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W. Gordon Mills,
Designer & Consultant
Mills Garden Design
Gordon, the
youngest of 5 children, started gardening at the age of
4 or 5 at his family home in northern Ontario. His
summers were spent in the garden taking direction from
his father, a keen gardener, maintaining the large mixed
borders.
In his late teens, Gordon moved
to Toronto to pursue a career as a professional
photographer. For 30 years he worked in
the photography industry working at the Globe & Mail, in
the music industry, for the famous Tibor Horvath and as
a self-employed commercial photographer. All
through this time he gardened as a hobby and maintained
his own perennial gardens in Toronto and Oakville. In
1996, with his wife Lana, the couple opened Canada's
first 24-hour professional photo finishing lab.
In 2000, seeking a break from the
24/7 life in the city, Gordon moved to the couple's
rugged 200 acre property in north Hastings county.
There he maintained the large perennials beds that he
had established since the purchase of the property 2
years earlier. In addition, he planted and
maintained a 50'x100' organic vegetable garden bordered
by 100 year old apple trees. The vegetable garden
and apple trees yielded potatoes, tomatoes, beets,
carrots, onions, corn, pumpkins and of course apples,
that, stored in the root cellar, provided home grown
food through the long winters. The early spring
time was busy too, as he and Lana collected sap with
their horses, Jessie and Rosie, from the maple bush and
made their own maple syrup.
In 2003, the couple moved to
the "gentler" Northumberland County and Gordon opened
GardenHouse Perennials in 2004, first at a small
downtown location in Cobourg, and then, at the current
location in Morganston. He has plans to restore the
old
"Cheese Factory" that serves as the store and is
surrounded by display gardens and beds of peonies.
Gordon grows a unique
selection of perennial plants that he uses in his garden
designs and that are
available for sale "unforced" in pots at the nursery each spring.
Peonies can be
purchased online from the website www.peoniesfromthefield.com.
Contact
Gord by email:
wgmills@gardenhouseperennials.com |
