Floral Clock

A historical marker and local-history sources credit Dr. Richard Hearn, then Ontario Hydro's general manager and chief engineer, with the idea. The story, told in several local accounts, is that Hugh Duncan, a Scottish-born electrician foreman at the Queenston generating station, urged Hearn to see the floral clock in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens, which dates from 1903, during a trip to Scotland. Accounts differ slightly on the exact year of that trip, but the clock itself is consistently dated to 1950. Hydro staff did the work: local accounts name Pat Ryan and Walter Ewart as designers, with Duncan supervising the mechanical and electrical installation, and say construction took a single summer.

The face is about 40 feet in diameter, roughly three times the size of the Edinburgh original. The hands are made of steel tubing: sources give the hour and minute hands as about 500 pounds each and the sweep-second hand as the longest, at 21 feet and about 250 pounds. A two-horsepower motor drives the mechanism, which Hydro staff designed and made locally. Beneath the face is a concrete structure with three rooms for the mechanism and motor, electrical equipment, and gardening tools.

Behind the clock stands a stone tower of about 24 feet that sounds Westminster chimes on the quarter hour. A curved pond runs along the front, and visitors have traditionally tossed coins into it; local sources say the coins are collected and donated to charity.

Plant counts vary by source: Niagara Parks' own page says up to 16,000 plants, while a trail marker gives 19,000, so treat any single figure as approximate. The beds are filled with carpet-bedding plants and annuals, and the designs change with a spring planting and a summer planting. Since 1977 the Niagara Parks Commission's horticulture staff have been responsible for the design and planting, working with students from the Niagara Parks School of Horticulture. The first designs spelled out Ontario Hydro at the numeral positions; later designs have used Niagara Parks. In winter the face is covered with decorative stone chips rather than flowers, so the display is a spring-to-autumn sight.

Tourism pages often call it among the largest floral clocks in the world. Sources differ on how that is measured, so it is safer to say it has long been promoted as one of the biggest.

The clock is on the Niagara River Parkway, which also passes the Niagara Glen, the Whirlpool and Queenston, so it works well as one stop on a scenic drive between the Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake. Allow a short stop for photos, and check Niagara Parks for the current planting theme and any seasonal access notes.

Within a short drive are Queenston Heights Park with Brock's Monument, the village of Queenston, the Sir Adam Beck power complex and the Niagara Glen nature reserve. On a Voyzo private tour, a private driver can pull in at the clock without parking or timetable concerns and continue along the parkway.