Artists and Vendors in the Gardens

With over 20 years of experience as a professional florist, Heather has a keen eye for design and a passion for all things botanical. After years of working with flowers, she has found a new medium for her creativity: cement. Heather crafts stepping stones, bird baths, alpine troughs, and whimsical mushrooms to add playfulness to any garden as well as bespoke outdoor dining tables with reinforced polished cement tops and solid cedar bases ( custom sizes available). 

Melissa and Thomas are the owners of The Botanist Alchemy. A premium sauce company crafting unique, flavourful sauces using the highest quality, locally sourced ingredients. 

Daniella is a self-taught sculptor who works primarily with metal.  She began her artistic exploration after elective art courses at Guelph University, and has been learning ever since.  The selection of her medium was wonderfully influenced by her family’s career in metal fabrication.  The cultivation of perception and the spatial awareness in sculpture is a big personal draw. “Transforming a cold, dense and difficult material into a work that has beauty, life and energy gives me a sense of accomplishment and purpose.”

As an en plein air artist Margaret is drawn to the play of light and shadows. She enjoys immersing herself into the landscape to experience the sights and sounds that inspire her. She likes to add a touch of whimsy and playfullness of colour to her paintings using watercolors.

Hills Studio provides workshops throughout the year. Inspired by nature and her surrounding area in the Sunderland countryside, her sculptures include majestic herons, sweet sparrows, wise and other woodland creatures. “Being creative, many of my pieces also take on unique personalities, some with comical appearances and interesting textures. I incorporate natural materials such as vintage lace and, if possible, recyclable materials into my sculpting pieces. My popular fairies and feminine forms often have a very mystical appearance making them truly fascinating. They range in size from 10” tall right up to life-size,  making them ideal for gardens and also wonderful conversation starters-when sitting on table tops in homes“.

John Martin is a Mandala Artist and Plain Air Painter. He uses a variety of traditional and non-traditional media to create vivid pieces of art that he sells to raise money for the Canada-Ukraine Foundation Humanitarian Relief Fund..

Ray has a painting style that is a product of his long career in graphic design… a concern for shape and form, eye movement and spatial relationships. His medium of choice has been transparent watercolour.

You will be able to check out the various mulches that are available. Mulch will help
regulate the temperature of your plants, prevent soil erosion and improves soil
structure. All products have a rich, organic smell and won’t attract flies or ‘burn’ your
garden like fresh or even aged horse manure.

Brenda Near owner of Pollin’ Gardens will have Ontario native and near native plants, with a focus on drought tolerant prairie species for sale. Native plants best support pollinators and other insects as they have co-evolved with each other for millennia. Planting native plants is a way of gardening which cares for the earth and its creatures while still having beauty for ourselves. Brenda believes that when you create a garden as habitat you become an integral part of the natural world which is good for your health and mental wellbeing.

Katie Porter is a potter and emerging fused glass artist that produces functional pieces for everyday use. She has a studio at her farm in Uxbridge where she backs on the trails of the Durham Forest. she is heavily influenced by nature and her surroundings of the forest of Uxbridge as well as the water, rocks and skies of Georgian Bay. Katie has taken pottery course at the Haliburton School of Art and Avenue Road Art School; and presently takes clay classes from Susan Collett. She has begun taking fused glass and stained glass classes from Bonnie Thomson in Seagrave. Katie has donated four pieces which will be part of this year’s raffle which will be on display at Shobrook Gardens, one of the points of interest on the year’s garden tour.

Saundra Reiner, best known as a potter and painter, has always been a maker. She incorporated her creativity into her professional life working as a conservator of museum artifacts for a Toronto museum (24 years) while maintaining a pottery studio.  She has recently become interested in ceramic sculpture as well as the functional work she began with, and enjoys pushing the limits of the materials.” I strive to bring pleasure to the user of the functional and/or decorative pieces I make”. She is celebrating 30 years with the juried Uxbridge Studio Tour and been part of many studio tours, exhibitions, galleries and museum shops over that time, currently she is a resident artist at Scugog Arts Space Gallery, Port Perry.

Linda Virio is a painter working with wax and watercolour. Traditional watercolour, watercolour batik on rice paper, and encaustic are her media of choice. She is fascinated by the tactile nature of wax and how it interacts with pigment, collage, mark making and texture. Gardens and country landscapes are Linda’s favourite subjects.