Fresh in the Garden for Valentines!

Just in time for Valentines, our B & B garden has out done itself. Remember all the kinds of love...

...the love of gardening. the unconditional love of pets, the many, many loves between you and another. Growing up loved as a child. Realizing your love of parents and elders. Growing into the love of friends. Reaching out to the romantic love between equals. No matter the gender. Understanding your love of God and spirit and life. Giving back your love to all.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Bananas in Vancouver?

It's September and the bananas are ripening in our West Coast garden. Take that - Calgary, or just about anywhere else suffering freakish early snowfalls!

Our American friends just can't stop connecting our northerliness with "it must be cold up there". In Vancouver's case, remember the "temperate rainforest" bit? In a protected space between Nelson House and the neighbours, we planted a single banana plant a few years back and now look at our little jungle grove...

Nelson House B & B Garden continued...

 

Our B & B guests are sometimes blown away by the beauty of the West End's gardens. If stepping off a plane from Phoenix or even Sydney, the green can be kind of trippy! I remind them that Vancouver is in a temperate rain forest. If you visit the depths of Stanley Park, there is moss hanging off the tree branches. We may not be hot and humid like Louisiana but we are certainly cool and humid like the foothills of the Himalayas.

 

 

I joke that I am something of a Darwinian gardener. I mean by that I am a firm believer in flowering shrubs and perennials. The photo above shows some of our camellias and rhododendrons. I stick'em in the ground and let the toughest survive! It gets a bit jungly at times but then it also creates a feeling of privacy and escape right in the centre of the city.

 

 

The hydrangeas are lovely this year. We have several mature specimens along the front fence and I must have missed adding garden lime to one. With our winter rains, Vancouver has a naturally acidic soil, so now we have blooms in a lovely range of pinks and purples. I will try to take some more pics as the heads grow. The roses, by the way, are "bonica" and always happy bloomers.  

 

 

Nelson House Heritage Garden

A gardener must be an optimist - always planting for the future with the eye of one's imagination. As often happens in life, the future might not work out as planned or, let's face it, we just might not be around to see it happen.

One of the delights of a mature garden is the chance to see those loving plans come to beautiful fruition. Nelson House B & B, a century-old house, has such a garden. It is small - a city garden only - but it has been planted with excellent "bones" and tended with love for generations. A visit to our little urban oasis is a step back in time. Several of our trees, shrubs and roses are truly heritage specimens, planted when the House was young, circa 1905-10.

The photo above shows the "bones" of an astonishing pieris japonica - described by garden sources as growing slowly with an elegant, upright and layered habit. What is astonishing is that this very slow-growing shrub, a native of rainy, shaded mountainsides in Japan and China, is expected to reach no more than nine to twelve feet - ours is fifteen to twenty! Even in Vancouver's well-watered, shady environment, this specimen is undoubtedly one of the oldest on the West Coast.

Blooming through much of March and April in Vancouver, the pieris japonica graceful, dangling bell-like flowers are matched in their day-time charm by the old-fashioned lily of the valley perfume - especially on a mild spring night.

A bed and breakfast garden continued...

The blue ceanosis or wild lilac beside our front steps is buzzing with happy bees. No wonder, the perfume emanating from this hardy shrub is both head-spinning and delightful!

The pink rose is a bonica. I have three and each stands eight to nine feet tall - covered with blooms all summer long. Many, many more blossoms to come!

A bed and breakfast garden.

A bed and breakfast garden often shelters some classic specimens of the plant world. Right now, our Alba Rose is in full bloom and scent. Alba is an Old Garden Rose, meaning that it predates the introduction of hybrid varieties in 1867. In fact, the Alba is one of the world's oldest known roses. It is famous as the "white rose", symbol of the House of York, in the 15th century, English "War of the Roses".

In liturgical symbolism, it represents the Virgin Mary. The simple shape and white colour is associated with the light, innocence, purity, joy and glory of the Madonna. Visions of the Virgin are said to be accompanied by the light, sweet scent of this rose.

The Alba's beauty graces our garden by day and it's gentle fragrance is a blessing by night. I don't exactly genuflect but I do stop and smell the roses and recommend it to all my friends.

Under the lilacs...

French lilacs flank the front gate and overhang the fountain. I believe I spotted a fairy in the garden yesterday. They are said to be attracted by the sound of running water but I believe they might like the scent of lilacs. Our guests certainly do.

Except sometimes after a rain, those romantic, hanging blooms can give you a sweet, wet slap across the face! Duck & cover.

Spring Extravaganza!

As April turns to May in Vancouver, the Nelson House B & B garden is a spring extravaganza. The picture above, taken yesterday, is just a glimpse of blooming peiris japonica(sooo...sweet at night), clematis armandii climbing up to Vienna's window and over the porch roof and the magnolia soulangeana, reaching for the sky.

Vancouver Springtime...

Just a couple of pics taken yesterday of cherries and daffodils in bloom.

Fresh !

Vancouver - signs of spring.

While the whole East Coast is getting Snow Days off work and off school, the sun is shining in Vancouver and the garden is in bloom. Here at the B & B, the clematis is just teasing us with a few blossoms before it goes nuts. The hellebores are up and with their gorgeous, orchid-like faces, they promise that Spring is here to stay.