When Harry Jongerden looks around the four little acres up at Lawrence Ave. W. near Leslie St. that are the Toronto Botanical Garden — one of the smallest in North America — he sees a 35-acre future.

He sees a bridge soaring over a ravine that has been rid of invasive plants, like that treacherous English ivy that used to behave itself and stay where it was planted until global warming created the conditions it needed to sprawl and grow and never die, not even in winter.

He sees switchback trails and circular paths. He sees a five-acre teaching garden where city kids can learn about food plants. He sees a woodland walk, filled with trilliums and Jack-in-the-pulpit wildflowers, lilacs and endangered magnolias.

“It will be the prettiest walk in Toronto,” said Jongerden, the Toronto Botanical Garden’s former executive director who now serves as its garden director.

It was under Jongerden’s term as executive director that the dream of a major botanical garden — displaying beautiful plants and trees and shrubs and conducting research — was dreamed and transferred to paper and somehow pushed through city council, which agreed in April 2018 to merge the Toronto Botanical Garden and the adjacent Edwards Gardens park into one big attraction: an outdoor museum of plants worthy of one of the largest cities in North America, and a far cry from the current four acres.

“Tour buses won’t show up for four acres,” Jongerden said.

But a year after the announcement that gladdened the hearts of its patient and generous supporters, the botanical garden is experiencing growing pains.

The organization, a registered charity, ran a $600,000 deficit in 2018 that has left it currently unable to pay suppliers in full and on time.

“The deficit has resulted in us having to be careful around our payables in terms of how we approach them,” chief executive officer David McIsaac said in an interview with the Star.

“We are making payments to suppliers. Our intent is to fully pay everyone. This is what we’ve been communicating. We have been setting up certain payment plans with terms with suppliers where required.”

The botanical gardens held a sale of second-hand garden tools, donated by supporters, to raise money to pay down the deficit.

One supplier contacted by the Star said that although payments are slower to arrive than in the past and are not always made in full, the botanical gardens has been an excellent partner and he’s not alarmed.

But the situation hasn’t gone unnoticed, either.

McIsaac and board chair Gino Scapillati say a dramatic increase in spending was needed in 2018 to get TBG to the point where it could handle a project of this size and complexity. That project includes raising $50 million to fund it, a staggering challenge for a charity that posted receipted donations of just $736,000 in 2017.

The organization also began using new accounting software. “It was pretty manual before that,” said McIsaac.

Scapillati, a chartered professional accountant at Bennett Jones, said TBG is working to a balanced budget for 2019. It has also taken out a bank loan to pay off the debt.

Kate Bahen, managing director of Charity Intelligence Canada, says there is nothing in the agency’s 2018 audited financial statements and historical filings that raises a red flag.

“It has always run tight,” Bahen said. “It hasn’t had years and years of surpluses to build up a financial cushion. Instead, it has spent each year what was raised.”

Bahen says that’s a good thing — she believes too many charities generate annual surpluses and end up squirrelling away money that should be spent on charitable endeavours.

Excluding one-time expenses, she said last year’s shortfall would have been just $30,000. “The significant deficit reported in 2018 is due to these one-time expenses. We’ll have to see if one-timers repeat year-after-year,” she added.

“And yes, charities have lumpy years.”

The deficit rattled longtime supporter Carol Gardner, the chair of two TBG committees, who organized a meeting of members, volunteers, donors and former board members to discuss it.

“We were totally in shock and very angry,” said Gardner, who blames poor communication for part of the problem. She said people who attended the TBG’s annual general meeting felt they hadn’t been kept properly informed.

In a letter sent to McIsaac and Scapillati and obtained by the Star, the group said its members were “extremely concerned with the present and future prospects of the TBG due to the financial problems we seem to have accumulated.”

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They were worried about the suppliers not being paid. They described a climate of distrust and even fear. They met with McIsaac and Scapillati.

“I had my heart in my mouth when I got together with them because it was so important to me. We love the place. We didn’t want to destroy the place,” said Gardner.

“We had a two-hour meeting and came out feeling 1,000 per cent better. We were concerned, of course, about the money, that was the biggie. Yes, they did overspend. However, they certainly seem to be on the right track in terms of getting some money and getting us on a more stable financial footing. It’s being dealt with, which made us feel much better.”

The garden’s biggest problem is funding. Botanical gardens in North America generally rest on three pillars of income: admissions, endowment income and government funding, according to Jongerden, who came to TBG in 2013 after 17 years as a gardener and foreman in Metro Toronto Parks, and having been garden director at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, head of horticulture at Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington and head gardener at the Stratford Festival.

The TBG has limited endowment income, little government funding and admission is free.

“This organization has been cash-strapped as long as I’ve been around,” said Coun. Jaye Robinson (Ward 15 Don Valley West), whose ward includes the gardens, and who thinks TBG is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to cash contributions.

It gets annual funding from the city of $25,000, in addition to utilities, caretaking and other services.

Centuries old, botanical gardens have played a role in the development of plant taxonomy and in the fields of medicine and pharmaceuticals.

They serve a function similar to zoos — preserving species that would otherwise be extinct as growing cities encroach on natural habitats and new invasive species are introduced into ecosystems, says Abby Meyer, executive director of Botanic Gardens Conservation International U.S.

While botanical gardens are typically associated with seniors, that too is changing. Millennials who are passionate about houseplants are showing up in droves at botanical garden sales, and gardens are seizing the opportunity to launch classes on how to grow and care for houseplants.

“I think today the botanical garden community is attracting all age ranges, all generations,” says Meyer.

Interest is also growing in farm-to-table concepts when it comes to tourism, including craft beer tours, wine tours and health and wellness and learning activities, and botanical gardens fit nicely into the category, says Greg Hermus, associate director of Canadian Tourism Research Institute.

“This is becoming more popular not just among tourists, but locals,” Hermus said.

Philanthropist Kathy Dembroski is the lead donor at Toronto Botanical Gardens. She says she was concerned about the 2018 deficit, but not for long. “It was a hiccup, but it doesn’t mean anything,” she said.

Jongerden estimates it will take six years to raise the money and implement the master plan.

“The possibilities are so fantastic,” Dembroski said. “It’s so important that we have this for this city.”