Author: info@gardensofuxbridge.org

The warmer weather is just around the corner and one of the most enchanting to-dos on my spring checklist is to save the date for the Gardens of Uxbridge garden tour. For more than 25 years it has remained one of my favourite events of the gardening season.

This garden tour has grown into one of the largest countryside garden tours near the greater Toronto area. Each June, eight private residential gardens are featured. The self-driving tour makes for a great day of touring the small heritage town of Uxbridge and the rolling countryside that is Uxbridge Township. Situated north of Pickering and east of York Region, it is an easy area to find and explore.

This year  marks the 29^th year of the garden tour and it seems fitting that this year’s tour will have feature gardens with a wealth of history and stories to tell. The tour date is on Saturday, June 21 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A good garden tour can offer inspiration to home gardeners, and this one is full of interesting plants and unique properties. There are always good garden design lessons to be had. You might take note of how to make a beautiful environment on a tiny urban lot, how to create a native plant habitat, what plants to use in a shade garden or which ones to choose for all-season bloom.

There are a variety of gardens on the Uxbridge tour ranging from a foundation garden incorporating nesting, glass art, and a trough garden, to an orchestrated arboretum surrounding an idyllic country home.  There are woodland shade gardens, peony gardens, rose gardens, native plant gardens, bulb gardens, vegetable gardens and more. Garden decor ideas run the gamut from metal and fabric sculptures to exquisite stone ornamentation and woodworks.

Fabulous volunteers will be stationed in each garden to answer questions about the tour, the plants and design features. You can stroll around the 8 gardens at your own pace and set your own route for a customized day in the country.

Visit the Gardens of Uxbridge website Tickets page to purchase online tickets which go on sale May 1^st ~ just in time for Mother’s Day!

The website has more information and is updated as the tour approaches.

Tickets are $25 per person (plus processing fee)
Children under 12 accompanied by an adult are free.

Happy Spring!

Only 5 more days to get your garden tour tickets for the 2024 edition of the Gardens of Uxbridge Tour.

Don’t miss this fun day’s drive around the countryside of Uxbridge Township. Located less than an hour northeast of the GTA, this garden tour gives you a look behind the garden gate of 8 private gardens. The tour happens for one day from 10am to 5pm on Saturday, June 15th.

Almost every garden also features a guest artist or artisan, who often specializes in garden art, as well as plein air painters who ‘live’ paint in the gardens throughout the day. Artwork is for sale.

The Leaskdale Church, part of the Lucy Maud Montgomery national historic site, will also be serving tea and scones until 3pm as refreshments for garden tour participants.

This year there are 3 ticket options to choose from:

~ Garden Tour ticket – access to 8 gardens $25 per person

~ Garden Tour + Native Plants Book Talk by guest author, including afternoon high tea at the historic Leaskdale Church, a native plant sale, and a discount off the book price. $50 per person

~ Native Plants Book Talk at 4pm by guest author, including afternoon high tea at the historic Leaskdale Church, a native plant sale, and a discount off the book price. $25 per person

Tickets are purchased online through the website at www.gardensofuxbridge.org. Visit our Tickets page to buy. Processing fees are additional.

The tour includes both town and countryside garden properties and will take approximately 3-4 hours of leisurely driving and strolling to complete. There is time to also visit the Church garden and to stop at a local restaurant, garden centre, or attraction along the way. See the suggestions in the tour passport.

Your ticket includes a wristband (for garden entry) and a Passport & Map complete with full descriptions of the gardens, artists, and points of interest. The Map provides a suggested route to follow and the roads are signed with garden tour directional signs should you choose to follow the suggested circle route from Uxbridge.

The wristband and Passport & Map are picked up at your first stop of the day – the Uxbridge Arena – where our Welcome Centre volunteers greet you at your car. This drive-thru check in means you don’t even need to leave your vehicle! We want you to have all the time you want to visit the gardens.

Saturday’s weather forecast is beautiful! So come on out to see the gardens and enjoy the early summer sunshine!

Reprint of The Standard Port Perry article; written by Brian Case

A Maudern Garden Tour

“This evening I spent gardening. Our lawn is green and blossomy. The sunset was exquisite behind the big maple trees…. A peace …seemed to possess me. (Leaskdale, May 22, 1922). “I have rows upon rows of delightful possibilities-corn, cucumbers, poppies, gypsophila, peas, asters, gladioli, beans, sweet peas, parsnips, sweet sultans, radishes, balsams, zinnias, beets, carrots, pansies, egg plant, parsley, nasturtiums, watermelons, lettuce, onions, cabbages, cauliflowers and tomatoes. I prowl about weeding, watering, transplanting” (June 10, 1924). “I wish I could stay outdoors all summer” (July 6, 1933).

            Lucy Maud Montgomery might have made those remarks at this year’s Uxbridge Garden Tour, having already created her own ‘tour’ over one hundred years ago, in Leaskdale!

            For Maud, the benefits of gardening were many: visual- her ‘little starry jonquils’; sensorial- ‘the air was full of the perfume of my white narcissus’; and spiritual- ‘my flowers of quiet happiness’. She worked for many hours to restore the gardens around the Manse and, in late May, 1912’ she wrote “we have… a garden that is said to be the best in the village”. Her favourite season of the year was Spring, ‘with its promise of new growth’.

            Maud was always happy to display her cut flowers in the Manse. White and pink trilliums, long stemmed blue violets or many-coloured gladioli filled her home with colour throughout the summer months. And marigolds! How she loved to combine them with lupins to brighten her parlour. She often worked to maintain her geraniums over the winter months too.

            Many times in her diaries however, Maud expressed disappointment or annoyance when Mother Nature wouldn’t co-operate with her gardening dreams. “I have simply got out of patience with these Ontario thunderstorms”, she wrote when a river of mud had washed out her entire flowerbed (June 7, 1923). She lamented that all her hard work was ‘for naught’ after the month of July 1931 provided no rain. And she complained that the October frosts always took away all ‘the delight and comfort’ that her gardening had given her.

            You can take your own ‘garden tour’ through many of L.M.Montgomery’s novels. ‘Anne’s House of Dreams’, ‘Rainbow Valley’, ‘Rilla of Ingleside’ and ‘Anne of Avonlea’ reflect many of her gardening interests and practices throughout her Leaskdale years! The new mother worked long hours to restore the neglected grounds around the Manse. Her gardens made her feel ‘besottedly happy’ (May, 1923). They surely would have been one visitor destination, had our current June Garden Tour been established then!

Gardens of Uxbridge Tour – Saturday, June 15th, 2024 10am-5pm. Tickets $25

Special ticket: $50 includes the full tour plus High Tea, native plant sale, gardening book author talk, signing, and book sale.

Online ticket purchases for the 2024 Gardens of Uxbridge Tour begin on April 22nd.

Reserve early and ticket purchasers will be automatically entered for the early bird prize basket! Draw will be held on June 1st. All orders processed by May 31 will be eligible.

Tickets must be purchased online in advance of the tour. Children under 12 are admitted for free. Each ticket provides a one-time admission to each of the gardens on the tour.  

NEW! This year 2 ticket options are available:

• Standard Garden Tour Tickets are $25 per person (plus processing fees).

• Upgrade your garden tour experience with our Tour + Event ticket
  • Includes the full garden tour plus High Tea & a special guest author event at the historic Leaskdale Church.
  • This special tour ticket is $50 (plus processing fees) and must be purchased online in advance of the event.
  • The author talk begins at 4PM on June 15 and is followed by High Tea, a special book signing & sale, and a native plant sale.
  • Limited capacity of 50 tickets.
• Guest Author Talk: Learn what a native plant is and why it’s more important than ever to grow them in our gardens from Rick Gray, co-author of the new Globe & Mail bestselling book The Gardener’s Guide to Native Plants of the Southern Great Lakes Region. Discover how an eco-friendly garden of native plants can benefit us all, from food and the environment to birds and pollinators. 

To Purchase Tickets: 

Purchase your tickets using the link  here  beginning  on April 22, 2024.  Tickets will be on sale while quantities last and garden capacity permits.