Hops and Hedges Podcast on Spotify with your Host - Heather Jerrard from My Landscape Artist
Original air date: Jan 31, 2024
Listen on Spotify and FOLLOW here: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/pC7OVVTQrQb
Description
In this episode of Hops and Hedges, Heather Jerrard interviews Darren Heimbecker, the owner of Whistling Gardens, discussing his journey in horticulture, the unique features of his garden, including an aviary, and his passion for conifers. They also touch on local breweries, gardening challenges, and advice for aspiring gardeners, all while sharing personal anecdotes and insights into the world of gardening.
Takeaways
Whistling Gardens has been a lifelong dream for Darren.
The aviary at Whistling Gardens houses around 65-70 birds.
Darren enjoys experimenting with different types of beer.
There are 1200 varieties of conifers at Whistling Gardens.
Traveling to Newfoundland has inspired Darren's gardening.
Gardening can be challenging, especially with changing climates.
Darren prefers battery-operated gardening tools for efficiency.
Whistling Gardens sees peak visitation during peony season.
Starting a greenhouse requires serious commitment and dedication.
The House of Bows is a recommended book for garden design inspiration.
Transcript
BE ADVISED this transcript was created using the podcast publishing software and certain spelling or grammatical errors may be present.
Heather Jerrard (00:00.158)
Excellent. There you go. And we are recording. Darren, how are you doing? Doing good. You see my body? I can't. Oh, there he is. There's Lego. Oh, he looks sleepy. Yeah. Oh, thanks so much for coming on the show. This is such a crazy thing. Doing podcasts to kind of something I've been thinking about for a while. And I thought, man, I got to get Darren from Whistling Gardens on here. So.
Thanks for coming out. Here we are. You're getting lots of snow, I imagine, there where you are too. Yeah, a little bit more than where I was north of here yesterday. So yeah, there's a bit on the ground. Yep. Holy smokes. So Darren, for those who are listening, so when this episode will be posting, I think in two or three weeks, I'm not sure. I've got them all lined up to be released every week, every Wednesday.
But could you just explain, so you are the owner of Whistling Gardens, one of the most magical places in Ontario, if you ask me. And you are also my first co-op. So personally, I got a chance to actually live there and work with you, but you've been doing this for over 20 years. So can you tell us about how the heck you got on this crazy thing that is Whistling Gardens?
Oh, it was just a good idea at the time, Heather. That's my go-to favorite statement anymore. I like that. No, it's been an idea I've had since I was probably a little kid. I was heavily influenced by my grandparents. They're both avid gardeners and yeah, it's stuck because here I am. I'm still gardening. Just not so much today. Yeah, not so much today. Yeah, me neither. I always feel kind of.
useless in the winter because I want to be out there digging and planting and pruning and starting seeds and I can't really do that. No, I've been actually doing cuttings and seeds so at least I'm getting something done and pruning. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, because you've got a... You have a heated hoop house still, don't you? Yep. So all the birds that are in the gardens are in there now.
Heather Jerrard (02:24.854)
on one end and I'm at the other end where I'm working, yeah, whatever days of the week I need to really, because like I say, I'm just sticking some cuttings now, winter cuttings, putting in seed, and I'm actually starting to graft trees again in a few weeks, so I'm not ready to go. So lots of things are always on the go. There's no end to it. Holy smokes. And so for anybody who hasn't been,
to Whistling Gardens before, number one, do it. Just make sure you do it. But you have an aviary there. And so how many birds do you have there now? Oh, currently there's about 65, maybe 70 birds. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. Some of them in the spring are destined to be going to other homes. Yep. As you know, or things start to
populate themselves in the spring. So, I have a few young ones that I kind of want to let them have a, you know, a new place to live. Okay. Very cool. And I don't, I don't like to have many more than that. That's, that's enough. That's a lot of birds. Yes, it is. So, and then you've got, you have a swan.
Yes Brutus is in the Marriott too right now. Brutus oh my god the Marriott is that what you call the heated hoop house? Yeah that's hilarious oh my gosh the Marriott oh that's so funny um yeah Lego helped me get him yep yes so that was a good job took us about 15 minutes to round him up that's pretty impressive yeah I'm pretty excited
Because normally he knows that he wants to hurt him, chase him around a bit, but he knows he's not allowed to do that except for one week of the year. Yep. And he's like, okay, let me at him. I got this dad. Stand back and watch. Yep. Too funny. I remember something too about you starting. I remember you telling me about, cause you were working at another nursery, right? Yes, I was working in Lynden, Ontario.
Heather Jerrard (04:50.202)
Yeah, it was working back and forth. While working both jobs, traveling back and forth every day. It was a tough one. Yeah. I don't want to revisit that kind of situation anymore. Right. But you started bringing back your own plants, right? Yeah, I already had a menagerie of plants to begin with. Yeah.
Just like other plant fanciers, I was collecting plants at different garden centers and nurseries and online back when that was really new, 20 years ago. Yeah. And yeah, they all had to come here. And eventually I had to wait till the lease of the land was done and then I could start designing and planting gardens. Man, that is so cool. Still, yes, when you were there this past fall,
I've been revamping the picnic area. Just to give you an idea of how fast these trees are growing, I just cut down a 57 foot maple tree and it's only 12 years old. Man. It's a lot of firewood. It is a lot. Holy smokes. I swear there's something magical about that place and between the place, the soil and you've got probably one of the best green thumbs out there because everything there just grows.
Well, except the other plant that I gifted you. It was quick to die, but. No, it lasted a couple of years and I'm actually going to try it. Yeah. It's just, um, I'm actually going to order some more because I think, I think we had pretty much the right spot, just not quite enough sun now after so many years that the place is really growing up. Yeah. All these little micro climates and the wind can't get in there like it used to. So.
Even on the most brutal days, it's generally not too bad to be in the gardens. Yep. Wow. And how many acres is it again? Well, the grounds are 22 acres. That includes water and buildings and everything else, but yeah, geographically speaking, it's 22 acres. Wow. And it was cornfield, is that right? All corn and soybean. Holy smokes. And just to...
Heather Jerrard (07:12.402)
A podcast can't really do it justice, you gotta go. You can't, pictures aren't gonna do it justice, you gotta go. So yeah, just whistling gardens.ca there's being stuff added to it actually now. And it'll be added throughout the winter. So Wilsonville for those who don't know is in between, I always explain to people that it's in between Brantford and Simcoe, also known as the middle of nowhere.
Heather Jerrard (07:42.078)
or center of the universe. That's what the locals say. That's what the locals say in Wilsonville, center of the universe. I like that. So before we get into more talking about plants and stuff, because I'm really excited to talk to you about plants, let's talk about the good stuff, which is beer. I don't know if it's too early for you or not. It's not too early for me. Well, what's the beer you're drinking? What is the one you like? I don't have anything right now. That's okay, I do. So I won't leave people hanging, but.
Oh, good for you. No, I can't play stuff work to do today. Yeah. So yeah, I generally drink German imports and Austrian imports, Polish imports. I like those beers and yeah, I like experimenting and trying different ones for sure. So there's a couple of little breweries, like micro breweries around us and I'm always interested in.
Not just sampling, I've been checking them out. And actually this summer, if all goes well, we might actually have a beer fest here in the gardens. Oh man, I would so be there. Yeah, so all the local breweries would be here and set up and you could purchase their products and try them out. Very cool. We're hoping that's gonna fly this summer. It would probably be in September, I guess. Excellent.
Yeah, so just stay tuned. Social media and website details will be forthcoming if that really does get solidified. So it'd be kind of nice. It looks like there'd be about eight or nine breweries that would come in and stuff. That is so cool. And has Whistlin Gardens ever had a beer?
Like, you know, when you work with a local brewery and they can create something and they call it, you know, Whistling Gardens or? No, no. The brewery, wow. That's hard to say. He's got a drinkin'. But brewery though, is in Waterford, is the one we work with and they're called Wishbone. Wishbone, very cool. They've got quite a few different brands or labels now that they're working on. They're quite popular.
Heather Jerrard (09:50.43)
What's the one I'm trying to think, cause whenever I drive out to Whistling Gardens, we usually make a day of it, right? So me and all my girlfriends, we hop in one of our cars and we come down, go to Whistling Gardens. We would visit Bonnie Heath. I don't know if Bonnie Heath is still open. Yes, she is. It's just new ownership, right? Just new ownership. Yeah, so it's a lavender farm there and they've got wineries. You can be out in the lavender fields having a glass of wine, which is great. And then the other place, there's like a little brewery that's in an old elementary school.
in Norfolk? Do you know which place that is? I'm going to have to look it up to find out what it is. Such a cool little place though. I can't remember that one. I don't know what that one is actually Heather. Okay. Yeah. I think it's closer to Simcoe, but it's, um, oh, I wish I could remember what it's called. Friend of mine told me about it and it is a really cool place because it's an old elementary school and they've converted it to a brewery. So that was pretty cool. Yeah. Way better than school.
We don't need to have education. We just need beer. He he. Too funny. Yeah, well, and I'm drinking one of Flying Monkey's more famous ones, Juicy Ass. I don't even know if I can say ass on the podcast, but I just did, so heads up. Hopefully. Beep. I gotta figure out how to do that. Berry hazy, hoppy, juicy. Love it. Flying Monkey's out of Berry. So that's it for me. It's five o'clock somewhere.
So when we were, or in the questionnaire that I sent you, you mentioned that, you know, favorite place to be is at home. The conifer garden is extraordinary at Whistlin Gardens. And I mean, you're passionate about conifers. That's your favorite group of plantings, but how many conifers are in this conifer garden at Whistlin Gardens now? Do you have an approximate number? I don't have an exact number for the actual garden because it's always being changed.
but on the grounds, there's 1200 different varieties and species and hybrids there. I've actually been whittling away out of the little bit because we're making room for other plants. Yep. And just with the changing climate and how things seem to be behaving for longer periods of time in terms of humidity or these stretches of heat or drought, it's starting to affect certain species of plants.
Heather Jerrard (12:12.09)
I've been slowly but surely liquidating certain species in the collection. And now I'm replacing them with not necessarily another conifer, it could be a Japanese maple or dogwoods or peonies, something to that effect. So that's kind of what I've been shifting to. I've been watching it for a while and I was at a conference in the fall, there was other people in the Midwest states are also kind of saying similar things I've been witnessing.
And I feel that trend is going to continue. So I just have to, it might help actually in some regards, help with the zones that I can plant things that I've always had a slight challenge with. Right. Certain varieties of Japanese maples can be a bit tender and river dendrons, we're putting some more rotos in the ground with different species of azaleas. And who knows, maybe that will be something I gravitate towards a bit more just because
other things are not having as much fun in this climate as they used to. Right. One that comes to mind is the Psiadoponus, the Japanese Umbrella Pine, I think is the common name for it. Because you've got one at Whistling Gardens that's been there for a while. I've got a few of them. I've got a golden one. I've got a couple dwarf types. I've got a very narrow conical one. And yeah, I'm always adding a few different ones.
and they seem to do very well for the gardens. I never see them burn or any adverse effects on them. Yeah. Cause that's one I'd love to have in my own garden, but I'm scared to. It's a bit of an investment and it's beautiful, but I find that, I don't know, I'm worried about overwintering them. I think they're tougher than people give them credit for. Yeah? Really do. I know they're expensive. They take, they're so difficult to propagate. They take...
quite a long time to get established to a sellable plant. There's only a few people that actually will put the time and energy into doing that. And I actually don't know any nursery in Canada that's actively propagating them. There are American nurseries. Yeah, they're usually brought up. You have to contend with the exchange rate on the dollar as well, as it being a fairly expensive plant. Okay, well, I might have to add that to my Whistling Garden shopping cart this year. Every year I usually get myself
Heather Jerrard (14:34.99)
treat. I go to Whistling Gardens, it's like, okay, what can fit in the Honda Civic today? Yes. And I mean, I've brought home the... Oh my gosh, I'm totally skipping on what that is, but the white spruce, the pendula. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yep. I've got that guy at Whistling Gardens. And this past year, I invested in a silver lock, the Korean fur.
Yes. So, I've got my little collection started on my, I don't even, like one quarter of an acre property. It's probably not even that big. But you also said you like to vacation to Newfoundland or Newfoundland. Yeah, I was there this summer. I love it there. I've been three times. I would go 300 more times. I really enjoy it.
I just love to live. Do you have family out there? Why Newfoundland? Was it just on a whim one day or do you have a connection out there? I worked out there about nine years ago. I was at a conference out there about 10 years ago and then a friend of mine and myself, we decided let's just go. So we drove all through Quebec, all through Laradore, took the ferry over to Newfoundland, drove all through Newfoundland back and forth, took the ferry to Nova Scotia.
I just love the landscape. I love the people. I love the plants that are there. I just really enjoy how rugged it is. I like that. And so much hiking. I love hiking. My dog and I, we love that. That's our weekend to ourselves. That's the boys' weekend out. Yeah, we go somewhere and we just camp out and we go hiking. I love that. I haven't been to the East Coast yet. We did the RV trip.
I think two or three years ago now, we took the RV out, the same group of ladies that comes out to Whistling Gardens. We all rented an RV and drove out to BC and then flew home. And so our next one, we're planning to do the East coast. So we'll see how far we can get because certain places you're actually not allowed to drive an RV like Montreal. I think it was Montreal that was on the list that it is an RV free city.
Heather Jerrard (16:57.59)
Well, you can always just go around it. I forget the name of the road, but just before you get into Montreal, you can take the highway and you can, it's a bypass of the city. Okay. And it's full of RVs, absolutely full of them. Okay, it's possible, it's doable then, there's hope. Yeah, I would just have to look on the map quickly. I just remember right near a gas station where we tend to fill up and we grab something to eat and then we get...
right away onto the exit to that highway and we just completely bypassed Montreal. I just can't remember the darn name of it. It starts with B. Starts with B. Excellent. I will have to look that up. There's only like 700 roads in the greater area of Montreal that start with B. Start with a B, but we'll find it. We'll find it. I just need the maps. Yep. That's us too, right? On Questionnaire 2, you said that you do have a favorite house plant.
and or one that you can't seem to keep alive? Oh, the old Jade Plant. The first question. What's that? The Jade Plant. Jade Plant, is that the one that you just can't keep alive? Or is that your favorite? Obviously, that poor thing has been so terribly neglected for 20 years, I don't know why it's still alive, however it is. We actually almost decided to repot it a couple weeks ago and then the ground froze up. Ah. It's sweet.
You may have to wait till spring. Yeah. And so Jade plant, that's an indoor plant. Oh, you just don't want to go outside to, oh, because the- Yeah, yeah, all the potting soil's there, I went on the table and I was a bit late getting to it. I could take it to the greenhouse when we're about to repot it. Yep. Okay. And so what about a plant, maybe not even a house plant, but out of the acres and acres of gardens that you have, do you have a plant that you just can't seem to get to work?
Do you have a nemesis? A plant?
Heather Jerrard (19:00.214)
Uh, I'd say half the perennials we plant are my nemesis. Okay.
I'm not sure off the top of my head, to be honest, I have reasonable success, but before I purchased stuff, because it is getting more expensive all the time, to do a bit more research on it just to see, well, what's the odds? And plus in the beginning, when I first started all this, I still had to learn what that land was all about because certain areas were pretty wet. Some are a little high in pH.
just perfectly balanced. I got a pretty good handle on it now. So I don't know, Heather, we got pretty good luck with just about everything that we attempt. It's just certain perennials because I don't feel like fussing over a little plant. I mean- Right, yeah, you're like me, or I should say I'm like you because I probably learned it from Whistling Gardens. You stick it in the ground, you give it one watering and then you give it a firm talking to, and you say, listen, live or die, it's up to you. Get your two choices, you know, take your pick.
Too bad, so sad if you take the ladder pick. There you go. You're all replaceable. We're all replaceable. And you know what's happening in the industry more and more, there's so many new releases of everything. So if something doesn't wanna work for me, I'm not too necessarily upset about it. We just move on. There's lots of choices out there nowadays. I think a lot of us gardeners can take some advice from that
for me that I'm cursing the plant because it doesn't survive winter or it attracts tons of pests and it gets eaten and then it dies and I like that. Just move on. Just move on. Get another plant. Just get another plant. Yeah, I try not to be too attached to anything anymore. I'm not quite the same tree hugger I used to be. If you're old and ugly, out you go. And if you're kind of ratty and you just don't feel happy all the time, out you go. I've kind of lost my patience with certain things.
Heather Jerrard (21:05.806)
And it's also with the understanding that I truly believe there's a trend happening right now where the climate is behaving in a way that not all plants are really conducive to that change. They're not adapting as quickly. As quickly as the climate is changing, right? Correct. So I remember the year that I worked at Whistling Gardens and lived there, seeing the foxtail lilies.
and I have never seen them before or since anywhere else. And to me, that was such a magical plant. I know that's a tough one. I think you told me they have like a 50% success rate. So if you want 12, you don't part 50. They're definitely finicky.
Heather Jerrard (21:57.346)
Honestly, I think I know if I wanted to put the energy and time into it, I think I know how to keep them going successfully year after year. But after two seasons, they tend to just peter out and that's the end of them. Right. That's getting on the border of having a fancy annual. Yep, it's a little fancy. It's a little fancy, a little expensive to keep. I mean, so much time and so much money to have to maintain them. But because they don't like wet feet, right? So if they get a little bit too wet, like they're done for.
Yeah, and too dry. They don't like it either. They will not make new pups and get ready for putting up other stems in the future. So you can't have the two extremes. It needs to be really in a situation where either you're going to put the time and energy into it to give it what it really wants or maybe just take a picture and put it on your desktop and your computer and admire it that way. I like that. I think that's what I will have to do.
Um, uh, something else too. So we, I was, I was like asking people about their favorite pieces of equipment. So what's yours out in the garden? What's your favorite piece of equipment? My golf cart. Now does that have a name? I mean, if the heated hoop house is the Marriott, you've got to have a name for the golf cart. No, I don't. I don't. Um, sometimes we call it the Gator, but now.
I seriously though, I've kind of gotten away from almost all motorized equipment. Everything switching into batteries. Yep. I have, I happen just to go towards DeWalt myself because I have a friend who's a dealer of it and it just makes life convenient for me. Yep. If I need a product that isn't typically stocked, he can order it in for me. And I like it. The batteries are all compatible with each other. They're quiet.
that allows us to keep working in the gardens during open times without making all this noise. Right. And they're generally lighter, which my elbows are very thankful for. So pole pruners, chainsaws, pole pruners with hedge trimmers on them, lawn edgers, all these are done with battery operated tools now. Wow. I like them. And we've got blowers, big blowers now.
Heather Jerrard (24:24.822)
That's just the latest thing I picked up a couple of weeks ago, which is good for keeping snow off of your poly houses. So I don't have to go up there with a snow shovel and try to get it all off if it starts to drift. Just use the big heavy duty blower and blow it all off the houses. And it's good for leaves. It's good for the staircases where the fountains are, keeping everything nice and clean. And you guys are a no-till garden as well. Generally no.
Right. And you don't use mulch. Yeah, we do. We do actually use quite a bit now. Do you? Um, so when I first moved to the gardens, I didn't really want to use mulch too much because I noticed right away when we were planting out, especially perennials or small plants, whether it was a tree shrub, something like this, the voles would come in and they would just girdle them. The perennials would be totally gone. And a lot of the young little trees would be girdled and then, wow, you rip it out and you start all over again.
Over the years, I've noticed that when you build it, they will come and that includes predators. So we have different species of owls here. We have hawks here. We have minks here. We have weasels. All coyotes are out there. Foxes are out there. And so they help keep that population under control. And it really has allowed me to start mulching gardens, which does save a lot, a lot of time maintenance-wise with helping and weeding, that kind of thing.
Holy smokes. Yeah, it's a, that's a lot of acreage to be out there pulling weeds. It sure is. You know, I, I often think when, uh, if I'm talking with a client or a friend or whoever, and they talk about weeding their front garden, you know, and it's just so much work and it's, you know, and I just look at them like, that's not weeding, honey. That's sweet. Yeah. But that's not weeding. We'd be done in a dozen minutes.
Yeah. Oh man. And so you guys, you start bright and early, 7.30, which is actually not very early. I'm kind of surprised. I thought you guys would be out there a lot earlier, but you guys are often out there late. True. 7.30, that gives us two and a half hours to kind of do the chores we need to do before we
Heather Jerrard (26:53.978)
I'm always stuck in the office for a while in the morning. I usually start at about quarter to seven, 6.30 in the morning, but it's on the computer. There's emails, tech messages, phone calls, all that good stuff when it comes to running a business. So I actually don't garden year as much as I used to. I do have a volunteer that comes in and she comes in on Wednesdays and I try to have a Wednesday as my gardening day of the week.
where I'm actually gardening. Nice. It's just challenging. There's so many things on the go all the time. I don't really get to play with plants as much as I used to. Right. It's almost like nobody told us that starting a business, there's actually business stuff that we have to do. Like, but I just want to garden and be with the plants. Oh, but there's emails and there's text messages and you do speaking engagements too.
Right? So you're all over doing that, both virtual and in person. What's the farthest you've ever gone for a talk? I just did one in Victoria. So I was at Bouchard Gardens and I did a big talk there at a conference. No way! Yes. Oh my gosh, that's so awesome. Uh, all the gardens from around the world, uh, had to hear what I was doing with my life. Heck yeah. Well, congrats. That's awesome.
Yeah, Longwood Gardens was there and Kew Gardens was there and Atlanta Botanical Gardens. The Bay from Singapore was there. So it was a big conference. It was awesome. That sounds awesome. And so when you're, I'm kind of jumping all over the place here, but that's how my brain works. I get all excited. But so when you're open to the public, how many, how many people or what?
What's generally the volume of people that come through? Do you have an idea? Yeah, so peony season is definitely our peak period of visitation, no doubt about it. When you have 1200 different kinds of peonies there, the word gets out and people come from everywhere. Yep. We can have a few hundred a day. Depends on weather, of course. Yep. But generally that's our peak time for about six weeks.
Heather Jerrard (29:14.122)
Our first peony bloomed already at the end of April last year. So this year I'll be curious to see when she opens up this year. She's always within five or six days every single year. Interesting. And actually the last couple of peonies that open up for the season are almost always the same ones too, they're just late. Um, but generally the first 10 days of June is peak time for a lot of buses, tour groups coming in. Yep. And, and then the next big, big period of time now is our
Festival of Fountains. Which is so cool, because you have the water show, but you've got all the lights. So you can do the night shows now. Yeah, we do the night shows, and it's not just lights. There's fiber optics. There's lasers. We experimented with smoke machines. And in 2025, if all goes well, we'll have video incorporated with the whole show as well. Oh, wow.
It's just crazy to me how quick things have changed. I mean, it's a 20 year old garden. I came in, I mean, I was working there 10 years ago now. I can't believe it was that long ago. Holy smokes. Yeah, 2015. So 2014, holy. But yeah, you were just talking about doing the lights and the fiber optic, like fiber optics then, and now you actually have it. So I've seen...
Whistling Gardens personally in all four seasons now, even winter, because you gave Angela and I a private tour when it wasn't open to the public. So thanks for that. That was really cool to walk through Whistling Gardens. Everything was covered in snow just to see the bones of the place in the middle of winter. But I have not seen the night show. Yeah. You'll have to see it this summer. Yeah. Because it usually sells out. Yeah. We had many, many nights that were sold out. So it's becoming quite popular.
Heather Jerrard (31:12.934)
Yeah, there's nowhere else in Canada you can see anything like it. So people, we had Americans even coming up last summer for the first time to see the show. Wow. That's just so cool. So we're coming up onto our half an hour of time here. So I've just got a couple questions for you. So you have the fountain there, which is based off of, is it Villa d'Este?
No, this one's from the Palace of Versailles in France. Ah, you know what? I think I always do that. I always mess it up and I always say, Deste, and then I'm like, wait a second, no, it's not. Yeah, I love those fountains there too though. Yeah, so you've seen those as well? Oh yes, I love them. Very cool, oh man. And I mean, you guys do, you have music performances there, you have festivals and events, you have weddings.
Yeah, on the garden too. Which is just amazing. It's such a great place to be. So I'm wondering if you had a word of advice, I have a feeling I know what you're going to say, but let's say somebody wanted to open their own greenhouse and start propagating plants or selling plants or importing plants or what would be your word of advice?
Hmm. Well, the simplest one is don't. That's what I thought you were going to say. It sounds fun at the beginning, but it's a lot of work. It is. It's a pretty serious commitment because you're dealing with living things. Yeah. And that means right there, right there. And then you have to be there for them. This was my first time in 20 years this past summer.
for me to leave the farm during the growing season. Because for the last 20 years, I've done nothing but devote myself to growing and nurturing these plants. And it really is a time on a commitment. It's very rewarding. I really love it myself. I'm not sure if I would wanna be an insurance broker or anything like that. I don't know if that would be completely satisfying to me. Yeah. I do, it's...
Heather Jerrard (33:35.582)
It's really interesting on so many levels. And Whistling Gardens in general is so many little different entities onto itself. You propagate plants and we have the retail center there. We still do wholesale and I love interacting with retail and wholesale customers. And I love making new plants too. Making babies is a lot of fun. It is. Once they start to grow.
I'm real happy with it. So very cool. And I love all the technical challenges as far as the gardens go when it comes to writing music for them and choreography of the fountains and the lights, all this good stuff. You're a man of many talents. Well, I really enjoy it. And I always like learning new things. And actually today, before I came on here, I'm starting to build an online store. So awesome. It's given me somewhat of a headache, but
Anyway, I'll get it figured out sooner or later. I believe in you. I know you will. And then lastly, do you have a garden book that you would say comes to mind as either being something that people should look into or something that you enjoy having in your library and revisiting?
Well, I think when I was in that designing phase of the gardens and looking for ideas and traveling throughout Europe and much of the world for that matter, I stumbled across a book when I was at Longwood Gardens in Philadelphia, or outside of Philadelphia there, it's called The House of Bows. The House of Bows. It's just from A to Z and it does a lot of
designs that were used historically, it focuses on modern designs as well, but predominantly it just focuses on ideas and it gives you so many examples of architecture and garden designs and plant workings that are still used today. And I really like that book. I actually don't read, I don't read very many gardening books at all. You're a little busy, you know?
Heather Jerrard (35:46.414)
It's just I do it all day long. I don't want to read about it so much at night unless I got to get into the Michael Durer. Yep. Because I want to know something about a specific plant like what makes it tick or what's wrong with it. Yep. What's the odds of me successfully growing it here in my climate. So that book is a great reference book too for plants just plants on their own. Excellent.
Well, I think that wraps up for this episode of Hops and Hedges. Mr. Darren Heimbecker from Whistling Gardens. And Whistling Gardens, you can see online, they've got socials, they're on Facebook, whistlinggardens.ca. It is.ca, right? I think. It's the website. Excellent. So be sure to check them out and we will see you next week.
Guest Information/Contact
Whistling Gardens Email: info@whistlinggardens.ca
Check out their website here: https://whistlinggardens.ca/
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