Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Hastings-Sunrise garden tour success!
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here, summer in the garden being what it is, and the fact that I was totally wrapped up in organizing the Summer of Sustainability Garden Tour which took place on July23rd.
Despite my gnawing misgivings leading up to the event (what if no one shows up? what about the weather? maybe I should just give back the grant so someone else can use the money) – I can happily say I was wrong and our neighbourhood rocks! See here for more photos on Flickr.
Three workshops went off without a hitch, our master-gardener was in fine form answering questions all day, and we gave away hundreds of free seed packs as well as four gardening books (in the raffle). At final count, we believe that 120-150 people participated in the event – most people going to an average of four houses, and each house getting between 20 and 30 people visiting. Which is pretty good number for a word-of-mouth event like this one.
In the end, all of our participating households said they were glad to be a part of this and it gave them a chance to meet people from their neighbourhood. For my part, I met lots of people who I hope to hang out with again (we’ve already got a dinner invite out of the deal – yay neighbours!)
I will be putting together a report for the grant wrap-up event in the fall, which I will surely post here and elsewhere, but for now I just wanted to say – PHEW! I am so glad that’s over and proud of how it went.
For all the people who want it to happen again? Let me know and next year we’ll do it with a community committee 🙂 – cause that is a hell of a lot of work for one person.
Red Cedar 
Wow!, I really enjoyed reading your article and viewing the image of your garden. I have to bookmarked this site so I can share this to my friends and I am sure they gonna love this too. By the way, are you the only one who is guiding the visitors? what a great success. I really admire you and inspired on you. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! The tour was self-guided actually, so people downloaded a map with addresses and went around on their own to each of the gardens where the homeowners, garden-keepers showed people what was going on in their yards and answered questions. This was an excellent community-building exercise and we had a fabulous time doing it.