CHAMPIONS AT THE GARDEN SHOW
The display gardens at the B. C. Home & Garden Show are amazing creations that deserve our applause
The display gardens at the B. C. Home and Garden Show aren’t meant to be perfect. All nine of them, after all, were built in the blink of an eye ... in about two and half days.
All the landscapers were down at BC Place Stadium at three in the morning Monday, chomping at the bit to get going.
They worked liked demons, putting in 18- hour days Monday and Tuesday, just to get the key ingredients in place – walls, arbours, pavers, paths and water features.
Then, as time evaporated and the final deadline closed in, they raced around in a blur of activity Wednesday afternoon to get all the plants in place. They completed the finishing touches with only minutes to spare before the show opened its doors at 4 p. m.
Whew! In the real world, these gardens would take at least two or three weeks to install.
Their creation is nothing short of amazing. We really need to take a minute to appreciate the enormous amount of work involved. It is not easy, it is stressful, it is massively creative, and it is absolutely exhausting.
You cannot compare the investment of time, energy and sheer sweat and tears by this talented band of landscapers with the bath and kitchen crowd who ( I always think) roll into the show and put up easy- peasy booths stocked with pull- out- of- thebox samples.
Sorry, but to my mind, they are not remotely in the same class. The landscapers are magicians by comparison, conjuring up fabulously lush, expertly designed gardens out of nowhere – the horticultural equivalent of pulling a white rabbit from an empty top hat.
But for all that, we have to admit these display gardens are not perfect ... and were never meant to be. We should not hold them to that standard.
They were designed and constructed to inspire, to show us what can be done in limited spaces and how we can turn our backyards into beautiful gardens.
And they do that magnificently. We should be very impressed, especially with this year’s offerings, all of which achieve a high standard of excellence.
Take for instance, Bruce Hunter’s wonderfully creative display built from recycled items, including a timber shelter/ pavilion made from cedar milled from salvaged logs; a flat- bench seat sliced from the remnants of a big- leaf maple; and pavers cast from waste concrete.
The green roof on the shelter showcases a first- rate assortment of ornamental grasses mixed with droughttolerant lewisias and sempervivum.
A green wall inside the shelter is lavishly stuffed with black and green mondo grasses, moss, wild strawberries, ferns, even a few carrot plants.
Here, you’ll also find a soothing water feature fashioned out of a slab of polished basalt and flanked by spheres of black terrazzo. Very cool.
With 26 years experience in the business, Hunter has built dozens of gardens, but now, as owner of Selections Nursery in South Surrey, he is keen to show how more sustainable gardens can be built out of recycled products and energy- saving, eco- friendly features, such as the green roof and green walls.
But Hunter’s talent is also evident in his confident selection of plant material, especially repetitive planting of mahonia, witch hazel, hellebores, bamboo and nandina into his landscape schemes.
For me, it is really a toss- up between Hunter’s garden or the one right next door, an East- meets- West fusion garden built by Rob Turner and Sherilyn Gale, for best in show. Both are terrific.
Turner and Gale, owners of Beneath Your Feet Landscaping, show their immense enthusiasm for their work in this classy garden that easily presents the prettiest picture in the show.
The garden has two moon- gates. One is the main entrance and leads over flagstones into a tranquil stone courtyard with a white Himalayan birch in the corner and a swish fire pit attractively placed next to a lovely blue waterfall and pond.
Bamboo fencing came from recycled pieces salvaged from the Olympic village at False Creek.
The planting is well thought out and includes a generous use of hellebores mixed with red- flowering camellias. There is also a particularly handsome example of a Corylus avellana ‘ Contorta’ ( Harry Lauder’s walking stick) at the exit.
All the water features in the show are expertly done, beautifully executed and, best of all, expertly finished to make them totally watertight. That’s much harder to achieve than you might think.
Fact is, there is water everywhere — running down over glass, spouting out of a green wall on to a bed of blue glass, bubbling out of solid basalt blocks, rushing over rocks in a pondless waterfall, and left black, flat and still in a rectangular reflecting pond.
But the water feature that most impressed me was the ultra- sleek, contemporary double- weir installation built by Matt Vandenburg in a pared- down, but nevertheless stylish patio garden.
Water spills first as a narrow threefootwide weir out of a large oblong stone planter filled with four evenlyspaced clumps of pampas grass.
Next, the water flows over a lower bed of blue stone and then slides, silky smooth, to form a second, wider weir with the water emptying as an arching sheen into a deep trough.
Another impressive work is Gordon Bedford’s attractive party patio, built from elegant bohemian black pavers and decorated with Adirondack chairs.
The quality of stonework in all the gardens is top- notch, but Bedford is a master at shaping slabs of blue stone into an attractive entrance or neatly fitting slabstones to create charming patio spaces, perfect for entertaining.
Many people are going to think the large central water display by Ray Evenson, of West Coast Modern Landscapes, is a knockout. It has a lot of dramatic impact with its fire- out- ofwater features, stone Buddha faces and tall stands of black stemmed bamboo.
However, I couldn’t quite get over the confusing use of Mexican feather grass and phormiums ... as aquatic plants. Nope, you can’t convince me these plants would last a day with their roots under the surface.
I was equally mystified as to why Rebecca van der Zalm’s wonderful garden of ‘ Promise’, hellebores, pink viburnum, camellias and blue spruce trees was completely hidden at the back of nowhere. Pity.
Fortunately, she is selling two of the most interesting new garden products at the show – Verti- Plant packs for creating easy wall- gardens and colourful memory- foam kneelers, just out of the U. K.
Enjoy the show, but please remember ... the landscapers worked the hardest and, to mind, produced the best displays.