Happily for me, my photo of a pink hollyhock against a slightly cloudy sky was chosen by juror Craig Hodge as the winner! Apparently the Art in the Garden organizers may now choose to use the image in their publicity for the next event, two years from now. Isn’t that fun! Here are the other two images I submitted.

During the Saturday we were visited by a photographer from the local ‘Tri-City NOW’ newspaper and on the following Wednesday’s edition the photo below appeared. I’m holding one of my jugbirds.

On the day after Art in the Garden, the Sunday, I joined a group of garden hosts and artists to tour around all the gardens. Of course we hadn’t had the chance to see each other’s gardens at all. The art had been removed but it was still a great opportunity to see how each gardener has made a personal hideaway. The gardens are behind a townhouse, surrounding a brand-new subdivision house, filling country acreage, bordering the ocean, or in my case, using the area around our 100 year-old house. Often the owners celebrate a spectacular view. But we all have to deal with the fact that our Winters can be freezing for some days (not weeks) and that we get serious amounts of rain, often. Some also have to deal with marauding deer, and have discovered which plants they dislike.

With artists Rose Kapp and Peggy Scott-Dunn carpooling with me, a number of us followed the tour brochure from the day before. In almost continuous rain we visited Chuck’s tiny townhouse retreat, sculptor Parvanah’s very neat garden with her sculpture and then our garden before stopping at Arts Centre Society President Ann Kitching’s home to eat our packed lunches.

I took photos all day and have now made a 54-photo Picasa album so that you can get an idea of the kinds of plants we have chosen for this sometimes hot, but occasionally very rainy-in-July Rainforest zone we call home. In the album you will see that I have given first names only for privacy and no addresses. Those of you who took the tour will know where you are.

https://picasaweb.google.com/112208740085943894765/GardenTourJuly202014

After lunch it started to rain even harder so the gardens in North-East Port Moody and the Heritage Mountain part of Coquitlam had very short visits. We spent about an hour at the Anmore acreage of the Kouchnareva couple. They grow an astonishing number of tomatoes and other vegetables and herbs, for their own consumption and for the seeds. They have worked out how to grow organically and without any irrigation in an area that was completely forested not many years ago.

We admired Linda’s colourful shrubs in the new and deer-proof garden she tends. It was bare rock eight years ago.

The tour ended up in the village of Belcarra, where as I keep mentioning, there’s always a view of Indian Arm. Hummingbirds abound in the three carefully tended gardens we visited. Take a look at the photo album to get a sense of the inspirational gardens we saw.

After some seven hours I drove back to Port Moody to collect Alan and we joined the others for a fun potluck supper at Des and Adrienne’s house and garden, again in Belcarra, overlooking Bedwell Bay.

Thank you all for organizing such an interesting day to follow up on the busy day before and for inviting us to see your private retreats.

Last Friday my TriCity pottery friends came here to deliver their clay creations. My second cousin Randi-Lee, the ‘Barefoot Gardener’, and her friend Kim spent much of the day here too, helping to decide where and how the artwork should be displayed. Randi-Lee was here earlier in the Spring doing an ‘upcut’ on a large and out-of-control maple and was keen to make my garden into a ‘potter’s garden’. She brought out from its home in the Commercial Drive area a fine ten-gallon Medalta pickle crock as a display plinth. Perhaps I’ll use it as a glaze bucket now. Also displayed in the area by my kiln shed were two smaller Medalta crocks which come from the Saskatchewan homestead of our common grand and great grandparents. I like that.

Saturday brought serious rain as the first of over a hundred visitors began to arrive. Keen gardeners all, they ignored the rain and enjoyed walking all around our house to discover miniature houses, bird-baths, succulent planters, bird-feeders, mushrooms, flowers, vases and masks in flower beds, on the fence and hanging from trees.

I have made a small Picasa album to record photos taken by Alan and me of some of the many clay pieces shown here on Saturday. Quite a few pieces were sold, especially Brigitta Schneiter’s whimsical chickens, bird baths and succulent planters. But mainly I feel that the day was a great opportunity for the potters to spend time discussing each other’s work, to meet visiting gardeners and to consider which pieces appeal to collectors and look right in various areas of a garden.

https://picasaweb.google.com/112208740085943894765/ArtInTheGardenJuly192014

Thank you so much to the potters who spent many hours here volunteering and to the organizers of the whole Art in the Garden event.

On Sunday the garden hosts and some of the artists joined a tour of each other’s gardens, an all-day event, winding up at a potluck supper at the home of one of the organizers. A fascinating day! Photos of that day will follow soon.