News Release

Halifax Public Gardens to Open on May 5th

(Tuesday, April 29/2003)-- One of the Halifax Region's most popular visitor attractions will be open to the public again next Monday, May 5th.

HRM staff have been busy preparing and making ready the many walkways, lawn areas, and shrub/flower beds in the Halifax Public Gardens, which is considered to be one of the finest examples of a surviving Victorian Garden in North America.

It dates back to 1836, when members of the Nova Scotia Horticultural Society set out to create a garden in Halifax. The garden grew and by the mid-1800's, represented approximately 50 percent of the present-day acreage. In the early 1870's, the private gardens to the south were joined with the abutting public gardens to the north to become what we know today as the Halifax Public Gardens. It was Richard Power, the first Superintendent, who had the task of bringing these two gardens together and laying out the outstanding floral patterns that are still in place.

From the late 1800's to about 1912, much of the garden statuary, fountains, gazebo, ornamental bridges, grotto and other man-made features were added. Horticultural Hall, known to many as the canteen building in the Gardens, dates back to 1847 and is the original structure. Its stone cellar wall was carefully restored in 1998.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors enjoy the Public Gardens each year. The attraction won national recognition in 1984, when the Halifax Public Gardens was designated a site of national historic interest by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

-- 30 ---

John O'Brien
Corporate Communications Officer
(902) 490-6531