The month of November featured a well-attended volunteer review, reflecting on the achievements of the 2025 season and setting our sights on the opportunities ahead in 2026. Over the course of 2025, an impressive total of 101 volunteers dedicated their time and skills to a variety of roles. These included hands-on work under team leadership, as well as contributions to technical support, promotions, workshops, event planning, and many other essential activities.

Thanks to this collective effort, the Gardens benefitted from more than 9,000 hours of volunteer energy during the season, demonstrating the remarkable commitment and passion of our community.

To build on this success, a Volunteer Open House and recruitment event will be held at the George Ryga Centre in Summerland on February 28^th 2026. We look forward to welcoming back our dedicated volunteers and are eager to meet new individuals interested in joining our efforts. Please consider bringing a friend and mark your calendars. More information will be shared in the new year.

 

Winter has arrived (as mild as it has been) and the gardens have entered a dormant stage.  We had a very good 2025 season and the garden beds all looked colourful and inviting.  As many of you know I walk the gardens daily from May through October so I’m very aware of the seasonal changes.  This year I felt we had lots of colour and growth through the spring, summer and fall.  Spring we saw a much larger planting of bulbs, June brought us amazing rose blossoms in our three main rose beds, summer saw our annuals flourish along with our perennials.  The beds along the great and pondorosa lawns, the pollinator bed and the butterfly and xeriscape beds all looked amazing. The fall brought stunning colours and surprisingly our roses had a wonderful second bloom.   The vegetable beds produced a goodly amount of produce for the food-bank. Our fairy garden village expanded greatly over the season, and a new little subdivision appeared.  I wish I knew the individual caring for it so we could thank them.  The gardeners and volunteers can look back at the 2025 season with pride.

 

This season along side of the major irrigation upgrade happening at the research centre we were fortunate to have them assist us with upgrading several areas of the Gardens.  Our own irrigation volunteers continue to increase the amount of micro irrigation we use in the garden beds.  Our spring and fall plant sales were both successful and continue to provide vital funding for our staff.  Our workshops were all well attended and we have begun to plan next years schedule.  Together with the Summerland Community Gardens we coordinated a highly successful “Gardens and Beyond” Community Garden tour in Summerland.  We are thankful for those who coordinated the event and the people who opened their sites to the public, those who took part experienced some amazing and diverse gardens.  We held two successful art and music events and hosted several organized tours.  Mark your calendars for a special Rose Festival on Saturday June 20th.  Our other event dates will be published in our 2026 newsletters and in our web calendar available on our website in February.

 

My thanks to all our volunteers, our gardeners, our very dedicated board members, our generous donors, and the staff at the Summerland Research and Development Centre who assist us in keeping the gardens growing.  May your Christmas season be merry and the New Year be kind to you.