Over the years, he oversaw the introduction of the bandstand (designed by architect Henry Busch), fountains, statues, and wrought iron gates as well as establishing the bedding out of annuals in highly designed carpet beds, redesigned Griffin's Pond and introduced water fowl.

The gardens reopened on Canada Day, 2004 after a restoration aided in part by $1 million which was raised during a radio telethon.

[8] There are various plaques throughout the Gardens commemorating historic military figures and operations during the Victorian era and early twentieth century.

[9] In 1898 a plaque was created for Nova Scotian Clonard Keating of the Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment who died in Nigeria prior to the Second Boer War.

There is also a statue of a soldier from the Canadian Mounted Rifles (renamed the Royal Canadian Dragoons)[10] who fought in the Second Boer War by renowned sculptor Hamilton MacCarthy (who also created South African War Memorial (Halifax) and the sculpture to Harold Lothrop Borden in Canning, Nova Scotia).

[12] There is also a bridge that commemorates Nova Scotian Francis Joseph Fitzgerald of the Royal North-West Mounted Police who died in the "Lost Patrol".

One such plaque is for a flowerbed dedicated to renowned suffragist Frances Willard by the local Woman's Christian Temperance Union on the centennial of her birth (1939).

Governor James Kempt, Griffin was wrongfully convicted and hanged for murder on October 24, 1821, on the east side of the pond.