It’s more than a garden, it’s a haven

Barb McKean and John Hannah’s features more than 175 varieties and species of plants

It’s hard to know where to begin describing the garden built by Barb McKean and husband John Hannah. Theirs is a garden made on the precepts of sustainability: biodiversity, water management, wildlife habitat and pollinator-friendly.

Stifle that sigh. Those “buzzwords” of contemporary gardening translate, in their garden, into a spectacular space that embraces nature, respects the esthetics of the neighbourhood, encouraged their children and their children’s friends to use as a play space and offers a peaceful haven from urban life.

Barb and John are both educators: She is head of education at the Royal Botanical Gardens and he is a science teacher at nearby Hillfield Strathallan College. Barb’s career is all about environmental education and she is a self-described “plant geek.” John is a passionate advocate for nature and wildlife in all its layers and complexity.

Their garden has a few more than 175 varieties and species of plants.

They are also parents and homeowners. So, there is a tree house and play space in the back and flower borders and beds in the front and back. Lawn would not be something they care for since it’s a monoculture (a single plant variety) that does virtually nothing for birds, butterflies or insects. But, they respect that a “wild” garden growing right to the sidewalk wouldn’t be welcomed by some neighbours and

they know grass is a great surface for kids kicking a ball or taking falls. So some lawn stays. (Their children, Liam and Claire, are now 21 and 18 respectively.)

It had been a student house. The backyard was “a mess” and the front yard consisted of one small bed and a magnolia tree on nearly its last legs. The magnolia is now doing well, a tulip tree was planted by the city and there’s an enormous variety of plants thriving in their shade. Water comes from a natural swale (low area) into which rainwater is directed from downspouts. There are ostrich ferns and hostas, Solomon’s seal and butterfly milkweed. Mayapple (a native wildflower with deeply lobed, umbrellashaped leaves) is going great guns. Native plants amsonia (blue star), blazing star (liatris), native ginger and swamp milkweed are also there.

There’s also a Japanese maple, a non-native plant whose almost only attribute is its looks. It illustrates their nondogmatic approach to making a garden. “I’m enough of a plant geek that I want a Japanese maple,” Barb says.

It’s essential to understand that a successful sustainable garden is “not an all-or-nothing proposition,” she says. “When you’re talking to people about it — and it is a whole esthetic and paradigm shift in gardening — you have to meet them where they are.” So, plants that are not native contribute in other ways: as pollinators and/or habitat for beneficial insects and caterpillars.

John is passionate about gardens, particularly trees in gardens, and their effect on wildlife. “Our property is an oasis for birds that eat caterpillars,” he says. “There’s a crisis in the bird population and trees that host insects and caterpillars are so important to birds.”

John cites the example of ginkgos, native to China and now very popular here as a decorative small tree. “Nothing, absolutely nothing, will touch, will eat a ginkgo,” he says. “That’s versus an oak tree that will host 400 different species of insects.”

I’m running out of space and we haven’t even walked into their back garden yet, where they did far more in terms of water management. The ground was graded into a swale that directs rain water into a constructed pond garden, which is designed to slowly release it into the water table, rather than have it run off into storm sewers.

A tree house and a really lovely shed, which they built in the same rough-wood style, are set among trees, shrubs and other woody plants. Serviceberry (a.k.a. shadbush and saskatoonberry) is among their favourites: a native that provides flowers in spring, berries in summer and great golden colour in the fall. There’s spicebush and a pawpaw.

There are dozens of varieties of sun-loving or shade-tolerant perennials; Spring ephemerals, plants that like dry soil, plants that like moist soil, plants that are native and plants that are not. Vegetables, herbs and salad greens grow in raised beds (built by daughter Claire) in the back garden and at the side of the house. A pond burbles by the back patio.

“I don’t deprive myself of plants,” Barb says. Foxglove is not native to North America, but it looks lovely and, Barb says, it does attract pollinating bees. Lilac, another non-native plant, has a place too.

I’m out of time and space. Last words to them: “Why is biodiversity and pollinator-friendly gardens a thing? Because we’re acknowledging we have a role to play in the natural world, in climate change, in giving birds and bees what they need to survive.”