June 2007
Love those summer nights
One Friday evening I had a small gathering and
we
played a copy of carcassonne that happened to have been forgotten at my
house. We had pretty much every expansion pack (I'm not a gamer -
we may be missing one) including the new dragons and volcanoes. It
was quite a fun game.
VanDusen Garden Tour
New to me this year, we got tickets for the VanDusen garden tour.
10 homes around Vancouver open their gardens (but not their insides) to
touring garden geeks. The houses stretch across the city and you
are responsible for transportation. I usually take macros shots
of just flowers so I took this opportunity to just shoot scenics
(garden wide shots) and only took my wide angle lens.
1163 29th
Ave W
Our first house. I noticed a few things - while VanDusen had
staff on site, no one was checking tickets. For this first house,
the home owner was there and was answering question. This home
was maintained by a couple and they obviously spent a lot of time
putting together combinations of plants. I was particularly
impressed with the Irises (which I hadn't seen before) combined with a
pointy flower of a similar colour. A terrific match.
6420 Sophia
St
This house amazed me. The backyard is completely garden - it might
as well be a completely different part of Vancouver. An old
exposed aggregate sidewalk had been broken up to make the steeping
stones and some of the planters. Even though the lot was small
there was a secluded cutting garden fenced off in the back. I
think the part that most amazed me was how established this garden was
- this thing is a long term work of love.
58** Hudson
Street
There were a collection of 5 houses in the space of a block, several of
which had the same gardener. These house were more classical
(plants separated from each other, large open spaces) and were
obviously recently made. In a few places, you could see plants
there were still square from their seedling pots.
6269 Elm St.
Possibly the largest yard I have ever seen in Vancouver - you could
play football in the expansive yard. There were trails through
the side gardens and there many varietals and a decent vegetable
garden. Again, quite established, but you get the feeling (from
the small greenhouse) that these people are "pincher's" taking cuttings
of rare varietals from friends and growing them to augment their own
garden.
4055 W 35th Ave
Another recently landscaped house. I was unbelievably
impressed with this house, not only because of the neighborhood, the
beautiful home finishing and the gardens but because of how well it all
fit together. If I won the lottery (and it was big enough to pay
for the house and leave a lump sum to start a fund to cover the
property tax), I would like this house.
3595 Point Grey Road
Point Grey Road is dominated by new homes that occupy the limits of the
lot, straining to maximize the amazing views to be had. This home
was an original (1940's maybe) home, perhaps a third the size of it's
neighbors. The gardens were impressive (I especially liked the
moss growing between the bricks in the front) but the view (which was
wonderful) seemed to fight rather than complement.
2655
Cambridge Ave
The other side of Main street. In fact, the other side of Nanaimo
street - this house has a very full front yard. I love the macro
thing and I could probably shoot this front yard all year round.
The most impressive thing to me was actually just a little pocket of
the orange lilies with a maroon Japanese maple behind it. The
colour combination was something I had never seen in a garden before
and I was dumbstruck.
Overall, a great day. Next year I'm thinking of exploring more
garden shows in the lower mainland.
Tags: garden(11), Vancouver(4), game(2), house(2), Japan(1), moss(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > June 2007
Last Modified Saturday, January 21st, 2023 at 23:45:05 Edit
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