Celeb gardeners' greatest gardening challenges

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"What has been your greatest gardening challenge?"

Wilf Nicholls
St. John’s
Director, Botanical Garden, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Time. My home garden is currently a utilitarian playground for two dogs and a great disappointment to my neighbours, who, given my profession, harboured such high hopes. When I retire many years from now, I promise to dedicate more time to the yard to make my wife and the neighbours proud.

Charlie Dobbin
Richmond Hill, Ont.
Owner, Garden Solutions by Charlie Dobbin
My super-hot, sunny front yard, which doubles as a basketball court. This combined function has taught me what will survive the acid test of boys and balls. Junipers, roses and geraniums take an amazing amount of abuse, but it’s the spiky yuccas that really take the prize.

Alexander Reford
Grand-Métis, Que.
Director, The Reford Gardens
Keeping a classic public garden progressive. Our challenge is to continually find new ways to surprise and inspire increasingly more knowledgeable visitors with leading-edge plants, colours, combinations and design.

Jim Hole
St. Albert, Alta.
Co-owner, Hole’s Greenhouses
Compromise. I can’t resist bringing ailing and underperforming plants home from the nursery in order to observe their growth habits. It’s a great learning opportunity, but it certainly makes the aesthetics of our garden go down the tubes. My wife, who would dearly love a pretty garden, is not amused.

Des Kennedy
Denman Island, B.C.
Author
Coming to terms with the fact that no matter how long and hard one works, or how dutifully one peruses the manuals, takes courses from the masters and visits great gardens far and wide, one remains little more than a gardening novice with a very, very long way still to go.

Guest star: Toller Cranston
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Artist, author, Olympic medal-winning skater
A freak cold snap early in 1994, which blanketed everything for miles around San Miguel de Allende with a thick coat of ice. It looked fascinating, but completely destroyed my semi-tropical, 1.5-acre garden. Today, in my usual more-is-not-nearly-enough style, I’ve just about finished rebuilding my lush garden paradise.