The Garry Oak Meadow Garden is an ecological garden designed to be a sustainable landscape feature and maintained with a minimum of inputs. Most of the plants are summer drought adapted, so irrigation is kept to a minimum. The native range of Garry oak in Canada represents a threatened ecosystem that features significant herbaceous plant biodiversity and historical First Nations influence. The Garry Oak Meadow and Woodland Garden serves as a demonstration space where aspects of ethnobotany, biogeography, local biodiversity, conservation, climate change and horticulture are on view to students, researchers and the visiting public.
Seasonal Highlights
Most Garry oak meadow species are spring blooming. Sea blush (Valeriana congesta), a winter annual, is generally the first to flower, starting in February and continuing throughout the season as long as it remains cool. The shooting stars, Dodecatheon (now classified as Primula) and fawn lilies (Erythronium) are generally next, with camas (Camassia), chocolate lily (Fritillaria), trillium, onion (Allium), lily (Lilium) and monkey flower (Erythranthe) following the earlier bulbs and forbs.
Flowers on native shrubs and climbers are also prominent and generally bloom in spring. Kinnikinnick and manzanita (Arctostaphylos) are early bloomers with mock orange (Philadelphus), blue elderberry (Sambucusmexicana), Oregon grape (Mahonia), snowberry (Symphoricarpos) and honeysuckle (Lonicera) producing their flowers into late spring. Finally, grasses are often early summer flowering, leaving their brittle seed heads to ripen and shatter along with the rest of the meadow species as the summer drought settles in and all but the toughest plants enter dormancy.
Significant Collections
Although Garry oak is not native to Point Grey, many of its associates grow naturally (or grew historically) on the site and Garry oak itself thrives here. Only about 5% of the original Garry oak ecosystem (GOE) survives in British Columbia, making it one of the most endangered habitats in Canada. The ecosystem is home to a variety of rare and endangered plants and animals, including around 100 GOE species (including ca. 50 vascular plant species) considered “at risk,” according to BC’s Conservation Data Centre. However, the shifting of temperature and precipitation patterns appears to be creating ideal conditions for GOE plants on Point Grey where UBC Botanical Garden is located. According to Richard Hebda (BC Provincial Museum), “Warming temperatures and long dry summers will likely increase the area suitable to Garry oaks especially at its northern limits of range.”
History
Historically, Garry oak was highly valued by west coast First Nations people who consumed acorns and traded them over large distances. Local native peoples also regularly burned over meadows associated with Garry oaks to prevent establishment of other woody plants and manage the production of camas bulbs, an important winter food.
Garry oak is native along the extreme southwest coast in rain-shadow areas, but there are at least three disjunct populations to the east (outside of the rain-shadow) in the Fraser River Valley, including one at Yale, another at Sumas and one (now gone) in the Musqueam First Nation’s traditional territory in what is now south Vancouver. These populations are thought to be anthropogenic—derived from First Nations activities—rather than naturally-occurring stands.
Feature: Garry Oak
Garry oak is native along the extreme southwest coast in rain-shadow areas, but there are at least three disjunct populations to the east (outside of the rain-shadow) in the Fraser River Valley, including one at Yale, another at Sumas and one (now gone) in the Musqueam First Nation’s traditional territory in what is now south Vancouver. These populations are thought to be anthropogenic—derived from First Nations activities—rather than naturally-occurring stands.
