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Feb 18th SpeakerDavid Sellars Chaos in the Rock Garden Doors open at 7:00 pm Speaker begins at 7:30 pm David Sellars is an award-winning photographer and a former President of the Alpine Garden Club of British Columbia. Together with his wife, Wendy, he is developing an extensive alpine and woodland garden in coastal British Columbia. He is an avid mountain hiker and maintains the website www.mountainflora.ca. David’s particular interests are rock garden design and construction, alpine plant photography and using video to illustrate mountain landscapes and alpine plant habitats.  He has written articles on rock garden design and alpine plant explorations for the NARGS Rock Garden Quarterly, the International Rock Gardener, and the Saxifrage Magazine. A selection of his photographs was published in the recent book Alpine Plants of British Columbia, Alberta and Northwest North America. His images are also included in a 2019 edition of Arthur Kruckeberg’s Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest and will be included in a new book on Crevice Gardening to be published in 2020. In his presentation David focuses on rock garden design and how it relates to natural landscapes and preferred plant habitats. The principles of chaos theory are introduced together with the way nature can be described by fractal geometry and the principle off self-similarity. The talk is illustrated with images from the European Alps, the Pyrenees and mountain ranges in North America. The presentation concludes with a practical application of chaos theory in the Sellars Garden. Join us for a fascinating and beautifully illustrated expression of how nature behaves and adapts to its surroundings.  | Gardening StuffThe Bees Need Your Help!!
Neonicotinoid pesticides are slowly killing bees. 75% of the world's honey is now contaminated with bee-killing pesticides. Please educate yourself and make sure you are not part of the problem.
Feb Gardening To Do list By Angelika Hedley General General - Water esp. under eaves, evergreens if rainfall is low. Plant - Start: tuberous begonias, hardy annuals - Pot up geraniums, take cuttings - Sprout early potatoes - Plant: sweetpeas, rhubarb, shallots, broad beans, peas, leeks, radish, parsley, fruit trees & canes, shrubs, roses Prune - Fruit trees & canes, blueberries - Cut back old leaves: Hellebore - Cut at 15 cm: buddleia, summer-blooming clematis Plant Health - Spray fungicide if not done in January - Moss control: aluminum sulphate - top dress perennials, - In-ground fertilize ornamental & fruit trees - Fertilize berries - Aerate soil if not waterlogged Club members, see your News in Bloom monthly newsletter for more things to do. Click here to see the entire calendar
| Jan Speaker RecapGwen Odermatt Choosing the Right Plants by Heather Fayers
The Club welcomed the return of Gwen Odermatt on a rainy January night. We had 125 people including 16 guests. We are looking forward to a members only tour of her nursery and garden “Petals and Butterflies” this May. Gwen reminded us that the Great Plant Picks board is comprised of many different gardeners, home gardeners, landscapers, professors, as well as large and small family growers like herself. Their recommendations are only made after rigorous consideration of new varieties grown in diverse locations in coastal British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. It was a pleasure to see such beautiful photos of many favourites. I have found Great Plant Picks to last more than one or two seasons, even under my negligent thumb! In addition to being reliable, the chosen plants must be available at nurseries in all three jurisdictions. Sometimes this is a problem for me. The Great Plant Picks organization does not advocate for the rarest and most expensive kinds of plants requiring specialist care. She took us on her “field study day” with other members of the board to a farm specializing in “power line friendly” trees growing no more than 5 metres tall. A Sorbus American “Dwarf Crown” looks promising. At Ernie and Marietta O’Byrne’s Northwest Nursery and garden we saw photos of the Hydrangea collection along with pictures of the beautiful “Winter Jewel” Hellebore collection. These Hellebores bloom after Christmas while varieties in the HGC Gold Collection, Ice and Fire bloom from November on. With the two kinds, you can be sure of a winters’ worth of colour. She concluded by referring us all to the web site www.greatplantpicks.org for a complete list of their preferred plants for 2020 and their criteria for selection. These plants are not annuals. They will return year after year, so cost more when initially purchased, but give your garden an established look very quickly. For more details, members, please refer to our newsletter. |
