Beautiful Gardens: Roy Morris, Upper Golden Grove, New Brunswick

One of the things that makes Roy’s gardens so spectacular is the borrowed scenery of beautiful New Brunswick.

Beautiful Gardens

Roy Morris Upper Golden Grove, New Brunswick Story by Shauna Dobbie, Photos by Roy Morris

way I look at things is, you can’t go wrong

“The

with green and beauty. So, I try to make the world a prettier place,” says Roy Morris. He’s on the phone, reflecting on the gardens he’s worked on in his 75 years. That would be gardens at the three houses he’s lived plus those of people he’s helped; he figures he’s put in over 100 ponds.

Roy started gardening when he bought his first house. He put some plants in, and a new passion was born. Over the years, he started landscaping for others on his days off; he worked in quality control at Irving Paper. “Every time I would tackle a project for somebody, it

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The sun setting behind the garden.

The front of Roy’s house.

Roy’s truck coming around the hydrangeas. He loves cars in addition to gardens.

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A view from the window.

A mass of tri-coloured willows.

Some peonies and a climbing hydrangea to take your

gave me another way to sharpen my landscape skill,” he says.

One of his biggest projects ever was at the home of the owner of a golf course. It involved putting in a 150-foot stream, and the owner had plans drawn up by a landscape architect. The project took two months and Roy had a team of five to resituate huge boulders and build the stream. But working from an architect’s plans is not how he does things.

“For two days I tried to work off the blueprints, and I went to him and said, look, you can keep the blueprints, I know what I’m doing.” And he did know. The landscape turned out beautiful.

I ask in an offhand way about how much a project like that would cost.

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breath away.Is it nature or is it Roy?

A burbling fountain.

Hydrangeas bloom with abandon next to Roy’s house.

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Blue chairs in the fall. The flowers are hanging on to the last of the season.

Echinacea.

A gravel path between the hostas and daylilies.

He’s not telling. He says a regular pond would cost about the same as a week down south, but this project was more like six months in China.

A man of many interests, Roy is also a photographer. Gardening and photography have several things in common, including seeing where a minor change can result in a massive improvement. What’s more, he tells me, “I find photography teaches you how to see.”

Where he makes his home now is about an acre and a half, all cultivated. “Oh yeah, I used to keep busy,” he says. “People say it’s a lot of work, but it isn’t work to me. My way of relaxing was to go out and

put a plant in.”

He used to give garden lectures to horticulture clubs. Today, though, he spends more time on another hobby; he’s also a car enthusiast. Most days he gathers at a coffee shop with other car nuts to gab. But he finds time to spend on Facebook groups posting breath-taking pictures of his garden and the environs of New Brunswick.

“I just find I enjoy life better by finding beauty around me. It sounds kind of hokey, but that’s just how I see it.”

Hokey? It doesn’t sound hokey at all, Roy. It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. C

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Roy is a hosta-holic. He collected specimens and has photographed them at different stages.

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