Garden City: Vancouver

Pleasance Crawford, a Canadian landscape and garden-history writer, is
the co-author of The Canadian Landscape and Garden History Directory and
Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian Garden Writing.

The cover proclaims this “the ultimate guide to everything green in
Vancouver and the Lower Mainland.” Even a glance shows a book full of
interesting and useful information. Meikle and McArthur, both of whom
live and garden in coastal British Columbia, have devised an outline
flexible enough to hold a variety of offerings: excellent essays, with
snapshot portraits, by more than two-dozen area horticulturists;
annotated lists of recommended plants and local sources and resources;
sidebars to enlighten and amuse the most casual of readers; charming
sketches by Bernie Lyon; several categories of “further resources,”
including newsgroups and Web sites; and an index. As the preface
explains, this is not a “how-to” but a “how-to-find” and
“who-to-ask” book. Quite rightfully, much of the content is
area-specific and time-sensitive. (Recognizing that the lists, in
particular, will inevitably need updating, the preface asks for feedback
and input for “the next edition.”)

Many of the sidebars have wider and more enduring appeal, as do the
essays. Michael Levenston’s look back at the first 25 years of City
Farmer helps explain why this organization has become so well respected.
Marg Meikle’s piece on Master Gardeners describes a community-oriented
program that originated in 1972 in neighboring Washington and is now
active across the States and in several Canadian provinces. Aimee
Murrell’s chronicle of “A Year in the Life of a Seed Collector” at
VanDusen Botanical Garden captures some of the challenges and rewards of
volunteerism. Moura Quayle describes her favorite Vancouver landscapes
with such insight that at least a few readers may see their own cities
differently. Steve McQueen writes about how to put on a plant sale Terri
Clark about how to organize a tour of neighborhood gardens. David
Tarrant, in his introduction, declares that “even gardening fanatics
in other cities across the country” will find much of value in this
book, and he is right.