Thursday March 27th., 2008

Frank Kershaw will give a talk
and slide presentation on
 "The Great Gardens and Mansions
of the
Finger Lakes of New York State"

Frank Kershaw received his Master's of Science from the University of Toronto and a diploma in Horticulture from the University of Guelph. Prior to his recent retirement, he worked thirty plus years in the parks, horticulture and environment fields as a director with both the former Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto
and the City of Toronto. He has also worked abroad which has contibuted
to his knowledge of plants from different parts of the globe.

Frank was one of the founding members of The Canadian Wildflower Society and has served on numerous horticultural advisory committees.  He has taught gardening courses at The Toronto Botanical Garden, the Royal Botanical Garden and lectured widely to garden groups, university and college audiences. He has been a horticultural consultant to a number of garden books and his published articles have appeared in Canadian Gardening, Family Circle, TLC for Plants, Wildflower and Trellis magazines. Over the years he has been a popular presenter at events in Toronto,
Hamilton, Ottawa, North Bay, Quebec and Bermuda.
He has also appeared numerous times on various TV shows.

In 1977 Frank was the recipient of The Garden Club of Toronto's "Award of Merit"
for outstanding contribution to horticulture.  In February 2000, he made a presentation on behalf of Toronto to the Nations in Bloom Contest in Japan wherein Toronto won first place for cities over one million population.

To book Frank Kershaw for Speaking Engagements call  416-233-7472

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Gardens of the New York State's Finger Lake
Located just hours from Ontario's Niagara Peninsula
the Finger Lakes region of New York State
is famous for its picturesque lakes, scenic historic towns,
great wineries and wonderful gardens.

This talk captures some of the magic and grandeur of this area
by pointing out some of its points of interest
and garden touring opportunities.

The Finger Lakes, a major tourist destination in the west-central section
of Upstate New York, are actually eleven in number,
but only seven of the largest are commonly identified as such.
The lakes mainly are linear in shape, each lake oriented on a north-south axis.
The longest, Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake , are among the deepest in America.
Both are close to 40 miles or 64 km from end to end, but never more than 3.5 miles or 5,600 m wide. Cayuga is actually the longest 38.1 miles or 61.3 km,
but Seneca the largest in total area. Seneca is the deepest 618 feet or 188.4 m,
followed by Cayuga 435 feet or 132.6 m, with the bottoms well below sea level.
These largest lakes resemble the others in shape, which collectively reminded
early map-makers of the fingers of a hand.

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Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion State Historic Park

Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion State Historic Park is located
about 2 miles north of Canandaigua Lake, one of the Finger Lakes,
and is open from mid-May until mid-October for the garden season.
The park is comprised of 52 scenic acres, a museum in the estate mansion
and lush gardens that include rose, pansy, Japanese, rock, Italian and more.