Kerrie van Gaalen, one of UBC Botanical Garden’s staff members has written a helpful and informative article on on European Chafer Beetles and how to combat them.
UBC Botanical Garden is thrilled to welcome Dr. Celeste Snowber as our new Artist in Residence. This position is both important and exciting because it enhances our mission to connect the community to our plant collection through new and creative avenues. Celeste is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. As a dancer, poet, scholar and educator, her work focuses on arts-based research methods which unite scholarly inquiry with the creative process.
Like last year, we’re well on the way to one of the warmest springs in recent memory. A number of plants flowered two to three weeks early and many familiar April-blooming plants long since put out their flowers (how about those magnolias and cherries?). But again like last year, there are plenty of plants sitting tight, waiting to flower as they normally would—or at least within only a week or two of their usual time. On this list of conservative bloomers are many in the genus Rhododendron, a group of plants that numbers around four hundred and fifty species varieties and cultivars in the Garden.
UBC Botanical Garden kicked off the celebrations of its centennial anniversary among the blooms of spring and heavy rain.
Since the 1970s, the living plants collections of the David C. Lam Asian Garden have grown through the botanical fieldwork of an international network of explorers. My predecessor, Peter Wharton, participated in over 15 expeditions throughout Asia. I h
There was a day not so long ago that you weren’t able to find Pink Lady or Ambrosia apples in your average grocery store in Vancouver. If you couldn’t make your way to Granville Island, or trek to a grower in the Valley, you only had the pick of very few apples available in grocery stores. UBC Botanical Garden’s Apple Festival helped change that.
Today, there are approximately 150 active members of the FOGs. They play a critical role in as ambassadors to the garden, fundraising and generating new membership for the Garden through their organizing efforts behind key Garden events such as the Apple Festival, the operation of the Shop in the Garden, and much more. Learn more about their history.
In 1916, the closure of the Office of the Provincial Botanist led to the relocation of thousands of plants and shrubs. John Davidson, BC’s first provincial botanist and director of the Garden, Mary Jane Gruchy, I. Van der Bom, and James A. Wattie hauled thousands of plants and shrubs on a 40-kilometre trip from the original Essondale location of the botanical garden in a truck on rough roads to UBC’s Point Grey campus. At the time, the Point Grey campus only had three buildings, with classes taking place in the Fairview neighbourhood where Vancouver General Hospital now stands. From his office on Pender Street in Vancouver, Davidson began his work.
Walk down almost any path in UBC Botanical Garden’s Asian Garden and you’re experiencing the living legacy of Peter Wharton. As you explore the signature garden named for David C. Lam , you may find yourself thinking about how natural it feels, as if the maples and rhododendrons have always grown there together. That was Wharton’s intention.
In the mid 1980s and in partnership with Agriculture Canada (today called Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), UBC Botanical Garden explored British Columbia helping to make comprehensive collections of Fragaria chiloensis (the beach strawberry) for breeding work. The resulting germplasm (genetic resources) was, and continues to be, used to develop new cultivars of strawberries with pathogen resistance for industry.
