Left: A Japanese maple brushes the flowing water in the pond.


Veronica’s garden


Story by Dorothy Dobbie Photos by Veronica Sliva


Warm and inviting V 10


eronica’s garden, like Veronica herself, is warm and inviting, an extension


of her character. It has many dimen- sions and moods, but by and large it is a place that tenders a generous invita- tion to discovery. She and her husband Walter, the centre of her life, have only lived in this house for three years, but the garden projects permanence. Work- ing together, they have created an urban haven that welcomes world-traveler Veronica back to a setting of peace and sanity after one of her frequent jaunts to places far away. Veronica Sliva conducts garden tours


WINTER 2013


all over the world and she will be off again this


spring, as will her friend


and colleague, Donna Dawson, to the Centennial Show at Chelsea. As a result of all her travel, Veronica has seen many of the world’s most beautiful gardens. Aside from the odd exotic seed she brings home though, this experience only dimly colours her home garden. What she has built is her own with a touch of Walter lurking here and there. When they moved into this Scarbor- ough house, just five minutes from the Rouge Valley, the back yard harboured only a pond, a Japanese maple and the arbour covered by awith a thick grape


vine. In the front yard, there were some insignificant shrubs. Veronica banished the shrubs, except for a lilac that she has pruned to an inspiring structure that is wonderful in winter, although she says its springtime dress is an insipid pink flower. But the birds like the shrub so it stays. In the back yard, she took the time


to think through the kind of bones she wanted the garden to have. Lawn was last on her list, but a curved strip remains for the dogs, two venerable schnauzers, who like to bask on the grass in the warm summer sun. And Walter, a mild-mannered guy with a great eye for golf, likes it, too. Both she and Walter wanted a frog


pond with a low edge so that the frogs could get in and out. This was addi- tional to the one that was already there. Both ponds are very deep – four feet – to discourage marauding raccoons who so far have come to the yard to harvest only the grapes. (Walter now makes sure he gets to them first.) To make this pond frog-friendly, they hauled many hand-picked granite rocks from their Kinmount cottage in the Kawarthas. It’s not that either Walter or Veronica has particular affinity for frogs, but their dog, Frisco, adores watching them. “He wiggles his little behind in delight


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