Rossland Gardens Amherst Island

Rossland Gardens Amherst Island Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Rossland Gardens Amherst Island, Art Gallery, 6400 CONCESSION Road 2, Emerald, ON.

Rossland Gardens is a historic farmstead, gallery, and garden destination on Amherst Island, where Canadian fine craft, gardens, history, and land stewardship come together.

Hooray for Friday FlowersGarlic chives have made themselves thoroughly at home at Rossland Gardens.Native to Asia and lo...
08/28/2026

Hooray for Friday Flowers

Garlic chives have made themselves thoroughly at home at Rossland Gardens.

Native to Asia and long cultivated in kitchen gardens, Allium tuberosum has naturalized across the old farmstead, appearing freely through the grass and along the garden edges. By late summer, its flat green leaves send up slender stems topped by loose white stars.

We did not plant this particular colony. It chose its own place beside the pond, where it now grows around a metal heron we bought in Bala about ten years ago, just as our life at Rossland Gardens was beginning.

The flowers are alive with bees and other pollinators—a quiet late-season feast at a time when every bloom matters.

Not native, as we had assumed. Simply very much at home.

FROM THE GARDEN: GARLIC-CHIVE PANCAKES

In Korean cooking, garlic chives are traditionally used to make buchujeon: crisp, savoury pancakes served with a dipping sauce.

* 2 packed cups garlic-chive leaves, cut into 2-inch lengths
* ¾ cup flour
* ¼ cup rice flour or cornstarch
* 1 egg
* Approximately ¾ cup cold water
* ½ teaspoon salt

Whisk the flour, rice flour, egg, water and salt into a thin batter. Fold in the garlic chives and fry as one large pancake or several small ones until crisp and golden on both sides.

Serve with a dipping sauce of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and a little chili. A few properly identified garlic-chive flowers may also be scattered through the batter.

LEGUMES OF SUMMERA late-summer harvest from the Rossland Gardens potager—yellow zucchini, green cucumbers, slender purpl...
08/27/2026

LEGUMES OF SUMMER

A late-summer harvest from the Rossland Gardens potager—yellow zucchini, green cucumbers, slender purple beans, red cherry tomatoes and sweet peas for the table, gathered while the garden is generous.

Rossland Gardens Summer Harvest Salad

2 medium yellow zucchini, sliced into ribbons or half-moons
2 green cucumbers, sliced
1 cup red cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup slender purple beans, blanched and cooled
2 tablespoons fresh herbs, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1½ tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Toss the vegetables and herbs with the dressing just before serving.

Yesterday, Rossland Gardens became seven different places.One painter found the barn. Another found the orchard. Another...
08/23/2026

Yesterday, Rossland Gardens became seven different places.

One painter found the barn. Another found the orchard. Another followed the deep green around the pond. The same afternoon passed over all of them—the same light, the same wind, the same ground—and no two paintings came back alike.

That may be the quiet gift of painting outdoors: the landscape does not ask to be copied. It asks to be noticed.

Under Monika Rosen’s guidance, seven painters spent the day looking carefully, making decisions, changing their minds and finding their own way through the garden. At the end of the afternoon, they stood together holding seven entirely personal accounts of where they had been.

We know this place intimately. Yesterday, they returned it to us changed.

Thank you to Monika and to each painter for allowing us to see Rossland Gardens through your eyes.

Hooray for Friday Flowers: This Week’s Pic — Artemisia, Sedum and Continuum IVArtemisia has been cultivated for centurie...
08/21/2026

Hooray for Friday Flowers: This Week’s Pic — Artemisia, Sedum and Continuum IV

Artemisia has been cultivated for centuries. Members of this ancient genus appeared in medicinal gardens, monastic plantings and domestic landscapes throughout Europe and Asia. Its name has been associated both with Artemis, the Greek goddess of wild nature, and Artemisia II of Caria, a botanist and ruler of the fourth century BCE.

Its finely divided silver foliage serves a practical purpose: the pale colour and tiny hairs help reflect sunlight and reduce moisture loss. This makes artemisia particularly well suited to dry, exposed gardens.

Sedum is equally resilient. Its fleshy leaves store water, allowing the plant to survive in thin soil, rocky places and periods of drought. The name is connected to the Latin sedeo, meaning “to sit”—an apt description of the way many sedums grow closely over stones and walls.

Continuum IV, by Darlene Martin-Stuart, stands among the artemisia and sedum. Its flameworked glass form rests on hand-formed clay and a base made from material salvaged during the restoration of Rossland Gardens. Rain has darkened the planter and collected across the sculpture, making the grey and black patterning within the glass particularly visible.

ROBERT AUCOIN AT ROSSLAND GARDENSSome artists make objects. Others make pieces that quietly change the way you see the e...
08/20/2026

ROBERT AUCOIN AT ROSSLAND GARDENS

Some artists make objects. Others make pieces that quietly change the way you see the everyday.

Robert AuCoin’s cold-forged work has been part of the Rossland Gardens story since we opened in 2019. Robert and Lisa have been friends of ours for more than a decade, and we have long admired the intelligence, skill and character they bring to their work.

This collection brings together several distinct expressions of Robert’s practice.

His belt buckles, cold-forged by hand and mounted on genuine leather, are custom fitted in-house at Rossland Gardens. A complete belt and buckle is $250; buckles alone are $200.

His leather and stainless-steel flyswatters are both useful and beautifully made: the kind of everyday object that becomes a pleasure to keep in view. $80 each.

New to Rossland Gardens are Robert’s “Rock Stars”: hand-forged ¼-inch stainless-steel stars, set onto granite or limestone with a friction fit reinforced by weatherproof adhesive. Small sculptural works for garden, patio or interior. $320 each.

Robert’s work is direct, durable and full of wit—serious craftsmanship applied to objects made for daily life.

Available at Rossland Gardens, Thursday through Monday, 11:00–4:30.

Not every beauty in the garden is a flower.Swiss chard earns its place in the potager through its generous, deeply crink...
08/17/2026

Not every beauty in the garden is a flower.

Swiss chard earns its place in the potager through its generous, deeply crinkled leaves—but also through those extraordinary stems: ruby red, cerise, coral and wine, luminous even under a grey August sky.

This enormous harvest—everything you see here—will be processed in four ways:

1. Ruby refrigerator pickles
The stems will be cut into batons and packed with garlic, black peppercorns and mustard seed, then covered with a hot brine of equal parts vinegar and water, with a little sugar and sea salt. Crisp, sharp and beautiful beside cheese or a ploughman’s lunch.
2. Swiss chard and walnut pesto
The leaves will be quickly blanched, squeezed dry and blended with toasted walnuts, garlic, lemon, olive oil and Parmesan. I’ll freeze it in small portions for pasta, soups and winter vegetables.
3. Chard, feta and herb pies
Sautéed leaves with onion, garlic, dill, parsley, feta and lemon, folded into small pastry parcels. Some for supper; the rest for the freezer.
4. Braised stems with broad beans
The chopped stems will be slowly cooked with onion, garlic, tomato, rosemary and broad beans until tender, then finished with olive oil and red-wine vinegar—a substantial, deeply savoury dish that wastes nothing.

The flower garden may draw the eye first, but the working garden has its own kind of splendour. Today, it is piled high on the back-porch table. This is what we will process this evening. We are now closed for the day (Monday). Thank you for coming, for purchasing the RG Courgette Cakes, and spending time with us. We are closed now until we reopen on Thursday.

There are just 3 spots remaining for our Painting en Plein Air Experience happening this Saturday August 22 - to learn more and register, please see link in bio or visit rosslandgardens.com/experiences

JUST 3 SPOTS REMAININGSpend a summer day painting en plein air at Rossland Gardens with Canadian fine artist Monika Rose...
08/15/2026

JUST 3 SPOTS REMAINING

Spend a summer day painting en plein air at Rossland Gardens with Canadian fine artist Monika Rosen.

Saturday, August 22
$175 per person
Limited to 10 participants

Reserve your spot at RosslandGardens.com/Experiences

Hooray for Friday Flowers: Giant HyssopLast evening I harvested two baskets of giant hyssop—Agastache foeniculum, also k...
08/14/2026

Hooray for Friday Flowers: Giant Hyssop

Last evening I harvested two baskets of giant hyssop—Agastache foeniculum, also known as anise hyssop.

Native to northern North America, including Ontario, giant hyssop belongs to the prairies, plains and open upland landscapes of Canada and the northern United States. Long before European botany assigned it a Latin name, it was known and used by Indigenous peoples across the Great Lakes and northern Plains. Historical ethnobotanical records document culinary and medicinal uses among the Cheyenne, Cree, Ojibwe, Dakota and Lakota, among others; its aromatic leaves were prepared as teas and infusions and used to flavour or sweeten food.

Frederick Pursh first described the plant in European botanical literature in 1813. It received its present scientific name in 1891, when Otto Kuntze placed it in the genus Agastache. It is neither true anise nor true hyssop: “anise” describes its licorice-like fragrance, while “hyssop” refers to the form of its flower spikes.

Giant hyssop later became highly valued by North American beekeepers, with mass plantings established in parts of Canada and the American Midwest specifically as a honey plant. It remains one of the most active pollinator plants in the garden, visited throughout the summer by bees, butterflies and other insects.

A portion of the late-summer harvest now comes into the preserving kitchen.

This harvest will become a very small batch of Rossland Gardens Giant Hyssop Jelly, infused and prepared over the wood cookstove and available to preorder soon; Collector’s Circle members will be notified first—sign up through the link in our bio.

Address

6400 CONCESSION Road 2
Emerald, ON
K0H2S0

Opening Hours

Monday 11am - 4:30pm
Thursday 11am - 4:30pm
Friday 11am - 4:30pm
Saturday 11am - 4:30pm
Sunday 1am - 4:30pm

Website

, ,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Rossland Gardens Amherst Island posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category