Botanical Gardens of Silver Springs Society
Annual Report to the Community 2024
A community gathering space, destination park and botanical gardens featuring plants that grow in our particular climate.
Mission
To contribute to a welcoming outdoor space through unique gardens and forests that inspire, educate, and provide enjoyment for all within a multi-use environment; guided by our core dynamic of Botanical and Horticultural practices that reciprocally inform, structure, and focus our vision.
2024 has been an incredible year for the Botanical Gardens of Silver Springs. We have endured drought, ruptured water pipes, hand watering for the best part of the summer and very hot weather for extended periods of time. And through it all our gardens have prospered and grown through the dedication of our volunteers. We have even had comments that it is more beautiful than before if this is possible. Even with all of this, the volunteers set themselves a heavy agenda with plans to add a volunteer management software, a revamped website, a new martagon lily garden and a rejuvenated natural garden along the south border.
Our volunteers are our most valuable resource. Their dedication to the gardens makes them what they are. You can see the beauty of the gardens as a reflection of the energy and commitment of the gardeners. Our volunteers work in the gardens and behind the scenes to create the product that you see and support. This year we have benefitted from 91 individual volunteers who have contributed over 10,000 hours to the gardens. I’m sure as you meet the volunteers in the gardens that you can see the enjoyment they have out of their creation and the pleasure they have in working with such a talented group of individuals.
Of particular note this year, our roses were highlighted as having one of their best years ever. We are the proud parents of over 200 rose species distributed throughout the garden with a concentration of Canadian Heritage Roses. And all of them grow in our unique climate. Several of our gardeners are the “Rose Team” and they contribute through their ongoing care, transplanting and pruning of the roses throughout the garden.
The hot weather and low water conditions caused by scant rain and ruptured water pipes required us to become very creative in our response. This gave rise to the Aquanauts, our crew of gardeners who hauled in cubes of water from a variety of non- potable sources. The water was distributed to each of the gardens and plants were hand watered for weeks. We had a short reprieve in August when we were able to use hoses again but then in September, we were back to hauling and watering to keep our plants in good condition. The silver lining to all this exhausting work is that we have found that we may not need as much water as we had been using. We are embarking on a concerted water management campaign to ensure we are optimizing our water use. Watch for more details this coming year. We were recognized for this work in September by the Mayor Gondek of Calgary in one of her addresses regarding water pipe repairs.
Gondek_BGSS_Comm ents_Sept_2024 (1).mp4
In addition to all the work on the garden we also embarked on an ambitious program of improving our IT supports . This year we implemented ”Better Impact” as our volunteer management tool in April. This has proved helpful in ensuring good communication with all our volunteers . We set up shifts and our volunteers sign up for these, so everyone knows what they are doing. This has supported a wider variety of shift types and more flexibility in adapting to our volunteers’ availabilities and preferences.
We also have revitalized our website to ensure that we are more user friendly and that our plant data base is more functional. Part of the website development included a process to redesign our logo. You can see the new logo on the top of this report and throughout the website.
We encourage you to visit the updated website for improved information about how to visit the gardens, how to donate to the gardens, how to volunteer in the gardens and how to use
our enhanced searchable function for the plant data base. Home | Botanical Gardens of Silver Springs
This year has been one of progress in developing our relationship partners. We have strengthened our relationship with City of Calgary Parks, and with the City of Calgary Urban Forestry Department. As well we have formalized an agreement with the Alberta Lily Society to create a Martagon Lily bed in the revitalized south border. Our relationship is growing with the Calgary Rose Society in developing our noteworthy collection of Canadian Heritage Roses. Thanks to all our partners for your willingness to share your good will, skills and expertise.
Thanks so much to all our donors and sponsors for your generous support of our garden. Through your ongoing involvement we have sponsored 20 of our 26 gardens, added 4 new benches and begun a tree sponsorship program (See the website for further details)
Again thanks to our talented and skilled volunteers we have a calendar highlighting the beauty of the gardens and the skill of our photographers to celebrate 2025.
2024 was a year of accomplishment and growing in beauty of both our gardens and our community. Thanks to all who contributed. We are so blessed to be part of the Botanical Gardens of Silver Springs.
