THE ABE MILLER GARDEN at YKACL won first place in the ‘Funky Garden’ category in the City of Yellowknife’s 2017 Garden Competition today.
This is the first year the Association has entered the competition.
The garden offers a whimsical spectacle along 53rd Street thanks to more than two months of hard work by YKACL clients and staff.
Skills Training and Community Inclusion facilitators Lian Vilan and Edwin Dela Cruz are the creative leaders who guided the team each week, from planting seedlings indoors to prepping the soil, transplanting, watering, weeding and pruning.
Their colourful vision features a rock garden with undulating driftwood and stone pots overflowing with petunias interspersed with naturally-growing flora, such as a patch of foxtail that wave in the breeze to passers by.
The centrepiece is a fat caragana bush surrounded by sunflowers, verbena, dahlias, French lilac, lantanas and golden acre. Begonias, cosmos, nasturtiums, carnations, gazanias, daisies, petunias, geraniums and a mock orange bush grow in flower beds and pots throughout the grounds.
Willow sculpture and fencing created by artists Rosanna Strong and Jenny Tucker and community volunteers frame the garden with organic art.
Edwin and clients Adam LePrieur and Jon Proulx built a new flower bed from salvaged wood along the southeast wall of the Abe Miller Building facing Franklin Avenue in which stands a parade of five-foot tall Sunflowers.
Take a stroll through the garden anytime or drop by from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, July 23, during the City of Yellowknife Garden Tour.
