THE DOROTHY HARVIE GARDENS
A colourful oasis blooms at the Calgary Zoo
This summer, the Dorothy Harvie Gardens at the Calgary Zoo is celebrating an amazing milestone. It was 30 years ago that this botanical garden was established to showcase the growing possibilities in this tricky Chinook region.
As we look forward to an exciting future, a fond look back seemed in order.
Since the 1920s, there has a been a garden of sorts in the heart of St. George’s Island, known to most now as the Calgary Zoo. As gardens do, this space evolved over time to include a Biergarten ( promptly reinvented as a tea house when it was discovered it was illegal to sell alcohol on city property) and zoo staff quarters. Then, in the 1960s, work began on the Tropical Aviary and Conservatory.
Throughout these incarnations, the surrounding landscape always included expansive lawns punctuated with occasional flower- filled borders.
Fast forward to 1984 and visionary zoo director Don Peterkin proposed a new idea. What if we could use this landscape as a botanical garden to trial and showcase plants that are hardy to this challenging Chinook environment? He floated the idea in a zoo newsletter and piqued the curiosity of garden enthusiast and philanthropist Dorothy Harvie. She agreed to provide the seed money for this garden, and work quickly began on the new plan. And I mean quickly, because Harvie had included one minor stipulation with her generous donation — that the gardens be ready for members’ night the following June.
Gardeners at the Calgary Zoo have always been a ‘ can- do’ lot and, sure enough, plans were drawn, plants ordered and thousands of yards of loam trucked in to create the bones of the garden you see today. I’m told that eight months later, the last rolls of sod were unfurled, even as zoo members were coming through the doors for their annual gala.
Initially christened the Show Gardens in 1985, the garden was later renamed the Dorothy Harvie Gardens in honour of our generous patron.
Donna Balzer was brought in as the Calgary Zoo’s first horticulturist in 1986. It was her job to elevate this new garden to botanical garden standards by labelling the collection, establishing a database and introducing horticulturally- based education at the zoo. Even as the gardens grew, the staff grew in their knowledge of caring for such a large collection of plants.
Balzer recalls directing the staff to lift and replant the entire peony collection, since the growing points had been positioned too deep to produce flowers. I see evidence of Balzer’s expertise as I meander through the gardens even today.
A young graduate of Olds College next took up the reins in the horticulturist position. Olivia Johns participated in establishing the Perennial Trial Garden and other themed collections as well as the Master Gardener training program. She played an integral role in the renovation of the Enmax Conservatory.
She recently shared with me that “the Calgary Zoo became a culmination of all things horticulture for me, love of design, sharing a gardening passion with others and working with some incredible, dedicated staff members.”
Her passion for growing things certainly fuelled my own love of horticulture.
Today, our dedicated team continues their efforts. Even amid the challenges of our climate — hail, flood waters, short growing season, lack of insulating snow cover, semi- arid conditions — this garden stands as a testament that yes, we can have beautiful gardens in the Chinook belt.
To mark this milestone, our team has been working on some special surprises for our visitors. At the entrance to the gardens we have a special installation to celebrate 30 Years & Growing.
It’s taken thousands of Alternanthera, Sedum, Echeveria and Santolina to create this display, 1,500 in our three- dimensional mosaic culture alone. A new entrance to the gardens has also been built with artistic panels that illustrate the four seasons in our unique foothills setting. Since we strongly believe our garden has four- season appeal, we thought this particularly fitting.
For our anniversary, we are bringing you flowers. The annual display this year has been inspired and informed by our classics. ‘ Daddy Blue’ petunias, ‘ Indian Summer’ rudbeckia, ‘ Only the Lonely’ nicotiana, ‘ Songbird’ flowering cabbage and our curly parsley border are among the offerings.
Folks often think we’re crazy planting parsley in a border, but when they see the deep green texture it offers, they quickly become converts. And don’t be surprised to see our sous chefs out there doing some strategic harvesting.
Our biggest lesson in these 30 years? See challenges as opportunity.
Yes, things do grow more slowly here, and our choices are a little narrower ( but who wants to learn 10,000 different plant names anyway.) But persistence pays off.
Celebrate your botanical successes and those occasional disappointments are really just a new opportunity to discover your next favourite plant.
How great is that?
Even amid the challenges of our climate — hail, flood waters, short growing season, lack of insulating snow cover, semi- arid conditions — this garden stands as a testament that yes, we can have beautiful gardens in the Chinook belt. — Corinne Hannah