Photo coverage poor for garden tour

By Letter to the Editor on July 20, 2017.

Reading the Medicine Hat News is part of my normal morning routine. I love our newspaper, but on July 17 one picture made me particularly cranky.

It was the sole picture for the Medicine Hat and District Horticultural Society’s Garden Tour held July 16, and there was not a flower or a bloom in sight! It was, instead, a picture of one of the gracious homeowners sitting beside a beautiful outdoor chess set. That picture was only one small aspect of that yard. There was so much more to see there, and there was so much more to see on the tour.

One home even had a Canada 150 theme in the front! It had a wonderful backyard too. Eye-popping bubble-gum colour petunias everywhere; a lovely lady giraffe, a koi pond, a spinning hot air balloon. Then there was the historic yard of the first house built on Crescent Heights, complete with photographs of the home in the early 1900s. Another of the homes had just won the Kiwanis residence Home of the Week. It has a magnificent weeping birch tree in the front yard — one of the few left in Medicine Hat. I could write something for all the other homes on the tour too.

Relationships are never perfect, and I try not to be too picky, but they say a picture is worth more than a thousand words. The citizens of Medicine Hat saw a very poor representation of the Garden Show this year. I hope though, that many more pictures of this special event might be forthcoming in the days ahead.

Thank you to the members of the Horticultural Society who put a lot of hard work and thought and time into this project.