The Floral Clock at Queenston was built by Ontario Hydro in 1950 after Dr. Richard Lankaster Heam, Hydro’s General Manager and Chief Engineer, visited the floral clock in the Princes’ Street Gardens in Edinburgh at the urging of Hugh Duncan, maintenance electrician foreman at the Queenston Generating Station. Impressed by its beauty and value as an attraction, Heam commissioned Hydro’s Niagara Regional staff to design and construct a floral clock suited to the Queenston station surroundings. Pat Ryan and Walter Ewart were credited as the designers, and Hugh Duncan supervised construction and the mechanical and electrical installation. The Edinburgh clock, built in 1903, was about 10 feet in diameter, while the Queenston Floral Clock is 40 feet wide with a planted area 38 feet wide, making it one of the largest such clocks in the world. Each year its face is filled with 15,000 to 20,000 carpet plants and colourful annuals in intricate designs. Since 1977, the Niagara Parks Commission Horticulture Department, now the Parks Department, has been responsible for designing and planting the face, and a site maintenance worker regularly checks the official time for accuracy. The stainless steel hands measure 14.5 feet for the hour hand, 17.5 feet for the minute hand, and 21 feet for the second hand, with a combined weight of 1,250 pounds. An ivy-clad, louvered stone tower 24 feet tall contains speakers that broadcast Westminster chimes every quarter hour. Beneath the clock, three small rooms in the concrete foundation house the clock mechanism and driving motor, electrical switches, and tools for maintaining the floral face. The mechanism runs in a bath of oil and is driven by a 5 horsepower DC motor supplied from a DC drive, with a tachometer on the motor shaft providing feedback to control accuracy, while a programmable logic controller controls the simulated chimes broadcast through two 25 watt co-axial speakers in the bell tower. A 10-foot-wide water garden curves 85 feet around the base as a wishing pond, and coins collected during fall cleaning are donated to local charities. Located beside Sir Adam Beck Generating Station No. 1, the clock’s mechanics are still maintained by Ontario Power Generation staff, and the attraction has become one of the most photographed sites in Niagara Parks.