Keppel Croft Gardens
Visit beautiful Keppel Croft Gardens in Grey County, Ontario.
About Keppel Croft Gardens
Keppel Croft Gardens are open from 10 am to 5 pm, Wednesday through Sunday, as well as holiday Mondays. Keppel Croft opens on May 1st and closes after Thanksgiving in October. Most days you will find us busy in the gardens, but always ready for a chat! Entrance is by a suggested donation of $3 per person.
We offer special Season Passes for those who visit Keppel Croft Gardens frequently. This package includes an unlimited number of passes for $50. Please contact us for further information.
Finding Keppel Croft
Keppel Croft Gardens are located just east of the village of Big Bay, at the northern tip of Grey County in south western Ontario. Big Bay is easily accessible from Wiarton or from Owen Sound along Grey County Road #1 (previously Grey Road #26) which is also called Island View Drive. Our civic addresss is 504156 Grey Road #1, Wiarton, Ontario.
Here's the information for your GPS. This will bring you to our parking lot.
- N 44 degrees 47.492 minutes
- W 080 degrees 56.712 minutes
Relaxing at Keppel Croft
The screened Garden Room is a comfortable spot for coffee, tea or a cool drink.
Our Garden Room has a relaxing seating area and is set up for self serve beverages. Pause a while to view a selection of our garden photographs. There are numerous benches and seats throughout the gardens. Bring some friends and your picnic. Enjoy your meal al fresco at one of our picnic spots. Our splendid outhouse was included in Our Canada magazine's listing of the Ten Best Biffies of Canada!
Workshops in the Garden
Bill conducts workshops in the garden. Popular workshops have included tuffa trough construction and garden sculpture. We arrange workshops to accommodate small groups of enthusiasts at times to suit you. Contact us to arrange your group's workshop! If you have a suggestion for a workshop focus, don't hesitate to mention that.
Group Visits and Bus Tours
If your club or group would like to visit Keppel Croft Garden, please contact Dawn or Bill.
Volunteering at Keppel Croft
Each Wednesday morning Keppel Croft volunteers work together from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Everyone is welcome. There is no age limit and no gardening experience is required. Our volunteers have a vested interest in a volunteers' vegetable garden. We share the produce with our volunteers throughout the season. At eleven o'clock we gather on the patio for coffee and treats. Often friends and neighbours join us then to volunteer conversation and good cheer. Just bring your gardening gloves and your enthusiasm!
Cider tasting after the first cider production by the volunteers.
The Community Vegetable Garden
Our volunteers spend the first half hour of Wednesday morning taking care of our volunteers' vegetable garden. This is another work in progress! Each year as more beds are added to the veggie garden we have fun growing new and different vegetables although there's a moratorium on planting zucchinis. We share the produce from the garden each Wednesday and our volunteers come to harvest through the week as they need fresh produce. I remember how very carefully we shared our very first harvest from this garden - one radish cut into nine pieces!
Art in the Garden
Art in the Garden is a special one day event held on the second Saturday in July each year. This year the date will be July 13 from 10 am until 4 pm. Fifty artists will have their creations available for you to enjoy -and purchase- throughout the gardens of Keppel Croft. Admission is $3 per person.
We welcome artists and photographers to come and spend time in our gardens throughout the season. Bring your hat and your liquid refreshments for you will stay longer than you anticipated. It really is our pleasure to share the gardens with you!
Our friend and neighbour, Vera, paints in the garden.
Plant Sales
We offer a selection of plants for sale. Each season Bill grows interesting plants that catch his fancy during seed catalogue perusals in mid-winter. Small trees and shrubs are available. We also sell plants supplied by local horticulturalists: Joerg and Franzis Leiss of Living Carpet, and Nina Aprile and John Harris of Wild Things Plant Farm.
Rural Gardens of Grey and Bruce Counties
We are founding members of Rural Gardens of Grey and Bruce Counties, a network of gardens open to the public. Visit the RGGB website when you are planning your visit to Grey and Bruce Counties and discover the many garden treasures awaiting you.
The plant auction at a RGGB meeting at Keppel Croft.
Signs of a new garden
Creating a new garden at Keppel Croft isn't a pretty sight. It requires determination and commitment. Bill digs planting holes in the gravel. The soil is sifted out and the stones set aside for mulch or other purposes. The holes are filled with earth and plants set in. New garden sites don't look that promising but given time the plants flourish. Nearly all of the garden was created this way. Our most recent garden is a peony and shrub garden planted on the south edge of the gardens. There you will see the planting holes and the surrounding mulch which uses the stones from the holes. In a few years the peonies will fill up the space beautifully!
...and the Weather
Check out the weather for your visit to Keppel Croft at the clear sky forecast for Keppel Henge. Of course, we provide umbrellas for those days that are less than perfect!
Contact Us
Dawn and Bill Loney, 504156 Grey Road #1, Georgian Bluffs, Ontario N0H 2T0
Phone: 519 534 1090 (We are in the house after dark! Otherwise leave a message).
Email: keppelcroft@bmts.com
Site Revisions made April, 2013