Oregons ‘Grape’

This is the time of year which is the most exciting in the garden. After a cold winter we wait with bated breath to see what has survived and even will thrive. I note some Rhododendrons seem to have smaller flowers and the Tulips are finally beginning to show their buds. One plant I associate [...]

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A Real Puzzler of a Tree.

When I was a child we would go to the Vancouver area once a year to visit my grand parents and other relatives. It was a big trip and took a full day of driving to reach our destination. Usually we would take at least one trip into the big city, we would go to [...]

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Fried Eggs and Really, Really, Really Big Poppies!

The laziest part of summer, temperatures are at their peak and I just feel like dozing. In the garden it is a quite time, many plant are going into their decline after blooming earlier the season. With the heat many plants will droop, some will become completely dormant and start loosing their leaves. Others now will shine [...]

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Ocean Spray, Panicles and Discs.

Every season there is a plant that you really notice here on the island which you do not see in elsewhere. That is because we have a unique eco-system. In the winter the Garry Oaks are most noticable, in the spring it is the fields of blue Camas and the delicate Easter Lillies (as old [...]

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Catch A Shooting Star.

I have been fortunate to have worked as a grower at a nursery.  This gave me the opportunity to grow plants which are not that well known. Some plants aren’t well known because they are hard to grow while others just have a false reputation for that. One plant I grew was the eastern(North American) form [...]

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Stalking the Oso(berry)!

This time of year, no matter where I am, up north in deep snow, down on the coast in the rain or somewhere else when the sun comes out I want to either work a garden or explore in the woods.  This year the spring weather has come extraordinarily early and since I have recently moved I [...]

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They Only come out in the Winter Here.

Were I come from the climate is cold and some types of plants are not well represented in the wild or are do not grow there at all. An example is broad leaf evergreen plants. The only types which have survived the extreme cold are those which have adapted themselves to be short enough to be coved by snow [...]

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When an Aster is Not an Aster, But Still is….are You Confused?

When I was small I always looked forward to certain plants blooming in special places that I knew of. One such plant grew along Connaught Hill near where our house was. I spent many hours during the spring all the way into the fall visiting sites looking for those tell-tale plants and being excited to [...]

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Achlys, The Sweet After Death.

When I moved from the lower mainland to the Victoria area I noticed several plants growing here which I had not seen before. First there was the Oceanspray(Holodiscus dicolor) which grew everywhere along the rocky drier areas.  Then there is the abundance of Garry Oaks (Quercus garryana) which are so starkly noticeable in the winter [...]

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Our Own Native Easter Lily

When I first moved here I did what I always do, travel around the less used roads to get a feeling for the area. This area is quite different from where I had moved from (greater Vancouver) and the pace is slower.  It feels more like the area I grew up in, more rural and [...]

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