On the day after Art in the Garden, the Sunday, I joined a group of garden hosts and artists to tour around all the gardens. Of course we hadn’t had the chance to see each other’s gardens at all. The art had been removed but it was still a great opportunity to see how each gardener has made a personal hideaway. The gardens are behind a townhouse, surrounding a brand-new subdivision house, filling country acreage, bordering the ocean, or in my case, using the area around our 100 year-old house. Often the owners celebrate a spectacular view. But we all have to deal with the fact that our Winters can be freezing for some days (not weeks) and that we get serious amounts of rain, often. Some also have to deal with marauding deer, and have discovered which plants they dislike.

With artists Rose Kapp and Peggy Scott-Dunn carpooling with me, a number of us followed the tour brochure from the day before. In almost continuous rain we visited Chuck’s tiny townhouse retreat, sculptor Parvanah’s very neat garden with her sculpture and then our garden before stopping at Arts Centre Society President Ann Kitching’s home to eat our packed lunches.

I took photos all day and have now made a 54-photo Picasa album so that you can get an idea of the kinds of plants we have chosen for this sometimes hot, but occasionally very rainy-in-July Rainforest zone we call home. In the album you will see that I have given first names only for privacy and no addresses. Those of you who took the tour will know where you are.

https://picasaweb.google.com/112208740085943894765/GardenTourJuly202014

After lunch it started to rain even harder so the gardens in North-East Port Moody and the Heritage Mountain part of Coquitlam had very short visits. We spent about an hour at the Anmore acreage of the Kouchnareva couple. They grow an astonishing number of tomatoes and other vegetables and herbs, for their own consumption and for the seeds. They have worked out how to grow organically and without any irrigation in an area that was completely forested not many years ago.

We admired Linda’s colourful shrubs in the new and deer-proof garden she tends. It was bare rock eight years ago.

The tour ended up in the village of Belcarra, where as I keep mentioning, there’s always a view of Indian Arm. Hummingbirds abound in the three carefully tended gardens we visited. Take a look at the photo album to get a sense of the inspirational gardens we saw.

After some seven hours I drove back to Port Moody to collect Alan and we joined the others for a fun potluck supper at Des and Adrienne’s house and garden, again in Belcarra, overlooking Bedwell Bay.

Thank you all for organizing such an interesting day to follow up on the busy day before and for inviting us to see your private retreats.