Bulbs!

I had just been wishing for hyacinths for the gardens (since they smell so nice) when I got a message about bulbs being discarded from a local garden! Unfortunately they were planted right before a heat wave in Vancouver so some of them might be fried, but a few hundred of them should make it at least! I would love to see loads of spring bulbs lighten up the area next spring. Here's a picture of the van-load of bulbs, those green bags are full of bulbs too!

Mother's Day at UBC Botanical Garden!

After a lovely breakfast in bed and some sushi for lunch, we headed out to UBC for the Botanical Garden's annual perennial plant sale. As a Mother's day present I had money to blow at the sale and quickly filled up the van! Then we walked around the gardens and I took photos to log all kinds of interesting plants. My favorite is this huge peony (paeonia veitchii from China).The trained apple trees were all beautiful and there were still some interesting tulips blooming, including a few black ones!

The overnight expansion

There is so much to be thankful for! 11 cubic meters of soil were delivered at noon on Wednesday and by 8 pm it was spread out across almost 1 1/2 blocks! I can imagine the surprise of people in the area when these huge gardens popped up overnight! There was amazing help from volunteers and the good folks at Scottish Line Painting who are putting their boulevard into the garden scheme as well! Of course I'm left wanting MORE soil, but what's new!! Meanwhile, offers of plant donations are coming from many directions and I have so much hope for the future! The vision is coming to life! Now how to organize it all??!! Here are some photos of the progression!

one of the piles of compost

we put a layer of cardboard under the compost to act as a weed barrier
the soil distributed

the sun garden now extends right to Hastings

I'm really excited about the new rock garden!

A gardening day like this is a treat in the DTES, normally one needs to keep on guard for used needles and condoms buried in the soil or other waste and garbage lying about. The soil is so fluffy and easy to work with at this stage because it hasn't compacted yet. This does also mean that plants are more easily stolen, but we'll hope for the best! I have to say that plant disappearances have slowed down a great deal, in part because lots of locals have been warding people off! I love that they are taking some ownership of the gardens, because it's for them as well. I'd love to find a way to integrate more locals into the gardening projects.

Next guerrilla mission: starting a sunflower field beyond the barbed-wire fence....

Here comes the dirt!

Well we got what we asked for.... a truck is dumping 11 square meters of soil at our place on Wed!! Time to get busy!!!

As you can see, I have NOT been busy blogging. We have been out there in the dirt though! Lots to tell you about but I'd better get my beauty-sleep for this shoveling extravaganza! Here's some photos though to tide you over!

early spring at the CN triangle

the baby forsythia's blooming!

next site we're expanding to!