Colours

Not enough people wear bright colours in Vancouver, I decided, after my friend Ros showed up for lunch in this cheerful jacket. It was a perfect contrast with the beige cob buildings in the City Farmer garden in Kitsilano.

 When I met Ros after her return from winter in Mexico this week, the first thing I noticed was colour. The intense red of her puffy jacket and wide red scarf stood out to me like a stop sign. The clothes are not from Mexico – they’re Ros’s winter wear here – but they put me in mind of the bright colours I associate with that country.

Which made me think about the colours of Vancouver, and why Ros’s red made such an impression.  Winter here is green and grey, serene and beautiful. By this point in the year, though, I think most of us are colour-starved. It may be why we go a bit mad over our spring flowers.

We can’t do much about nature’s hues, but I wonder why, when we have a choice, we choose drab?

All winter, our sidewalks are parades of dark coats under black umbrellas. Our cars are grey or black or white – what happened to the bright flash of blue and red and yellow on the highways of my youth? Even our houses, at least in my part of town, are dull whites, beiges and grays. Except for the totally trendy ones, which are black.

I confess I fit right in. My house is white. My winter coat is long and grey.

Ros dares to stand out on our dull winter streets. Her red is a reminder that there are other, more cheerful colours in this world.

I'm a duller photo subject altogether, although I've ditched my winter grey for slightly brighter purple. 

Spring is late in Vancouver this year, as you can see from this plot at the City Farmer garden. It still has the drabness of winter.

The main part of my favourite garden in Vancouver, also in Kitsilano, hasn't burst into full spring colour yet.  

But outside the picket fence, passersby can glory in purple crocuses and white snowdrops.

It's a stunning show of colour the entire length of the fence. 

A Pink Dawn viburnum is blooming at the front of the house.

Under it, what a show of blossoms for colour-starved Vancouverites!

Evolution of a garden

In 2002, I was dreaming of transforming this section of our Saltspring Island property into an English country garden paradise. All photos by John Denniston.

By 2022, it looked pretty lush, with a weeping silver pear to the left,  roses to the left and centre front and California lilacs to the centre and right. But you don't want to know what was growing in the jungle underneath.

In early 2023, John took a weed-whacker and mattock to the jungle, clearing the way for some new plants.

Oh, it was the chance of a lifetime! From a shady garden in Vancouver to a sunny one in Saltspring with plenty of room for every plant I’d ever fantasized about.

And so, a silver weeping pear (as seen in all the best English gardens!), a “golden” mock orange, a hardy rugosa rose, a delicately pink magnolia, two California lilacs, and a pink lavatera were among the treasures I lovingly dug into our Saltspring property 20 years ago.  Plus, at least at first, flats of home-started seedlings of all kinds of colourful sun-loving annuals and perennials.

Well, things wax and wane over the years, and I learned that sporadic maintenance of a dry, hot garden has its costs. The magnolia died quite soon, the mock orange struggled and the lavatera scraggled. The spreading rose moved in on the weeping pear with deadly intent, and while the California lilacs grew and grew, large dead brown spots appeared. The sun-loving flowers, both annuals and perennials, vanished after a season.

After awhile, that dreamed-of garden turned into a jungle of tall grasses, English ivy, periwinkle, blackberries, and fast-propagating mystery trees with cruel thorns. I was grateful to see occasional sparks of  colour from the lavatera and roses, but chose not to look too closely at what was happening underneath all that.

Which brings us to this year, when a friend offered us some plants from her Saltspring garden. “Do you have space?” she asked.

A little ashamed of our neglect in the face of her new-gardener’s enthusiasm, we began delving into the undergrowth, me with a garden fork, John with a weed-whacker and mattock. We discovered the California lilacs, planted as shrubs, had become huge trees with massive trunks, oddly contorted because of their struggles with the undergrowth. The pear had survived, but competition from the roses had killed off branches on one side, leaving it asymmetrical. Dry sticks of lavatera poked up from roots that still had some life to them.

Once the jungle was cleared away, we could see once more where we’d started 20 years ago. There was room for the new plants, which are tough ones suitable for island conditions. We dug them in, wishing them well against the competition coiled in the ground all around them. 

Sadder but wiser, we have no more illusions that our garden will ever be a slice of English-country paradise.

The garden in 2004...

...in 2007...

...in 2009... (we'd obviously been away for awhile, but notice the regular lilac to the left in full bloom)

...in 2014...

...in 2017... (once again, the garden is overgrown, but this time the pink lavatera is thriving to the right front.)

Earlier this year, a good clear-out of the undergrowth exposed full-grown California lilacs. 

One was badly contorted by the tough life it's led in the undergrowth. 

Back to shovels and bags of fresh soil. Let's see how tough these new plants are!

Look down

 Sometimes you're just walking along minding your own business when something on a boulevard catches your eye and you look down and say: "What?" In this case, it was little rustic houses made from odds and ends that first made me stop. But the more I looked, the more that was revealed. Somebody had positively stuffed the boulevard in front of their house with bits and pieces of whimsy.

These creations, tucked into clumps of winter grass, were my first signal that this was an unusual boulevard. Apparently birdhouses, they're tall and skinny, with metal roofs and one has an old tap for a perching post.  But ground-level birdhouses? The neighbourhood cats must be happy!

So I looked some more and discovered, just around a tree trunk, another kind of house:

There's no hole for birds in this little construction smack up against the tree, so maybe it's a fairy house. Somebody has gone to a lot of effort to decorate its grounds.

Further investigation revealed that the building was just part of a bigger scheme -- perhaps it's a building complex for fairies! 

I missed it at first, but right around the corner is a fairy door and window, built into the trunk. There's a broom for sweeping and a dragon peering out of the snowbank. Notice the old door knob on the bigger building, which also appears to have a tiny door at the side.

 I missed these too, on the first go-round, but behind the fairy complex is another clutch of those tall, skinny birdhouses. The perch posts are old drawer-pulls and knobs. Somebody was using up their odds and ends!

Along with the rustic-style buildings, there is clear evidence that kids are a big part of what's happening on this boulevard. 

Medieval knights stage a battle, maybe with each other, maybe with the green dragon off beyond the snowbank. 

Somebody had fun hiding pink, yellow and green ladybugs among the pebbles.

And the African animals had to have their patch of the boulevard, even if it's a bit snowy for the giraffes and tigers.

Just as I turned to go, this popped out at me, on another tree on the boulevard:

Yet another fairy door, this time for a high-flying fairy, with colourful pebbles beneath. 

A close-up of that highly decorated door, with its flowers, mushrooms and a lantern. 

I have no idea what the strange collection on this patch of  boulevard -- rustic and plastic, cutesy and natural -- adds up to. But I do know it's amazing what you find sometimes when you look down!