have worms in my garden."

Susan has found her bliss here among her plants. I pinch myself sometimes that I've ended up here."

The Carnegie Gallery Secret Gardens Tour runs Sunday, June 12, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eight gardens - several of which I've seen and are spectacular - are featured. Tickets are $20 at the gallery at 10 King St. W. and at The Keeping Room at 6 Cross St., both in Dundas. Visitors will receive a time slot for Greensville parking when purchasing their ticket. Note that Highway 8 is closed and access to the Chater garden is via Sydenham and Harvest roads. (Maps to all gardens included in ticket.)

Rob Howard lives and gardens in Hamilton. He's a garden writer, speaker (in non-pandemic times) and garden coach. You can reach him at gardenwriterrob@gmail.com or on Facebook at Rob Howard: Garden Writer.