In this issue
Master gardeners will be at the Shop in the Garden every Sunday afternoon, 12:00 – 4:00 between now and the end of June. Bring your gardening questions and get them answered!
UBC Alumni Weekend 2013
May 25, 2013
Alumni Weekend 2013 is a chance for the public and UBC Alumni to explore the campus.
At UBC Botanical Garden and Nitobe Memorial Garden, we will open our doors with free general admission for registered Alumni Weekend participants.
Discover your adventurous spirit as you explore our extensive plant collections from around the globe in 60 minutes on a guided tour through the Alpine, Native and Physic Gardens.
Want to get up close to the west coast forest canopy? Ascend for a guided tour atop the Greenheart Canopy Walkway for natural wonders of this unique landscape as you navigate across tree platforms suspended high above forest floor. Greenheart Canopy Walkway is accessible at discounted rates.
Note: The Garden, parking, and UBC campus will be busy on May 25. Please plan extra time for your visit.
Click here for more information and to RSVP for UBC Alumni Weekend 2013.
Magnolia Day Tours – Thank You!
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our first Magnolia Day on April 6!
It was a great success with over 100 participants. Everyone enjoyed the tours, and the timing was great as magnolia trees were in full bloom.
We look forward to hosting more Magnolia Day Tours next year.
Garden in Google Street View
Two years ago, UBC Botanical Garden worked with Google Maps to come out and shoot videos as part of a pilot project. Today, we are happy to announce that the Garden is now live in Google Street View!
It’s so great to see it up! For the story on Google Street View’s visit to the Garden, check out our blog post.
Visit us all year long, and take advantage of discounts on our courses and lectures.
Get 10% off at the Shop in the Garden and Plant Centre when you present your membership card. You can buy or renew your membership in person, or online on our website. Thank you for your support.
Not sure if your membership has expired? Give us a call at 604.822.4208.
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.
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Saturday, May 11, 2013, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Free Admission
6804 SW Marine Drive, Vancouver, BC
Spring is here and so is UBC Botanical Garden’s annual plant sale! A Growing Affair, the evolution of the Garden’s popular and long-running annual Perennial Plant Sale, as the name suggests, includes more than just plants for sale. Designed to inform and empower plant lovers of all ages and to engage the local community with a deeper appreciation for all things growing, the event combines useful information and demonstrations for both new and experienced gardeners with an unparalleled selection of plants available for purchase. There are even garden tours and activities for children to inspire the next generation of gardeners.
What sets this plant sale apart is the quality of both the plants and information offered. Featuring a wide selection of plants propagated by the Friends of UBC Botanical Garden and carefully selected commercial growers, shoppers can be comfortable, knowing that all of the plants for sale are well suited to our wet, coastal climate. And if you aren’t sure what to grow or how to grow it, the UBC Botanical Garden Hortline staff and Master Gardeners will be on-hand to answer your plant questions and help you make selections that will thrive in your unique environment. Plants available will include garden favourites as well as rare and unusual plants. The event will also feature plants from the Garden’s “ From our Garden to your Garden†program. The Shop in the Garden will also be well stocked with garden accessories, tools, supplies, soil, the widest selection of gardening books in the city and… more plants!
Don’t miss this mainstay Vancouver gardening event, there is a reason it’s been a must for local gardeners for over 20 years.
For those curious to learn more before buying, gardening experts will be on hand to answer your questions. Still need some extra help after the sale? Ask questions online on the UBC Botanical Garden Forums, and receive answers from the same volunteers who propagate and care for the plants! Visit our website for more information and a list of plants available for purchase at A Growing Affair.
We are looking forward to seeing you at A Growing Affair on Saturday, May 11. The Shop in the Garden has been busy bringing in new stock and potting up all sorts of wonderful plants! Even if you cannot make it to the event, stop by anytime for a great selection of garden favourites, rare and unusual plants, including many plants in the From our Garden to your Garden program.
The Shop also carries a wide variety of garden accessories and gifts. Check out our assortments of planters, vases, and garden decorations such as statuary and garden fairies.
Don’t forget to accessorize yourself! Find that perfect made-in-Vancouver gardening or summer hat at our Shop in various styles: Wide-brimmed and adjustable, cotton and/or linen, packable for travel, and washable.
And just in time for the great weather are colourful garden tools and toys for kids and to inspire the next generation of gardeners. You will also find at the Shop bird calls, bug magnifiers and bug-eye kaleidoscopes that will surely bring hours of outdoor fun for everyone. Master Gardeners are back to help answer your gardening questions! Check the sidebar for details.
In Search of the Blue Poppy
Ever since the famous plant explorer Frank Kingdon Ward caught his first glimpse of the Himalayan Blue Poppy (Mecanopsis betonicifolia) growing wild in the Tsang Po Gorges of Tibet in 1924, gardeners have dreamt of drifts of blue poppies in their gardens. While somewhat fussy in their growing requirements, we are fortunate that the Pacific Northwest is one of the few places in the world where they can thrive. Bill Terry, our local enthusiast, has grown many rare varieties in his Sechelt garden, and has written two books on his experiences both as a grower and as a plant explorer: Blue Heaven: Encounters with the Blue Poppy and recently, Beyond Beauty: Hunting the Wild Blue Poppy. These are available in the Shop, as well as a collection of the writings of Kingdon Ward: In the Land of the Blue Poppies: the Collected Plant-Hunting Writings of Frank Kingdon Ward.
Look for plants of the blue poppy for purchase at A Growing Affair and discover the blue poppy blooming in the David C. Lam Asian Garden.
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 will be offered on the following dates:
- May 18 – June 30: Weekends at 1:00 p.m.
- July and August: Details in our next newsletter
This summer, make sure to drop by UBC Botanical Garden for a thrilling journey through the world of extreme plants!
With their lavish, fragrant, brightly coloured May-borne flowers and lush foliage, peonies are familiar plants in the garden. The cultivated herbaceous types, while beautiful, are also troublingly susceptible to grey-mould ( Botrytis), and are thus best grown in the open with plenty of sun and air circulation. However, not all species die down to the ground in the winter like the common herbaceous border peony. A group of East Asian species, the so-called tree peonies, produce woody stems and are better suited to woodland conditions, such as in the David C. Lam Asian Garden. The three most common species here include Delavay’s peony, the Tibetan peony and Rock’s peony. Paeonia delavayi is a clustering shrub from the dry oak and pine forests of western China. It spreads to form colonies of stems about 1.5 m tall. The beautiful flowers are 6 to 10 cm wide, composed of four to thirteen overlapping, papery petals, in shades of bright yellow, orange or scarlet, often with a red or purple blotch at the base. Paeonia ludlowii (Tibetan peony) is a handsome, yellow flowered tree peony known only from a small area of SE Xizang (Tibet). It grows to more than 3 metres, has large compound leaves with narrow, jagged bright green leaflets and rich yellow, 8-cm-diameter flowers.
The Tibetan peony has a limited natural distribution and is threatened in habitat because plants are often dug up to harvest the root bark, which is used in folk medicine. Perhaps the most beautiful of all tree peonies is Paeonia rockii, the rarely cultivated species introduced in the 1920s from SW Gansu, China, by the Austrian-American plant hunter, Joseph Rock. Its opulent, 25- to 30-cm-diameter white to pink, semi-double blooms have a maroon blotch at the base of each petal. The flowers are borne at the tips of metre-tall stems, and as long as the weather is not particularly stormy or hot, they can last for several weeks.
The fruit of all peony species is an aggregate of short, bean-like pods, arranged like a five-pointed jester’s hat.
Friday, June 7, 2013, 12:00 – 3:00 pm
UBC Botanical Garden Reception Centre
$45 public, $35 garden members & UBC students
Espalier is a pruning technique of training fruit trees into interesting shapes. Learn the basics with Brendan Fisher, our food garden horticulturist.
 Friday, June 14, 2013, 12:00 – 3:00 pm
UBC Botanical Garden Reception Centre
$45 public, $35 garden members & UBC students
Espalier is a pruning technique of training fruit trees into interesting shapes. Learn the basics with Brendan Fisher, our food garden horticulturist.
For more information and to register for our courses and lectures, please click here. Â
 We are now accepting applications for the Horticulture Training Program 2013-2014 at UBC Botanical Garden.
Upcoming Information Sessions
Dates: Saturday, June 15, and 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.
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