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For the past month or so our carport, and then our front steps, have
been lined with pots of beautiful plants—azaleas, rhododendrons, and
the special white form of our native flowering current, introduced into
cultivation by the UBC Botanic Garden. All of a sudden all of the
plants disappeared. While the areas around our house now look much
more neat and spacious, we kind of miss the plants. They, on the other
hand, are probably much happier, being out of their imprisoning pots
and into the ground along the highway turnoff at the Village entrance
and exit. And I would like to think that Village residents are happier
too. At least I hope so.
Planting took place on Friday, November 27th, a rare, beautiful sunny day for the season. And Nature continued to cooperate in that the next day, it rained all day. And then did it again for the next couple of days, watering in the new plantings. If you noticed the sounds of pleasure emanating from the Village entrance around the end of November, it was probably the plants voicing their ecstasy.
Actually, this was the second batch, the second step in planting the area. The first had taken place about a month earlier, both plantings being accomplished by volunteers—Tony Clayton, John and Rose Dudley, Marianne Kohler, Susan Loutet, Rudy and Trudi Luethy, Wendy Conway- Maier, Jamie Pike, Gillian Smith, Lisa Turpin, and me, while standing over the group advising, directing, and cracking of the whip was Richard Mossakowski. The Works Department supplied chippings for mulch, and peat for meliorating the heavy soil was picked up in North Vancouver by Paul Akerhielm, stored and then delivered to the site by Peach. The plants themselves were paid for by a Provincial grant called ‘Trees for Tomorrow’.
Some of the plant varieties are quite special, and not commonly used in public landscaping. We hope Lions Bay residents will like them, but it might be best to withhold judgment for a few years, during which time the plants settle in and mature a little. Actually they should look better and better over the next ten to twenty years. Then perhaps another group of volunteers can take over to see what adjustments are needed.
But this is not the only planting taking place. Perhaps with a little lower profile, Mary Comber Miles was the one directing and cracking the whip over an entirely different group of volunteers, recreating the garden entirely made up of native plants, where one had actually been in place some forty years ago, but which over the years deteriorated through neglect, at the upper-north side of Lions Bay Avenue and Cloudview Place. This little potential gem of a garden was the initiative of Mary Comber Miles and Louis Peterson, and has begun to take form with the blessing of Council. They will be writing about it elsewhere in this publication.
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