A great introduction to what you can see here at UBC Botanical Garden, all visitors are welcome to participate in a free (with paid admission) guided tour that gives a general overview of the Garden, such as our Alpine, Native, and Physics gardens.
Tours are approximately 60 minutes, and are held at 1:00 pm every day in July and August.
About the Garden
Established in 1916, UBC Botanical Garden curates a collection of ca. 12,000 plants, representing approximately 8,000 taxa from temperate regions around the world. The Greenheart Canopy Walkway offers an umparalleled aerial view of the west coast forest canopy ecosystem 15 metres above ground.
A message from our friends at Wesbrook Village:
Visit us at DiscoverWesbrook.com for the latest information on everything happening in Wesbrook Village this summer including our Wesbrook Festival, Outdoor Movie, and more!
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Spend a Saturday morning exploring and taking part in creative hands-on learning with our family program leaders. Designed for families with children aged 5-11, these fun sessions offer an opportunity to discover UBC Botanical Garden. Cost includes garden admission so that families can stay and discover the garden at their own pace after the program. Why not pack a lunch and have an adventurous Saturday with us!
Dates: Saturday, July 13, July 27 and/or August 10, 2013 Time: 10:00 am to 11:45 am
Location: Meet at UBC Botanical Garden Reception Center
Cost/Session: $25 per family*, $15 per family* for garden members and UBC students. Applicable taxes and fees included.
Register here or in person at the gatehouse during regular hours.
Please note: Advance registration required. All children must be accompanied by their parent(s) for the entire session. Most activities take place outside; dress for the weather.
* Cost covers a family up to 2 adults and 4 children, and includes general garden admission.
Program Details
July 13, 2013: Plant Explorers
UBC Botanical Garden is filled with fascinating plants of all shapes and colours! Become a plant explorer for the day – hunt for flowers of different types and leaves of various shapes, then create your own plant press to preserve the treasures you have found. Take home the skills and supplies you need to create your very own pressed plant collection.
July 27, 2013: Precious Water
Water is so precious, for us and for many other creatures. Dive in for an adventure as we discover aquatic organisms by carefully catching and identifying amazing pond inhabitants. We will also create a miniature wetland to test the natural filtration capacity of these habitats.
August 10, 2013: Animal Neighbours
How well do you know your neighbours? No, not the people next door, the wildlife kind! Come learn about our animal friends who live so close to us in forests and parks around Vancouver. Venture into the Garden and find habitats frequently used by our animal neighbours. Learn to recognize their tracks and take home some tracks you will make yourself.
 Apply now! Space is limited.
Upcoming Information Session
Date: Saturday, July 20, 2013
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Location: UBC Botanical Garden
About the Horticulture Training Program
Running from September to May, the fullÂtime Horticulture Training Program is designed to give students the skills and experience necessary for entering the field of horticulture. Completion of 1100 hours of classroom and hands-on practical instruction and supervised practical work will lead to Levels I & II Apprenticeship technical training credit.
Students will be introduced to principles and techniques of landscape construction and design, garden ecology, plant biology and plant health, the nature and role of soil in natural and constructed landscapes, aspects of ornamental and food crop management, as well as practical, hands-on landscape and garden management.
Horticulture instruction will be undertaken using the facilities of the Botanical Garden, Botanical Garden Nursery, Nitobe Memorial Garden, Totem Research Fields, and the UBC landscape at large. Instruction will include a variety of off-site fieldtrips to various horticultural organizations and operations.
For more information on the Horticulture Training Program and to register, click here.
Splash a shade of greenery in your garden to complement the summer weather with native and berry plants from our Garden Centre. Our selection is at its peak now! Native Perennials
- Yellow Monkey Flower (Mimulus guttatus) – spectacular bright yellow flower, for moist soils with full sun or light shade, a member of Garry Oak ecosystem
- Western Meadow Rue (Thalictrum occidentale) – attractive blue columbine-like foliage and white to purplish flowers; this tall plant looks good at the back of perennial border, for sun or partial shade
- Cascade Penstemon (Penstemon serrulatus) – attractive purple flower adapted to moist sites with sun or partial shade
Native Ground Covers
- Kinnickinnick (Arctostaphylos uvi-ursi) – popular and widely adapted with creeping habit
- Beach Strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis) – ideal for well drained sunny sites, shiny green leaves
- Deer Fern (Blechnum spicant) and Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum) – both good for moist and shady site
- Vanilla Leaf (Achyls triphylla) – attractive three-lobed leaf, adapted to shade
Native trees and shrubs
- Garry Oak (Quercus garryana) – vigorous one year old seedlings, adapted to sunny, dry sites
- Vine Maple (Acer circinatum) – small tree with good fall colour, widely adapted to moist, partially shady sites
- Nootka Rose (Rosa nutkana) – spectacular pink flower. widely adapted
Berry Plants
- Strawberry Stolo – high quality Totem-like fruit, good choice for “June-bearer”
- Albion Srawberry – day neutral produces fruit throughout summer into fall, good quality, good choice for pots
- Raspberry – Tulameen – top quality for fresh eating, ripens midseason – Malahat – early ripening with good quality.
Do you love lavender? The Workshop at the Garden is harvesting lavender and other flowers from our nursery. Dried lavender, as well as lavender arrangements, bouquets, and gifts handmade by our Friends of the Garden volunteers, will be available for sale at Shop in the Garden soon. Early varieties are expected to be ready in two to three weeks, while later varieties, by the end of July.
Master Gardeners are back to help answer your gardening questions! Check the sidebar for details.
Summer Reading Recommendations
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Mysteries with a gardening theme are a perfect read on a warm summer afternoon. Anthony Eglin is one of the best authors of this genre, and the Shop has two of his recent books: The Blue Rose and Garden of Secrets Past. The author, himself a passionate gardener, combines a wealth of horticultural detail with well-constructed plots, interesting characters (his reluctant sleuth is a retired botany professor) and the charming setting of the English countryside.
Saturday AND Sunday, July 20 & 21, 2013, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
UBC Botanical Garden Garden Pavilion
$150 public, $140 garden members & UBC students
This two-day introduction to plein air painting will give you the tools to paint your favourite spots at home or abroad.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013, 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm
UBC Botanical Garden Reception Center
$40 public, $30 garden members & UBC students
This short course will help you plan your winter vegetable garden to make sure you can eat fresh carrots, leeks and broccolis all winter long.
For more information and to register for our courses and lectures, please click here. Â
As humans, we are drawn to the extreme – the gigantic, exciting, adorable, implausible and incredible. Though peaceful and tranquil on the surface, gardens are a place of mystery, intrigue, exploitation, and tremendous extremes. Discover how plants around the world have adapted to climb, defend themselves, attract animals for pollination, and survive extreme weather conditions. From extreme climbers to extremely strange flowers, our new drop-in guided tour is a great way to discover the different gardens while learning about the extremely interesting plants growing at UBC Botanical Garden.
Tours are offered daily at 1:00 p.m. in July and August.
Join a tour for a thrilling journey through the world of extreme plants! Click here to see the latest updates on our tour schedule, or call our Gatehouse at 604.822.4208 to confirm tour availability.
July is a glorious time in the garden! Because the Botanical Garden is on the edge of Point Grey, temperatures are moderate and flowers tend to last at this time of year. Looking around, most summer flowers belong to herbaceous plants. A few shrubs are summer flowering (hydrangea, for example), but the majority of common tree species are out in the spring. Nevertheless, there are two genera with summer flowering species that usually elicit an enthusiastic response from garden visitors. Koelreuteria paniculata (golden rain tree) is one. In spring, the new leaves emerge hot pink before turning green, but in July, it produces brilliant yellow flowers in branched clusters, well above the leafy canopy. Known as Luan in China, its flowers are used both as a yellow dye and in traditional medicine, and the tree is planted over the graves of scholars. Our largest specimen sits next to the Reception Centre adjacent to the entrance plaza. There is also a rare, narrowly upright cultivar of this species, K. paniculata ‘Fastigiata’, at the entrance to the boardwalk.
The other group is the evergreen magnolias, a genus better known for deciduous trees that flower precociously (i.e., before leaf emergence). As these evergreen plants continue to mature, their flowers are produced in greater and greater numbers. Because of the mild winter, 2013 looks like it will be our best flowering year yet. Although the flowers of the evergreen magnolias are not as huge or brightly coloured as those of the precocious species, they possess considerable charm. Many are strongly fragrant. One of the most distinctive species is Magnolia cavaleriei. It has leathery, white-backed, dark green leaves, and overwintering buds densely covered in silky hairs that are copper coloured and iridescent. When partially opened, the fragrant, creamy white flowers are about the size of a billiard ball, the tepals unevenly edged with red. Look for it on Decaisne Trail. There are more than a dozen other evergreen Magnolia species scattered throughout the David C. Lam Asian Garden as well as two North American species in the north gardens (M. grandiflora in the Contemporary Garden and M. virginiana in the Carolinian Forest Garden). Look for the dark blue numbered labels signifying the Magnolia mobile phone tour throughout the garden and enjoy the summer!
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