Page 20 - Jo Ann Gardner & Heirloom Gardens

ISSUE : Issue 63

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1993/6/1

August 17 to 22 CAPE BRETON EXHIBITION North Sydney, N. S. Tuesday, August 17th thru Sunday, August 22nd OFFICIAL OPENING TUESDAY, AUGUST 17th • Hon. Don Mclnnis officiating * Special events will include a concert by the Singing Miners "The Men of the Deeps" other entertaining events include: ALL NEW FACILITIES FOR: ' Cattle Shows Dairy & Beef Horse Shows Light & Heavy Steer & Lamb Show & Sale • Horse Pulling Tug-of-War • Ox Pull Fashion Show Bill Lynch Midway Gymkhana Events 4-H DAY Lireton Ceilidh NEW FLOWER & CRAFTS BUILDING Large Commercial Display Large Industrial Display McDonald's Kiddie Farm Machinery Displays & Demos EXHIBITORS' LOUNGE 'Nightly Dancing 9 to 1 • Music by Borderline r' and J J George MacNeil & The Herdsmen Restaurant & Lounge Facilities Fun for You and Me EX'93 these--they call them fairy thimbles. They're like downturned bells, and they're speckled inside. And the wild type is kind of a mauvy purple. And they could grow up to six feet. So you can imagine: you're driving along this deserted road and there's nothing. And all of a sudden, you know, it looks like a fairy tale. And they're just every? where. They just grow up among the golden- rod, among the raspberries, it's just in? credible. Now, I've tried to grow that plant at home, and it winterkills. But, seeing it growing in that habitat by the side of the road, I understood that it needs perfect drainage--gravelly drainage. So you learn things, aside from just the historical things. Then I got the record of the post offices in Cape Breton--when they were established, when they closed, and so forth. And I found out that they established the post office in the 1840s. And there were so many fami? lies. And it was closed by the 1920s. And everybody had moved off the mountain by 1940. So, those (plants)--those are rem? nants from some form of life up there. We don't know when, but we can say it was roughly between this date and that date. Because I was writing about North America, I began with the first settlers. We're talking about the 1600s. We're talking about Plymouth (Massachusetts) and all this--the colonists. Because they intro? duced a lot of plants that later spread to here. Our flora, domesticated flora, can be tied to the development of New England. People came from New England here, they spread plants here. It's very much asso? ciated with New England. You've got 1600 as the starting date. But what's the cutoff point? Well, there's var? ious arguments among people who are in the field, and nobody has the definitive an? swer. Some people say 1900's the cutoff point. Because 1900 is the era when hybri? dizing starts. And they say that only the pure heirloom, or the heritage, or antique plants, or whatever you want to call them-- everybody's got a different name--it's only those pure forms that nobody's tinkered with. A Pioneer Company ROBIN'S • NOW 227 YEARS OLD • ROBIN, JONES & WHITMAN, INC. The company was founded around 1766 by the Robin fami? ly from the islands of Jersey and Guernsey in the English Channel. These French-speaking immigrants to Arichat and Cheticamp supplied the local fishermen with their ba? sic necessities and took the fishermen's catch to markets around the world. Robin's have evolved to include furni? ture, hardware, bulding supplies, and g Cheticamp, N.S. 224-2022 • Invemess, N.S. 258-2241

Cape Breton's Magazine