{"id":24398,"date":"2019-08-08T08:48:28","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T12:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24398"},"modified":"2019-08-08T08:48:37","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T12:48:37","slug":"doors-open-2019-get-back-to-nature-at-merlins-hollow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/doors-open-2019-get-back-to-nature-at-merlins-hollow\/","title":{"rendered":"Doors Open 2019: Get back to nature at Merlin\u2019s Hollow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Don\u2019t miss your chance to visit Merlin\u2019s Hollow on\nSaturday, August 17 as part of the fourteenth annual Doors Open Aurora Event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be sure to drop by between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4\np.m. at 181 Centre Crescent (a tiny road off of Centre Street between the\nrailway track and Industrial Parkway with the garden the only house on the\nleft). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The garden first opened to the public 37 years ago in\n1981, and the open days have been free to all who come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Tomlinson started as a gardener\u2019s assistant, age\n14, in England and worked his way up the ladder and became a landscape\narchitect for 40 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The garden was a flat square of grass when David and\nDierdre bought the property. David designed and built a series of four gardens,\neach with its own distinct character enclosed by high cedar hedges. As you\nenter the winter garden at the front of the house there are two Celtic Knot\ngardens, each with handsome snake sculptures by sculptor Ron Baird. This leads\ninto the main garden where beds are filled with perennials from 8\u201d to 12\u201d high.\nA series of arches invite visitors from one garden to the next. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u00bc acre fragrant garden is full of many secrets. Before\nthe hedges grown a friendly neighbour used to look across and say, \u201cAh! Adam\nand Eve in the Garden of Paradiso\u201d. That inspired the stained-glass window in\nthe gazebo. There is a frog pond surrounded by bog beds and extensive rock\ngarden beds behind the house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The garden is filled with huge range of plants, most of\nwhich David grew from seed, a thousand packets of seed a year, from different\nparts of the world, New Zealand, China, the Middle East, Europe and South\nAmerica, that has certain parts with a Canadian climate. Each year they put 130\nbags of leaves on the garden beds, other than the sand and gravel garden areas.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The diversity of flowers in the garden attract a number\nof different insects including many species of bees and Morning Cloaks, Red\nAdmiral, Painted Lady, Tortoiseshell, Mustard White, Azure Blue and Tiger\nSwallowtail butterflies. More that 92 different species of birds have been seen\nin the garden, from red and white winged cross bills, nuthatches, sharp shinned\nhawks, wild turkeys, ruffed grouse and raven last year for the first time.\nFrogs, toads and fish breed in the pond as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The garden is thought by some as a sanctuary for people,\nwho enjoy and learn from what they see. It is good to see familiar faces\nreturning to the garden year after year as well as many new visitors with their\nchildren. One little girl asked Dierdre, \u201care there any fairies in your\ngarden?\u201d and Dierdre replied, \u201cthere are but they are very shy, you might not\nsee them!\u201d The garden has attracted many photographers who come and take\nincredible photographs of plants, insects or scenes of the garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come and enjoy Merlin’s Hollow with family and friends\nfor free. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many more sites are also participating this year,\nincluding Hillary House and Koffler Museum of Medicine, Hillary House Barn, The\nPatrick House Art Studio & Gallery, Aurora Borealis Orthodontics (new\nsite), Pine Orchard Meeting House, Theatre Aurora, Aurora Public Library,\nChurch Street School, Scarborough Model Railroaders, Victoria Hall, The Rising\nSun Masonic Lodge, Aurora Farmers\u2019 Market and Artisan Fair, and  Harmony, Heritage, and Haunts Walking Tour\n(new tour).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For additional information about Doors Open Aurora and to\nprint a copy of the Doors Open Aurora 2019 Map Guide, please visit www.aurora.ca<\/a>. Map\nGuides will also be available at the Doors Open Aurora headquarters booth at\nTown Park, located at Mosley Street and Wells Street and other Doors Open\nAurora participating sites on the day of the event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We hope to see you there! <\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t miss your chance to visit Merlin\u2019s Hollow on Saturday, August 17 as part of the fourteenth annual Doors Open Aurora Event. Be sure to drop by between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at 181 Centre Crescent (a tiny road off of Centre Street between the railway track and Industrial Parkway with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6lw","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 12:20:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}