This would have been our fourth week in Sicily. We’d just be settling into our AirBnB in Palermo, getting ready to explore the famed markets of that Mediterranean city. We’d be tracking the progress of our daughters’ families (our son’s family was going to miss this trip, a challenging one with a Two and a Five), whether they were enroute yet, or had landed, weary and jet-lagged, but eager to do some exploring. One family had only a few hours’ drive and a ferry ride and some more driving to meet us all in a citrus grove with a swimming pool and beds and bathrooms and kitchens and outdoor barbeques enough for all twelve of us. That reunion would have begun next week, and I still have some wistful thoughts about watching the cousins hang out together.
But then, obviously, Covid-19 happened, and we can only hope to meet in Sicily — or somewhere — another time.
It’s a huge loss, the loss of time together when the cousins are their current ages. That will never come again; they will be less open, less innocent, less child-like, I imagine, even by next year. Never mind that I’m not so sure that we will even be able to wangle the logistics, the time off work, the coordinated schedules, another year.
So I’m surprised at the good will with which we’ve all shrugged off the loss of something we’d so anticipated and settled into a slowed-down quotidian rhythm with a much more limited horizon — and that slower pace is allowing us to observe and enjoy what we have at hand.
Which is my rambling way of introducing you to a photo-tour of our local botanic garden — Van Dusen Garden (developed from 1970 onwards on land that had been part of a golf course), the garden is an expansive treasure in the middle of the city. We’ve had memberships for the last few years, a way of compensating for the garden I lost when we swapped island for city, but the frequency of our visits has dropped as our urban life became busier than we’d even realized.
And then Covid-19, and the garden shut down — until a few weeks ago, when limited hours were introduced, with advance ticketing required so that numbers could be controlled to permit social distancing.  We booked the first-of-the-day 9-10 slot, reserved for members, for last Friday, and for the first time ever experienced the Laburnum Walk in full glorious bloom. (more photoson my Instagram feed here. Since we generally travel during the laburnum blooming season, it took Covid-19 to bring us here.
Besides the glorious golden fluidity of the Laburnum, I loved the predominant “colour story” of yellow, purple, and green . . . .
In fact, there were several colour stories that caught my eye. I’m not generally a big fan of Bergenia, but these plump, well-cared for examples, flanked by burgundy Heuchera and purple-flowering Heather struck me as a particularly felicitous grouping. . . .
The travels that have shown us European springs for the past past fifteen years have taken us away from our own spring gardens at home. . . . And they’re not so shabby . . .
Most of the gardens’ tulips will have bloomed while the garden was still closed to the public, but there was a glorious swathe of white blooms in this meadow, framed by the rich dark greens of conifers under a cumulus-strewn cerulean sky.
I love the respite provided for the eyes by the more natural, darker pathways through wooded areas underplanted with native vegetation. . .
Perhaps because the garden was so much quieter than usual, I noticed these Gitksan totem poles
It’s tough to discern the various components of the totem poles from these photos, given the shadows and the perspective. I’ll try to get better shots on a future visit, but for now I can tell you that the pole on the left was carved by Earl and Brian Muldoe in 1986 and tells the origin story of mosquitoes –can you see that long proboscis of Baboudina, chief of the mosquito people, at the top? From the ashes of his funeral pyre, this story tells, came the mosquitoes we swat away these days. Below him on the pole is the young woman who killed the Chief and saved her husband and baby.
The furthest totem pole (carved by Arthur Sterritt in 1976)Â tells the story of Al of the Gispudwada, the story of the origin of the Black Bear Crest of the Orca Clan. It’s a story of transformation from man to bear and back again, a story, thus, of the way the Gitksan see their relationship with other creatures, perhaps of the relationship between Nature and culture. . .
Moving back to more groomed, more floriferous, and also more light-filled parts, I was delighted to discover this fragrant Epaulette tree in full bloom
Husband included in photo below for scale. . . 😉
Other humbler blooms also caught my eye. I recognized the leaves of Meadow Rue (Thalictrum something-something, I believe) which I’d planted in my island garden, but I’d only known this plant with purple flowers. I love the delicately feathery-spiky flowers, the contrast between their white and the green foliage, as well as between the shapes and textures of leaves and flowers. . .
These long swathes of purple iris . . . and that flash of red (maple)
A Euphorbia, one of the many, many varieties. . .
A waterfall (yes, it’s manmade and will involve a pump, but no less attractive for the artifice, is it?) with more irises, paler than the ones above. . .
I was smitten by the waxen delicacy of these side-plate-sized, alabaster-hued magnolia blooms, their luminous contrast with the shaded woods around them. . . .
Wilson’s Magnolia, apparently, native to southwestern China. . . .
And yes, you can see how smitten I was. . . . I lingered. . . .
I could be wrong, but I think these yellow blooms popping up so cheerily (even comically, to my mind) amidst the hosta here are Helianthus tuberosus, a kind of sunflower known commonly as Jerusalem artichoke, lately renamed sunchoke and a darling of some kitchens. (I caution against them, having once experienced a horrific night after a lovely and expensive meal.)
I like them so much better here than when I was always trying to send them back over to my neighbour’s yard, our fence not making a distinct enough border for them to honour. . . .
We’re coming to the end of my tour; should you want more, I’m posting a walk through the rhodo/azalea grove (oh, the fragrance!) over on Instagram. . . .
Above, I snapped my fellow’s long-legged stride against a lushly-flowered rhododendron. . . .
and he spotted me doing so, insisted on returning the favour. . . .
I really must learn to smile for the camera. . . I haven’t worn a hoodie for years, by the way, but I bought this pink one from Uniqlo after my friend Sue (High Heels in the Wilderness) bought one. It’s her birthday today — if you pop over to wish her a Happy Birthday, tell her I sent you.
Hope you enjoyed that little walk in the garden. By now, I’d hoped to be sharing views of Sicily, but since we can’t travel right now, I’m happy to give you glimpses of Vancouver instead. One of the groundskeepers we chatted with along the way pointed out that the gardens were usually overflowing with Japanese tourists when the Laburnum Walk was blooming. It was good to be reminded that we have sights right in our backyard that others travel to see. . . Now if only I could have my Italian granddaughter walking through the garden with me . . . 😉
These photographs are FANTASTIC. I love how you match the tree! One sentence that really caught me, in this post, is this one: "That will never come again; they will be less open, less innocent, less child-like, I imagine, even by next year." I totally hear you. But I just want to say that, in the future, they will be differently open, more mature and more answer-seeking. Which is its own sort of wonderful – if wretchedly not this one first and THEN that one next! My parents took their 3 grandchildren to Italy and France last summer – ages 14, 17, 19 – and they had an amazing time that they all still talk about constantly. I'm confident that the beautiful times are ahead, just as they have been behind. And, based on these pics, in their own way, the beautiful times are now too!
I envy your walk among the laburnums–thank you for the pictures. I was reminded of a walk with a friend in the Dumbarton Oaks Gardens in 1999–!–in EARLY spring. There was a path through shoulder-high forsythia bushes. I still remember my peripheral vision buzzing with all the yellow!
Amazing. I especially love that photo with the red tree peeping through. I feel like I have Stendhal's Syndrome now. Thank you.
Thank you for the tour! In all my visits to Vancouver, I've sadly never made it to these gardens – clearly my loss.
So much of what grows here doesn't grow in Southern California, so it's like another (part of the) planet. We don't get rhodys, our tulips are short-lived (and we have to chill them in the vegetable crisper for weeks before we plant them), and hostas? No way.
But we do have those glorious Dutch Irises, which are one of my favorite flowers – the color! The lushness! The elegance!
I do especially love you in pink against the rhododendrons – it's almost as if you'd planned your wardrobe for the photo. 🙂
Really beautiful, Frances. Thank you for sharing. Next time in Vancouver, I'll seek it out. Isn't it interesting how we face our altered plans and then settle into new plans? For awhile I was overwhelmed by loss and regret at what had to be delayed and set aside. In the last week my optimism is reasserting itself. I am eating well, exercising, enjoying my quiet daily routine and accomplishments. It is enlightening and peaceful to turn inward and be present at the same time that I plan for the future with a more calm acceptance of the uncertainty.
Oh, glorious! Your travel photos are always a treat, and so are these. I found thinking "this would have been the week that…" when the time rolled round for the first of several cancelled trips and events took me down too much. Now I'm telling myself these things shall return, even if we are all a little older.
My city usually receives many tourists in summer, and we welcome a stream of friends through Labour Day. This year, as I said to Le Duc, it's like a bottle of sparkling water went flat.
Glad you were able to 'travel' close to home and find a sight (Laburnum and other Vancouver springtime blooms) not usually seen. A small, but lovely, compensation.
what beautiful photos, what a beautiful garden. Thank you for sharing. And the laburnums! Oh my. Our spring is much further along here, not surprisingly, even though it was a long and cool one, with frost later than usual. And the beautiful bergenia. i love bergenia, but they can look a bit bedraggled, mine are nestled in amongst the hellebores, which luckily tend to fill in and hide the bergenia as they pull back.
Ahh, travel. I too was thinking of where I would have been this week, but at the same time oddly happy to stay at home. You remind me to get out and explore a bit more now that things are beginning to open…
How I would love to travel to see beautiful Vancouver again, and now particularly since I now know about VanDusen Garden – your wonderful tour reminded me of how much I enjoyed Stanley Park on my visit, and I am coming to rely on your posts to whet my desire to return to your fair city. Thank you for this lovely and timely experience.
I love that "our" hoodie matches the flowers. Very well planned. 🙂 Lovely garden tour. But as you know I am no gardener, and recently told Stu that we should get some short, yellow flowers to go with the purple ones on the deck. Thanks for the shout-out and the birthday wishes. Dinner was deeeelicious… with leftovers for lunch today. Win, win. xoxo
K: You make good points about time and ages and what might lie ahead. I'm just so conscious that our oldest Grand, moving toward 12 and 4 years older than her closest cousin, will likely have crossed well into adolescence by our next possible gathering. If I'm honest, it's only the loss of an imaginary ideal I held. . . . and there will be moments to compensate that I haven't yet dreamed, I'm sure. That's life, right?
Miranda: "Peripheral vision buzzing with yellow" — Yes, this is so!
Lisa: Ha! Stendahl's . . . yes! An assault of flower photos 😉
CarolP: I wouldn't likely recommend the garden for someone visiting the city just for a few days, unless they were a keen gardener. . . . That said, it can be a sweet change of rhythm to an urban visit — I'm thinking especially of a day wandering the Edinburgh Botanic Garden with a friend last year. And if I ever get back to Lisbon, I'd definitely go to that renowned garden. . . Southern California fascinates me with the lack of rain, such a constant here. I think of the gardens at The Getty Museum, where I spent an hour or two over 20 years ago, and the image I carry is so starkly different from the gardens here. Spare, architectural/structural, dramatic but perhaps more ascetic?
KCJ: It's so interesting to feel ourselves moving through the stages, these last three months. Your comment got me thinking of a favourite yoga teacher who would sometimes say, "The moment you want to leave the pose is when you begin to enter the pose. . ." In some ways, I think that leaning into our restlessness until it becomes something else might fulfil a deep, longheld need for many of us. . . .
Beautiful, beautiful garden Frances . Thankyou for that little trip out . It was hubbies birthday recently , the first at home for 35 years & we have seen some of the plants in our garden at their absolute spring best . Always a silver lining ?
Wendy in York
Duchesse: It's all so different, and I'm not sure these things will return. But we will find good in what does arrive, I'm sure. . . .
Mary: I'm glad, as well, and I hope I can keep my level of attention adjusted to this new reality. There really are compensations. . . .
Mardel: That's my experience of bergenia as well. . . they're rarely as plump and attractive and full as these ones. . .
Marsha: "Stuck" here, for now, we're reminding ourselves that many visitors come here each year to enjoy our city. . . for very good reasons. Not such a bad place to be 😉
Sue B: There you are — a potential garden designer even if you don't like to get your hands dirty 😉 You zeroed in on the same yellow-purple pairing as the designers of the Van Dusen . . . .
Wendy: You're very welcome — isn't it a lovely garden? I find so much inspiration there. Happy Birthday to your husband! I haven't been home for mine much either and honestly, I've enjoyed seeing the blooms even just in our modest garden of pots. And we've been here to rescue many from aphids and other pests, to adjust watering, warding off potential disaster. . . Silver lining indeed.
Magnificent garden! There are so many beautiful things and places around us….to paraphrase: if we can't be where we love to be,love where we are….
Dottoressa