In the early spring of 1976, Douglas Campbell stood up in front of Mayor Martin Dobkin and City council on behalf of the Cloverleaf Garden Club and made a bold suggestion: Mississauga should emulate several other Canadian cities and establish a major conservatory on 100 acres of land near the heart of the municipality.
Campbell had a light voice and a gentle, somewhat bemused speaking manner and he did not seem to be taken very seriously by all of the politicians that day. Some councillors quite clearly thought the whole proposition far-fetched. There were some snickers when the Cooksville-Munden Park resident suggested that an ideal location would be along Mississauga Rd., not far from Erindale College (now UTM.)
The cost of land there was obviously prohibitive.
Thirty-one years later, largely because of the persistence of Doug Campbell and other members of the Mississauga Garden Club, who never stopped pushing the idea, we have our fledgling public gardens on a beautiful piece of property called Riverwood in the heart of the centre — not far from Mississauga Rd. and UTM.
Douglas Campbell lobbied both the politicians, and the local press, for the gardens over many years.
His own garden, on Lorelei Rd., was spectacular, especially in spring. An eclectic collection that featured hundreds of daffodils, begonias, hosta, and native plants, it was featured in numerous magazine and newspaper articles, usually with Doug standing on a little arched wooden bridge that stood in the middle of the garden.
In an article in The Toronto Star in 1994, garden writer Charles Oberdorf said, “no professional landscaper would ever design a garden like Campbell’s. It’s more a collection of plants than a designed landscape, and clearly the work of an obsessive.”
The last time I visited his garden in 2001, Campbell was in poor health as a result of a series of strokes. He was as keen as ever to show off the fruits of his many years of labour. He vowed that day (see picture) that he would be on hand at the opening of the garden park. “I’ll be there one way or the other, even if it has to be with my walker,” he said.
Unfortunately, he was in Trillium Health Centre for that opening. But six months before his death last year, Campbell was able to get to Riverwood for the dedication of a sundial, and an accompanying garden, which honours his enormous contribution in making the park a reality.
As is only appropriate, some of the outstanding heritage perennials from Campbell’s garden are now going to be viewed in that garden created in his memory.
The family is selling the house and have donated the contents of the garden to Riverwood. On Tuesday, volunteers from the Garden Council and a two-man crew dedicated by Sheridan Nurseries will remove the plants. Sheridan has donated the soil, pots and transportation to move the garden.
“This is an exciting project that is really going to add to the horticultural heritage of Riverwood,” says Douglas Markoff, executive director of the Garden Council who approached Sheridan when it was obvious that moving the garden was beyond the council’s resources.
Many of Campbell’s plants are perfectly suited to the arts and crafts theme garden that is being developed.
Not only is the family generously donating the contents of his garden, which will be added to several different locales in Riverwood, but they have also donated his huge library of gardening books and papers, which includes his own account of the History of Trees in Mississauga. “It was a staggeringly generous offer,” says Markoff, who says it took him 45 minutes just to load the cartons into his car. The library will be set up in the historic Chappell House at Riverwood.
Markoff first met Campbell a quarter century ago or so, when he was the manager of Hassall’s garden centre on Burnhamthorpe Rd. E. near Dixie, and Campbell was one of his best customers.
“He invited me over to his gardens and to see Riverwood and that was the first time I ever saw it,” says Markoff. “I remember walking around this place with him as he explained his vision of what it could be.”
Always planting was Doug Campbell: hardy perennials in his own garden and fertile ideas in the public realm.
Now the two will come together in that central, special place that Campbell envisioned so long ago.