How does your garden grow? If it’s the garden behind Royal Canadian Legion Branch #113 in Ashcroft, the answer is “Very well indeed,” with a riotous display of colourful blooms—in planters, pots, and hanging baskets—filling the space.
For the last two years the planters—located in a courtyard between the Legion and bakery buildings—were filled with vegetables, many of which were used in preparing Friday night dinners at the Legion. However, some of the produce ended up going to waste, says Shirley Gibbons, treasurer of the Ladies Auxiliary to Legion Branch #113.
“There are only so many ways you can cook and serve zucchini!” she says with a laugh. “But everyone can enjoy flowers.”
When Legion president George Cooke suggested at a board meeting that flowers be planted there instead, Gibbons jumped on it and said she’d do all the planting on behalf of the Ladies Auxiliary.
“I used to live in Aldergrove, where I had 2.5 acres,” she says. “I love gardening.” She selected and planted the flowers at the end of May, and rather than confining herself to the planters added pots and hanging baskets all over the yard, where many Legion patrons like to sit and relax.
She was aided in her gardening endeavours by Ladies Auxiliary president Sharon Reid and lifetime member Loraine Shwaluk, with Shwaluk also helping to plant flowers outside the Legion on Brink Street. Gibbons says she is down at the Legion most days, watering, weeding, and deadheading the flowers. She also tends to a garden outside her home at Juniper Apartments, where she grows flowers and vegetables.
“I just wanted it to look nice,” she says of the garden at the Legion. “I planted some perennials as well, so they’ll keep coming up.
“I’m proud of it. It’s truly a labour of love.”
editorial@accjournal.ca
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
