***Audrey, Leigh and Ann invite me into their Secret Garden***

THE SECRET GARDEN

by Beth Lopez
I was recently introduced to a hidden gem. Tucked behind a tall apartment building on Pendrell for 55-plus residents is a Secret Garden.

The building already had some community. There is a common room for residents which engenders community activities and helps to create friendships. A few residents had formed a garden committee to look after what garden already existed, front and back, and together this committee worked on a proposal to augment the garden in the back yard of the building.

Leigh wrote up the plan and Nick researched the costing for soil and lumber for raised planters. The Vancouver Foundation gives small grants for community projects and in 2015 they were awarded the maximum $1000 grant based on their proposal.

They bought lumber using Nick’s plans. Nick and Leigh built the first three boxes for the raised planters. They bought six cubic meters of topsoil and had it delivered. It was dropped off in the front yard and a work crew moved it one wheelbarrow at a time along the narrow walkway to the back. They had to change the design of the raised beds, making them shorter than planned because, in the end, they didn’t have enough soil to fill the taller design. Two years later, Nick and Bill built two more boxes.

*Photos taken by Leigh and edited by Sue.*

The boxes were built 8’ by 4’, based on the standard size of lumber purchased. The beds were divided in half and residents were able to claim a 4’ by 4’ bed to plant as they wished. Some gardeners plant flowers and one corner is full of brightly blooming flower pots and a couple of very prolific tomatoes – the work of a 90-year-old gardener.

Others grow vegetables and fruit. There is one plot full of various herbs, including lots of mint and a hardy rosemary bush. Another has squash, one has productive raspberry canes, and another has a healthy blueberry bush.

I saw garlic and potatoes on one side and a small green house structure to protect spring seedlings.

Ann has the largest and most colorful flowering garden. She is out in the garden almost every day cleaning things up, deadheading the flowers, and adding new and unusual plants. Her work ensures the garden is always beautiful.

The area was bright with late summer dahlias and mums, but I was also shown the trellises that were covered in climbing beans and sweet peas earlier in the summer.

I saw a bare dead looking tree that was actually a bamboo trellis - one stalk with branches coming out from all sides ready to support a climbing vine. I think I need to find one of those myself. It would be gorgeous with pole beans draped from all sides.

The grant money was spent that first year. Any additions since then are financed through volunteer donations from residents, such as those which paid for the beautiful picnic table and benches designed and built by Nick. Gardeners also buy their own plants and seeds and share their beauty with all.

Leigh planted apple and plum trees within the first two years after the grant. Not too long after there was a harvest of plums that was big enough for all the gardeners to have a share. Another year the apple trees produced enough apples that Leigh created an apple festival for the residents, baking up four apple dishes to be shared using all of the harvest. It seems that our cold wet spring discouraged pollination at the critical time and this year, the few fruits that did grow became squirrel food.

I read a quote –“ If something is not eating your plants, then your garden is not part of the eco-system.” Gardeners are always looking for pest-resistant plants or ways to protect their plants from the birds, but sometimes, those pests can be part of the rich enjoyable environment that is a garden.

For many of the residents, this has been an added benefit to the busy garden that was not foreseen — the garden attracts wildlife. Audrey loves sitting outside to read on a sunny day, enjoying the hummingbirds that come to feed on the bright purple butterfly bush. She recognizes the parents who have been coming all summer and now they come with their babies, who are learning to feed themselves. Leigh watched a robin carefully taking the blueberries from her bush one at a time and deliver them to her hungry nestlings.

There are some cats and dogs in the building that enjoy visiting the garden and feasting on the cat grass planted for one resident’s cat. More grass needs to be planted! There is even a neighborhood cat who wanders in to visit regularly. And over all the blossoms there is a steady stream of bees enjoying the bounty and doing their important work of pollinating.

Many residents take comfort and joy from their connection to nature through the plants and flowers, through the visiting wildlife as well as the sun and wind, grass underfoot and the scent of flowers and fruit.

When Audrey moved into the building she was greeted by a woman who asked “do you like gardening?” Mary had taken care of the garden at the front of the building and, being over 80, she wanted to share the job. Now that Mary has moved away, Audrey, over 80 now herself, has become the one to care for the front of the building, buying new plants in pots to brighten the garden, weeding and raking and feeding the perennials.

She doesn’t want to plant anything new in the ground because there will be scaffolding put up soon for renovations and she fears for the safety of the plants already there.

Now all of the gardeners are waiting for the big transition. Under the building is a parking garage and a large portion of that is under the back yard. There is a waterproof membrane between the ceiling of the garage and the garden and that membrane needs to be replaced and the owners are saying that the whole back yard must be removed to put in a new membrane. The residents are not sure when this will be happening, and they are hoping that when that is done, the yard will be re-established and the garden can return. Maybe when that time comes, they can re-apply for a grant and build it all anew.

Because of the expected renovations, the gardeners hope to find someone to become foster gardeners to the fruit trees. Please contact me at the address below if you are interested and I will give your contact information to the gardeners.

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL GARDEN?

Do you have a garden in the West End or Coal Harbour that you would like to share - a curb garden, a boulevard garden, a round-about garden, a building, roof, or patio garden, a community plot, or something entirely new?

If you would like me to write about your garden, please contact me at beth.twej@gmail.com.

SUPPORT YOUR WEST END - COAL HARBOUR COMMUNITY MEDIA

The West End Journal, including “Pots & Plants”, is made possible by local advertising and monthly contributions from our Faithful Readers Circle. If you would like to support your community media, please visit our fundraising site here to contribute any amount from $5 a month up. If you have a business in the West End / Coal Harbour neighbourhood, check out our advertising rates and information page here.

Thank you!
Kevin Dale McKeown
Editor & Publisher
editor@thewestendjournal.ca