The initial front garden was designed by landscape architect Raoul Robillard in 1978, similar in style to Butchart Gardens in terms of planting and layout, featuring a formal ‘still’ garden with various varieties of Azaleas. Since 2020 we have been strategically removing the Cotoneaster horizontalis and Azaleas and replacing and introducing a perennial presence leaning on a ‘Cottage Garden’ aesthetic with intent towards a more bio diverse garden which can host a multitude of pollinators and wildlife while offering a multi seasonal display, changing throughout the season.
At the north end of the backyard garden is a predominantly native woodland garden. In the centre of the backyard garden is the valuable sunny area. The north top section of the back yard is predominantly native plants in this section featuring native ground cover. This area looks amazing in the early spring, like a blanket of loveliness, and it requires very low maintenance and need little or no watering. The south area, sounding the pool, has a tropical/exotic section that comes in the late summer featuring bananas, cannas, gunnera, ginger, lilies, tetrapanax, and ad fig tree. We like to plant flowers that attract humming birds and other wildlife.
Our garden is situated on what was a ancient old growth forest remnants of stumps can still be seen, and second or third growth surrounding us. The District of North Vancouver has land adjacent to the back yard on the south side of the property. It was exclusively native plants dense with salmon berry, alder trees, ferns, vine maple, and horsetails. Over the past 20 years invasive species completely choked out the native plants. Worried that the encroaching invasive plants would begin progressing thru the forest during the initial days of the pandemic, we, with help from neighbours and permission from the District of North Vancouver, began removing invasive species from the greenbelt surrounding the trails. The District provided a variety of native shrubs , ferns and trees to help fill in the areas that where cleared. This work both helped revive the native environment that will help the local wildlife but will also be more climate resilient.