Hidden Pumpkins, Hiding Scarecrows

'I don't want to go to the garden! I don't want to go to the garden! I don't want to go to the garden!' This is the mantra my four-year-old Cleo was wailing when we pulled into the parking lot at Milner Gardens, just outside of Parksville BC, this past Saturday. We were there for their annual Fall Colours Weekend; a family oriented event in which the kids search for as many scarecrows and pumpkins as they can find, while exploring the garden along the way.

As I struggled to unfold our jogging stroller for little Abby while all three kids, along with their two cousins, jumped around the car, defying anyone trying to park to just come a little closer, I wasn't so sure this was going to be the best place for us. But the sky was clear and the sun had some real warmth in it, and well, we were here, right? So, off we trundled to the pretty cedar building that is the entrance to the garden.

The children were instantly charmed by the harvest doll, and then even more so by the warm, sweet woman who was receiving visitors. She gave the kids all a map on which they were to check off all of the pumpkins and scarecrows that they could find. And then she explained the best part, the really exciting part: after they have found all the pumpkins and scarecrows they possibly can, the kids can take their papers to the gift shop to retrieve some much-deserved candy.

At last, because he is the eldest, the woman made Lucas in charge of the pencil. He took it from her carefully, head held high (Later that day I heard him explain to Cleo that since he is the oldest, he gets to boss everyone else around. She nodded with solemnity).

Happy now, we all set off through the woodland trail that leads to the rest of the gardens, the gift shop, and the beautiful ocean-front Milner House and tea room. The kids screamed along the path, making little checks on their papers each time they came across a scarecrow or a pumpkin.

As we neared the main gardens, we heard some distant drumming and the kids made it their mission to discover where the music was coming from. When we got closer, we saw that it was coming from yet another pretty cedar building, in which Milner Gardens holds its Shoots with Roots programs. The kids ran past the lovely children's food garden and up to the building entrance, where they took off their shoes and walked into a drumming circle. They were each handed a drum and told to go for it. By the time Abby and I had our shoes off, the three oldest kids were drumming away with everyone else. We all stayed there for a while, and even the smallest kids had fun making music with the other people in the room.

As we walked further along the path toward the water, we came across an old cottage, tiny but grand, that is shrouded in a very charming, English country garden. Here I saw the most beautiful little grove of Pee Gee Hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata) that I have ever encountered. These shrubs are now small trees pruned expertly so that their gnarled trunks highlight the delicate beauty of the flowers, and the panicles have been left untouched, though all of the leaves have fallen. The flowers have faded to a soft, dull pink that on this day was absolutely lit up by the bright afternoon sun.

For a long time I had passed over hydrangeas as fussy, old-fashioned plants that were not really worth the extra water. But well-placed, these shrubs can be an incredible asset to a garden. My favourites are definitely the Pee Gees. There are many beautiful cultivars available, including 'Kyushu,' 'Tardiva,' and 'Unique.' The Oak Leaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea quercifolia) are also a nice alternative to the more traditional Mopheads and Lacecaps (Hydrangea macrophylla and Hydrangea serrata). The Oak Leaf Hydrangeas also have the added feature of gorgeous fall colour. All hydrangeas thrive in part-sun in a place where they will not dry out, as they do tend to be thirsty plants.


Just as I had turned away from the hydrangeas and began heading toward the Milner house, I saw my friend Geoff Ball, who is Executive Director at Milner Gardens. He and his family have the great fortune to live in a private wing of the Milner house. Imagine! Geoff was very busy this day, but he graciously gave me a tour of the gorgeous old house and tea room (I took one look at the delicate cups and saucers and knew that we would not be taking the kids here--bring your own tea if you've got little ones!). Staff and volunteers are slowly renovating the old house, which looks out onto the gardens and beyond that, the ocean. It is a gorgeous home; just what you'd expect from a 'country estate' of old, complete with 16th century furniture and creaking wooden floors.

Milner Gardens rents out the house for weddings, among other things, and I think this place would be perfect for a small, romantic wedding. Just imagine walking down these steps onto the lawn below, filled with all the folks you love...

After seeing the house, the kids wanted nothing more than to take a ride in one of the golf carts that act as taxis to and from the parking lot, and to go and collect their candy from the gift shop.

My mom, sister and I would have loved to stay the rest of the afternoon, walk through the rhododendron groves, admire the mature plantings of magnolias, japanese maples, and many other wonderful trees and shrubs, like the Paper Bark Maple in this photo (Acer griseum).

I could see myself sitting, like the statue, taking in my surroundings and feeling the warm sun on my face...but Abby was at my legs, insisting that she not only push the heavy stroller up the hill, but that she also do it while walking backwards.

The Inspired City

It's always nice to get some fresh inspiration. Sometimes it comes from visiting a beautiful garden, or the nursery, or even from a walk in the woods with the kids.

This week, I got a full day of inspiration when I took Julie Moir Messervy's workshop, Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love. Julie's was one of the pre-show workshops at the annual CanWest Hort Show, at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

This particular day was fabulous from beginning to end. It started off with a sunrise run in False Creek. I wanted to check out the progress of the Olympic Village. It is mostly finished, but I did run past a few empty lots and chain-link fences...it seems hard to believe that all of this will be finished on time for the Olympics, but my bet is that they'll get it done. The finished landscape work that I did see, however, is gorgeous. There's a great mix of materials with steel, concrete, pavers, and chunky wooden areas, made to look like piers. There is one section in particular that I really like, where the landscapers have placed large rectangular granite chunks, like benches, in amongst Mexican Feather Grass (Stipa tenuissima). The wispy golden grasses are a perfect foil for the solid, hard edges of granite. I also saw a lot of native plants such as Salal (Gaultheria shallon) and Vine Maple (Acer circinatum). I like the way these informal plantings look against such a dense, urban setting as this.


In order to get from where I was staying in False Creek down to the Convention Centre, I took the new Canada Line Skytrain. It took about ten minutes to get from False Creek down to the Convention Centre in Coal Harbour. Very nice.

As I made my way to the Convention Centre, I walked through another very well-designed landscape. This one sits just outside the food-court below the convention centre, in what would have been a difficult area to design. It is a very steep slope from the streets above, and a relatively small flat area. What the designers did was create a gorgeous waterfall in a tear shape, and next to that, a series of wave-shaped concrete retaining walls planted with grass between them. Gorgeous, I thought, as I saw it in the morning, nearly empty. When I came down at lunch for a burrito, I was even more impressed with this design. Those beautiful retaining walls also act as the perfect bench. The landscape invites you to climb right in, as many people did, to have lunch in this perfect, sunny ocean of stairs. Very impressive.


But, on to the workshop itself. Julie Moir Messervy is a designer that I have long admired. Among others, she wrote a book called Outside the Not So Big House with architect Susan Susanka that I have poured over for years now. This was my introduction to her work.
Julie creates gardens from a place of feeling, of emotion, which of course is the way that we experience the finished garden. All too often as designers we are caught up in the cost of gardens, or the nuts and bolts of building them, coming away from what ultimately matters about the garden, which of course is the way we feel when we are sitting amongst the plants of a finished garden. Julie strives to design and build with what she calls a 'joyful process,' in which the project is a positive journey for everyone involved.

Tuesday's workshop was based on Julie's latest book, Home Outside, Creating the Landscape You Love. Over the course of the day, she took us through the process that she uses with her own clients, beginning with asking her clients to describe to her the landscape that they most loved as a child. This is the place where they loved to sit, daydream, play. Julie believes that by discovering her clients' sacred childhood landscape, she will be much closer to creating the perfect garden for them. This idea really stuck with me. It seems a great way to create a 'home outside' for my own clients, one in which they will be able to daydream again.

We did many exercises throughout the workshop, the most fun and original of which was a group project where we had to design a 'tabletop garden' using whatever we had in our bags, the things that were on our tables already, and a collection of objects that Julie and her husband provided. It was fun to see what everyone came up with, and to work in a group, when many of us designers spend our days working alone.



The workshop was refreshing and inspiring, and the day just flew by. At the end of it all, I took the train back to False Creek, then hopped in the car to make the seven o'clock ferry, back to this beloved little island that is home.

Goodnight Garden

Even though there's no more swimming in the lake, no more camping trips, no reading our books while the kids play on the beach for us till next summer, we really do have it pretty good in the early fall on the island. We have had lovely warm weather and blue blue skies most days this September.

In the garden, the strawberries are producing nicely, as is the lettuce. The tomatoes and squash are still ripening, and our winter crops of kale and rainbow chard are trying their best.

I have a long list of things I'll do better next year, like building a plastic cover to protect our tomatoes from the wind, and to keep them warm for an earlier, better crop. And more. More of everything, especially greens. And next year, I swear it, I will grow a decent crop of carrots.

But, it is time to move on and prepare the garden for the winter. The last thing to go into the ground in our garden this year is garlic. We planted some of what we grew last year (although we've already eaten most of it!), and some that we bought at our local farmers market. We chose soft-neck garlic because it is easy to grow, and will keep in a dry, dark place for longer than the hard-neck varieties.

To prepare the garlic, we pulled whole bulbs apart and separated them into cloves just before planting. We prepared the garlic bed by working in a bag of fish compost, and then digging two trenches side by side, about 3" deep. When the trenches were ready, we placed the garlic cloves into the them, about 5" apart, and then covered them with soil and watered them well. Before long, we should see the greens come up, and they will last through the winter. We will harvest this crop next summer, likely some time in July. Now all we have to do is wait!