Welcoming nook in last year’s Dunbar in Bloom garden tour.
By Carol Volkart
What could be better than a day in June with flowers abloom – and skilled Dunbar gardeners opening their paradises for your viewing pleasure?
Not much, thinks Anna Knowlson, who every year organizes the Dunbar in Bloom garden tour event, which welcomes visitors to do self-guided tours of a number of local gardens.
This year’s is Sunday, June 28 – revised from an earlier announcement – and features 12 gardens, including an interesting newcomer.
It’s a private apartment garden at 2320 West 40th that’s “compact in size but abundant in varieties of plants featuring ferns, hostas and over 60 Japanese Maples,” according to Knowlson’s brochure on the event. “This is a shade garden and different shapes, heights and colours give depth and definition. Older trees and shrubs frame the garden while the rest is ever-evolving.”
Most of the rest of the gardens will be familiar to previous Dunbar in Bloom participants – but just as fun to revisit nonetheless.
There’s Southlands Farm at 6767 Balaclava, with its veggies, workshops, kids camps and a heritage orchard. There’s the “food forest” at 4731 Collingwood, where native plants have been added for pollinators; the garden of the giant heritage Weeping Birch tree at 4094 West 33rd; the lawn-free garden room at 3738 West 24th, and the nearly 50-year-old garden at 3580 Puget Drive, with contents almost all brought in by car or wheelbarrow.
“This is an opportunity to stroll through some inspiring green spaces,” writes Knowlson, who noted this is the 29th year for the event. The tour was originally held in May as part of Salmonberry Days, but climate change meant gardens were at their best later, so it’s now a June event.
Brochures about the event are available at Celtic Treasure Chest, Blight’s Home Hardware, Hewer Home Hardware, K&K Pet Foods, Windsor Market, and a few at David Hunter Garden Centre.