Vancouver Is a Garden

Ann Turner is Financial and Budget Manager at the University of British
Columbia Library.

Thanks to its moderate climate and its planners’ love of green spaces, Vancouver abounds with flowers and foliage in every season of the year. In this recent addition to McClelland and Stewart’s “Garden” series, freelance artist Donna McClement uses pencil sketch and watercolor to record the beauty of the seasonal plants she has found in association with her city’s public buildings, sculptures, and other points of interest. Her informal descriptive commentary binds the profusion of illustration into a year-long ramble through Vancouver and its environs. The fine shading and details of the sketches, and the delicate transparency of the watercolors are carefully reproduced in this attractively designed hardcover volume. It is a book to be enjoyed at leisure, to recall one’s own experiences of Vancouver and its public gardens, and to plan future excursions.