If you’ve ever wanted to be immortalized in name and in gardens everywhere, here’s your chance. Brad Jalbert of Select Roses in Langley, B.C., is selling naming rights to two of the three new hybridized roses he’s introducing next year. For between $3,000 and $8,000, you can purchase the right to name a new rose. […]
Pacific Northwest
Galiano weekend
Please excuse my absence: I’ve been without a computer – gasp! – for two whole days. Ben and I spent the weekend on lovely Galiano Island. Galiano is part of the Gulf Islands, which lie between Vancouver Island and the Mainland. Home to artists and artisans, farmers and small business people, they run on “island […]
Come again some other day
It’s definitely autumn in Vancouver. I can tell because my biceps are becoming nicely toned from constantly carrying an umbrella, the bottom of my pant legs are always damp, and all I feel like doing is staying inside, curled up by the fire with a book. We’ve entered monsoon season, and while I hate it […]
Apple time
Apple season is in full swing here in B.C., which brings loads of fresh apples to our farmer’s markets and grocery stores. If you came home with just two or three of the 30,000 lbs of apples that were sold at the UBC Apple Festival, you’re probably going to want to check out All About […]
The Hundred Mile Diet
Never thought I’d say it, but I’ve found a diet I can fully endorse. Fellow Vancouverites Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon are halfway through their one-year committment to the Hundred-mile Diet. No, it has nothing to do with the town named for the hundredth mile on the gold rush trail (my mom, whose parents dragged […]
Zoned out
The Canadian Forest Service has initiated something called Going Beyond the Zones, a new look at the old plant hardiness zone maps. Their website states: It should be apparent to anyone who digs into the matter that both the old, and new, zone maps have limits and have not been calibrated to the wide number […]
Thomas Hobbs’ garden
Arguably Vancouver’s most famous gardener and garden personality, Thomas Hobbs owns Southlands Nursery and has published two books; The Jewel Box Garden and Shocking Beauty. I was lucky enough to visit his garden this summer on a Vancouver Hardy Plant Group tour and saw first hand the “jewels” that his latest book describes. His is […]
Communities in Bloom
Vancouver’s boulevards and traffic circles, in recent years, have just exploded with greenery and blossoms. Ever wonder who plants and maintains these public gardens? It’s people like you and me. Gardeners who’ve recently divided perennials. Who see a bare patch of dirt and think, “I have just the plant for that spot!” It doesn’t take […]