Beautiful Gardens: Martha Bartels, Kingston, Ontario

from Canada's Local Gardener Volume 1 Issue 2

by PegasusPublicationsInc

Beautiful gardens: Willy Klassen, Portage La Prairie, Manitoba

A view of the front yard bed.

Martha Bartels.

Beautiful Gardens

She just started out with a little

strip of a garden in this house and the whole thing grew from there. Martha Bartels’ garden has been shaped over the years to become an award-winning showplace of colour and bloom for the neighbourhood.

Her father helped her a lot in the early days. The family was from Holland—Martha was eight years old

Martha Bartels

Kingston, ontario story and photos by shauna dobbie

when they moved to Canada—and her father was a gardening devotee. Aside from loving flowers, she found it therapeutic. “I had problems in my marriage and when I separated, so I just would go out and start digging in the garden,” she says, adding that she finds it as therapeutic now as she did then.

She spends four or five hours per

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A full view of the back yard.

A cheery way to draw your eye from a rain barrel.

day in the garden, making things impeccable. Her favourite activities are transplanting and moving things around: “I’m always fiddling around in the garden making things look just perfect,” she says.

She is less fond of raking in the fall. It’s hard on her back. But she cannot understand the current trend of folks not raking their yards: “They’re going

to have no grass by next year!”

This past fall she had bit of a scare when she collapsed behind her barber’s chair in her hairdressing studio downstairs. Doctors put stents in and she decided to finally retire from hairdressing, but she still got the leaves raked into bags for the city to pick up. The garden is decorated with ornaments from years of visiting garage

Chinese globeflower.

sales and enjoying birthday gifts. “I just think that’ll look nice here and that’ll look nice there,” she explains. Her favourite is the Dutch couple, given to her by her children when they were small.

Favourite flowers are harder to choose. “I have a lot of different plants, so when certain ones are at their best, I’ll say, yeah, that’s my favourite. In

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A fairy garden for larger fairies.

Is the owl guarding the hostas or are they guarding him?

the next month, another will be my favorite. I can’t really say that there’s one certain flower,” she says.

Spring is her favourite time of year. “I love to see things coming alive and going out there every day and see things popping up. The daffodils first thing. It’s just amazing to see things actually come through the snow and the frozen earth, and things come alive again through the soil.” i

To rake or not to rake

A corner of the garden before it bursts into bloom.

This cream and green hosta needs no flowers to make a statement.

Should you rake the leaves from your lawn? That depends. There are arguments both for and against.

The arguments for leaving the leaves are that beneficial insects use the leaves for winter homes and food. Leaving the leaves is more natural and takes no time or effort. And if there are only a few, they will break down over the winter and feed your lawn.

The arguments for raking the leaves are that non-beneficial insects, mice and voles will use the leaves for winter homes and food. If you have many deciduous trees, the leaves can form a thick mat over the lawn, preventing sunlight from reaching it in the fall and spring. Fallen leaves can clog drains and they are a slipping hazard when wet. They can also encourage snow mold.

As with everything in gardening, you have to make your choices.

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Garden ornaments novelties among the flowers make a garden come alive in a different, more enchanted way.