B.C.’S a bed of roses
And they’re not all grown in the City of Gardens — one of our floral treasures is in Coquitlam
At the new Canadian Heritage Rose Garden in Coquitlam, the line is clearly drawn — on one side of the chain link fence you have movie stars, ‘Chevy Chase’ and ‘Ingrid Bergman;’ on the other side you have Canadian artists ‘Emily Carr’ and ‘Bill Reid.’
We are talking about exquisite flowering roses here, of course.
This first-of-its-kind theme garden at the Dogwood Pavilion on Poirier Street was specifically conceived and designed to be separate from the rest of the rose population — distinctively, uniquely, 100 per cent Canadian. There isn’t another one of its kind in Canada. It’s a first.
What you will find there are super-hardy roses named after important figures in Canada’s history, including Henry Hudson, John Cabot and Frontenac.
The more recently bred Artist series is also included, featuring roses named after Emily Carr, Bill Reid, Tom Thomson and singer-songwriter Félix Leclerc.
And then there are roses that have been bred by some of Canada’s top rose hybridizers, including Felicitas Svejda (the plant geneticist who bred many of the Explorer roses), Rene and Eva Schmitz, of Palatine Nursery in Ontario, and B.C.’s own expert top rose breeder, Brad Jalbert, of Select Roses in Langley.
There isn’t a Bryan Adams or Céline Dion rose yet, but there could be one day and when there is, this is the garden where they would fit right in.
I will tell you more about the individual roses in a second, but first let me tell you how the garden came to be.
The person responsible for getting it built is Bev Welsh, former president of the Fraser Pacific Rose Society, who is still an active member of the society, which looks after the esteemed Centennial Rose Garden at the Dogwood Pavilion.
This rose garden was built 21 years ago and today is well established. It is one of the top rose gardens in B.C., if not in Canada, with more than 800 varieties.
Last year, the municipality encouraged the rose society to apply for grant money in order to repair the Centennial garden’s aging white arbours and trellises.
Around this time, Welsh happened to be reading a speech by Harry McGee, a leading Canadian rosarian, who was lamenting the demise of rose societies and the fact that nothing was being done to preserve uniquely Canadian roses in the form of heritage/repository gardens.
“It was then that I had a eureka moment,” said Welsh. “I agreed profoundly with everything Harry was saying and then I realized — we have the money, we have the workers, we have the space, and we have a very supportive municipality. I thought, ‘We can do this right here in Coquitlam.’ ”
At the Dogwood Pavilion, she noticed a narrow strip of ground, measuring six feet wide by 150 feet long, on the other side of the chain-link fence, separating the rose garden from the manicured grass belonging to the Coquitlam Lawn Bowling Club.
“This thin strip of ground had been planted as an herbaceous border. It was overgrown and a mess with lady’s mantle seeding everywhere, especially on our side of the fence. It was driving us crazy,” said Welsh.
No one seemed to care about this messy border, so Welsh asked the municipality if she could use it to plant a Canadian rose garden.
“They thought about it and said yes. I was thrilled. We immediately dug up clumps of day lilies and peonies and gave them to the Dogwood Garden Club to sell at their spring plant sale.
“In total, we pulled out 300 pots of plants. It was a big boost to the club’s sale, so the plants were recycled and went to good homes.”
The next big job was to renovate the soil in preparation for planting roses. Fortunately, roses had not been planted there before, so the soil did not need to be totally replaced. (A rose will fail to thrive if planted in a spot where another rose has been growing.) However, the soil was in poor condition and much of it still needed replacing.
This involved throwing some away and adding about eight yards of fresh, compost-rich soil before any roses were planted.
The work was done by rose society members working under Welsh’s creative direction.
Today, the garden is finished with a total of 128 roses planted, mostly shrub roses plus a few hybrid teas, floribundas and rugosas.
The garden also features some roses hybridized by Jalbert, including Cheeky Monkey, Annie Davidson, Pam Erikson and Water Lily.
White trellises, made by the woodwork shop operating in the Dogwood Pavilion, were put up to support the red-flowering climbing Felix Leclerc roses, named after the French-Canadian singer-songwriter who rose to fame in the 1950s and died in 1988.
“When people come here, they will not only see a wonderful collection of roses, but also get a little lesson in Canadian history,” Welsh said.
“They will be inspired to learn about Emily Carr and Bill Reid, but also about the pioneers who helped Canada become what it is today.
“But we also wanted to recognize the amazing work of rose breeders. That’s why a few of their roses have been included.”
At the turn of the century, before there were garden centres and retail nurseries, a lot of plants were bred at government-run agricultural research stations dotted across the country.
The Canadian Explorer rose series — 22 cultivars in all — was one of the best collections produced between the 1960s and 1990s.
The roses were bred with the express purpose of being super cold-hardy, making them ideal for growing anywhere in Canada.
When the government closed its research stations, the Canadian National Landscape Association took over the breeding stock and began to develop its rose collection.
This was launched in 2007 with the Artist series. Félix Leclerc was the first rose to be introduced, followed by Emily Carr and Bill Reid.
The last introduction was Campfire, a rose honouring a painting of the same name by artist Tom Thomson.