Gardener ‘nose’ it’s a good time to be out and about
Gardener Laura Principe says don’t waste any time, people. Get down as fast as you can to Davie and Denman to smell the flowers.
In addition to fragrant hyacinths, there are some new and unusual additions to the colourful flower beds by English Bay: multi-headed yellow daffodils with a scent so fragrant, they fill the air with a sweet perfume you can smell just walking or cycling by.
“The little, multi-flowered daffodils, they’re very fragrant,” she said.
“They’re going to be done in a couple of weeks, so get your nose in there.”
For the past four years, Principe has been the gardener responsible for some of the highest-profile and most-visited flower beds in Vancouver along English Bay from the park board office near Stanley Park to the aquatic centre.
Bigger, splashier gardens such at Queen Elizabeth Park, VanDusen Botanical Garden and the gardens in Stanley Park are more likely to make it onto official travel lists as the city’s top gardens. And they certainly are spectacular. But in terms of sheer numbers of people who see planted floral gardens in Vancouver, the flower beds around Davie and Denman have to rank near the top. They’re also situated in an incredibly scenic and photogenic spot by the beach and ocean.
Principe divides the area into the flower beds in Morton Park — the triangle of land with the 14 bronze sculptures of the Laughing Men — the flagpole beds in the adjacent triangle of land across Davie, the sundial beds, the raised, narrow beds behind the wooden benches facing English Bay, and the bathhouse beds to the southeast.
As the gardener, she chooses the variety and colour of flowers and decides where they’re planted. She gets her hands dirty, too, by planting most of the flowers and bulbs herself, with the help of an assistant.
“Typically, what the gardener will do is get a little idea about a particular colour or a palette or plant that’s a favourite that they want to try out,” Principe said.
“They build their colour selection and plant selection around that.”
This year, Principe took in the view from above when planning her design. She was thinking how the flower beds are seen by people living in the nearby towers. So she planted a mix of yellow and purple flowers in swirls in the flagpole beds.
“I was thinking about the people in the yellow and green building across the street and I was hoping they would be able to look down from up there and see the swirls in my colour pattern,” she said.
“I got a lot of comments from that building, so I started to design those beds with a mind that it’s not just looked at from the street or a drive by, but from above for a lot of people.”
The pansies in the flagpole beds are Lavender Shade and Karma Orange. Other flowers include yellow City of Harlem hyacinths, Blue Jacket hyacinths as well as big yellow daffodils with orange centres called Fortissimo, a daffodil that resembles a carnation called Tahiti, and the fragrant multi-headed daffs called Suzie.
Principe said there are 6,300 daffodil bulbs alone in the flagpole and sundial beds.
“Those daffodil swaths were supposed to come up staggered, but because it was so cold so late, they all bloomed at once,” she said.
Principe, like other park board gardeners, chooses her summer and winter annuals from what’s available at Sunset Nursery, the city-run nursery at 51st and Main (it’s not open to the public). The nursery grows pretty well all the flowers and plants in the gardens and parks around Vancouver from seeds or cuttings.
After the May long weekend, gardeners will start ripping out the flower beds and have summer flowers in by the July long weekend.
In the fall, the beds are pulled after Thanksgiving Day with the goal of having all the bulbs and winter plants in by Remembrance Day.
This is Principe’s last spring in charge of the flowers along English Bay. She’s now at VanDusen, which is holding its big annual plant sale on Sunday.
For next year, she has already chosen the colours — dark purple-brown, dark purple, pink and creamy yellow — but left the layout to the gardener who will follow her.
Principe said she’ll occasionally come down to the beds to find that they look like someone has fallen in and rolled around. During the annual Celebration of Light fireworks, fencing surrounds all the flower beds.
Generally, though, she’s impressed with how people respect public flowers and plants.
“When I came down one Saturday night and I saw how many people are squeezing by on those small little sidewalks at the corner of Denman and Davie, I thought, ‘You know, if someone every so often loses their balance and falls into the beds, that’s understandable,’ ” she said.
“I have to say that I’m impressed with how little damage happens with the flower beds. I do think people respect the plants a lot.”