Inside, Outside

The Secret Garden, Batch Three.

There's more to this garden than pretty flowers!

Small pink flowers, unidentified, and a greenish fly.

Beach Grove, the small community at the southeast corner of the Tsawwassen peninsula, is criss-crossed by narrow walking lanes, connecting the inner streets to the beach. In one of these lanes, the easement behind his house, Brian Whitehouse planted a few flowers 14 years ago, replacing the invasive blackberries and horsetails that so quickly overpower any forgotten spot in the Lower Mainland.

Map of Boundary Bay. (Google maps base) The Secret Garden is under that line pointing into Beach Grove.

Gardening never stops. A year later, in the evening of September 11, 2001, he found forgetfulness and calm working in his little flower plot; after that, he began to expand the garden, to give others a place to find that same peace.

Whitehouse says there was no real plan. Over the years he just kept clearing away more brush and blackberries, and planting more plants and flowers, creating a meandering garden with landscaping materials that he's scavenged or had donated. (Delta Optimist)

These days, down the centre of the lane, a curving, well-manicured lawn serves as walkway; on both sides rocks, trees, benches, a wishing well and a sundial (in the shade!) serve as backdrops and support for the plantings. Ferns, hostas and rhododendrons soften the fence on the shady side; sun-loving vines and tall flowers line the north wall.

A bird cage full of moss and roots. I thought it was for birds making nests, but there's also a tiny plant just sprouting in the centre.

A vintage wood stove, with a lidless coffee pot, a bit on the leaky side. Last year, it held a mass of pink flowers.

(The stove is a McClary "Kitchen Heater". Years ago, up North, I cooked on one, but it was twice the size and a boring black.)

The garden is fenced, at the back to separate a working and tool storage area from the public garden, and at the front, with a solid board fence and gate, to limit access overnight. But there's something in the air, or in the soil more likely, that extends the happy influence of the care lavished inside well beyond the gate. The beginning of the lane, cleansed of its blackberry canes, but otherwise untended, is a thriving, supremely healthy, knee-deep patch of a large variety of weeds.

Horsetails, grass, plantains, Dove-foot geraniums (pink with 5 double petals) and Common Storks' Bill (pink with 5 single petals).

We couldn't identify this. Laurie mentioned asparagus, but the branching is wrong. The tallest one was about 2 feet high.

Dandelions gone to seed, buttercups, clover, horsetails and grass.

Maybe that front fence is more to keep the dandelions out than to prevent vandalism.

Light and shadows

The Secret Garden, Batch Two.

Again, in no particular order.

Succulents, pink flowers, rocks, under a palm-like tree.

Maidenhair ferns

Rusty sign. Can you read this? I can't.

Red and white tulips

We found this pinned to a bench. Love never forgets.

Another fern, unrolling. Google has thousands of fern pics. I gave up trying to find the name of this one.

Old wood, California poppies, and ivy

Just leaves.

And there will be more tomorrow.

Secret Garden assortment

The Secret Garden this spring is a bit bedraggled, but still beautiful. It has been a tough winter for gardens, and this one, mostly shaded like mine, would have frozen harder and deeper than most, and thawed more slowly, with each round of extreme temperature changes causing more damage to already weakened plants. I lost several winter-hardy plants, and I noticed gaps in the Secret Garden's plots. A good summer should make up for it.

Here's the first batch of my photos, a half dozen in no particular order.

Akebia vine, hanging over the gate.

The Akebia vine comes originally from Korea and Japan. In its usual form, with dark red flowers, it is known as the Chocolate Vine. The white-flowered variety is less common.

The vine produces a sausage-shaped fruit, with a mildly sweet central section. The outer casing has been used as a vegetable, although it is said to have a slightly bitter flavour.

Some pinkish flowers, some white.

Caterpillar on a sunny rock

One of the ferns, freshly unfolded.

Sleeping stone Buddha. Tired out from drumming?

I photographed this tulip centre because I loved the colour. I didn't notice the fly peeking out from the side until later.

Behind the secret garden

We went to the Secret Garden in Beach Grove, and took hundreds of photos. I'll be busy processing them for days, I think.

Off-limits; work space, wheelbarrow. Purple columbines on our side of the fence.

Some black spiders are pink.

In a mass of tiny pink flowers at the Secret Garden, I surprised a pretty jumping spider:

Unidentified flowers.

Jumper*, turned to look at my camera lens cover, dangling on its cord. I couldn't get him** to look at the lens.

I love how the pink flowers are reflected in his shiny skin.

More reflections.

Some of the buds have a spider-head look about them, too. Pink jumping spiders! 

If a prey insect sees different colours than we do, does the spider just blend in to his surroundings? I wonder.

*By the markings on his back (white forward border, two dots, upside-down V, two more dots), he's a Phidippus audax, the Bold jumper. But all the ones I see on BugGuide are on the east side of the continent. Most of the Bold jumpers have green fangs; I didn't get a chance to see his.

UPDATE: I found him in one of my books; his range is listed as "Throughout North America".

**I never got to see this spider head on, so I don't know if it's male or female. But I don't like "it" for a critter with a mind of its own, so I choose whichever comes to mind first.

Pollen carrier

Apis mellifera, the western honey bee, with her* bags full of pollen (not honey):

Zoom

Zoom, zoom

Quite a load she was carrying; she seemed to be flying clumsily, but she was still busy collecting more.

A honey bee moistens the forelegs with a protruding tongue and brushes the pollen that has collected on head, body and forward appendages to the hind legs. The pollen is transferred to the pollen comb on the hind legs and then combed, pressed, compacted, and transferred to the corbicula on the outside surface of the tibia of the hind legs.[3] A single hair functions as a pin that secures the middle of the pollen load. (From Wikipedia/Pollen Basket)

*Worker bees are infertile females. The males are drones; they do not fight, they do not gather pollen.

Found in the Secret Garden, Tsawwassen.

Impossibly orange

California poppies in the Secret Garden, Tsawwassen

Summer bouquet

Thanks to all of you who sent get-well wishes. They worked; I'm recovering.

I spent a lazy day sorting out my stored photos from this summer; how they do pile up! I picked out a few flowers that I liked, from assorted times and places.

Hedge bindweed, from beside our fence, in June.

Dave Ingram has a good post today, showing the difference between field and hedge bindweeds. I never knew how to disinguish them before.

Daisies and marigold, Beach Grove, July.

Teasels, just setting bloom. The Secret Garden, Beach Grove, July.

Miniature succulents at the entrance to the Secret Garden. Unidentified.

More miniatures from Brian's garden.

Pink clover, in the vacant lot across our street. July.

White clematis, on a fence at Cougar Creek Park. August.

Yellow rose, on an arbour in Beach Grove, August.

In the morning, I'll be driving out to Chilliwack for a baby shower. I'm hoping it doesn't rain too much; these days, it's been raining off and on all day. Up north, in Bella Coola, they're having beautiful, warm, sunny weather. That's BC; keeping the weatherpeople on their toes.

It's a Secret

A couple of years ago, one of the friendly locals near Boundary Bay encouraged us to visit the "Secret Garden". I asked for directions, and he waved towards the beach; "Down there, turn right; it's up near the end. You can't miss it."

We did. We have driven and walked up and down that area, and never saw it. It's a Secret.

Last Saturday, we parked near a walkway to the beach that we have used often. As we collected our gear, a family biked towards us. The woman called ahead to her kids, "Do you want to go into the Secret Garden?" I took the opportunity to ask where it was. She pointed inland. "Just down there at the end of the block. You'll see it."

Not really. At the end of the block, a dirt trail led down a weedy right of way and curved out of sight. No sign of a garden. We followed the trail around the corner, and -- now, finally, we couldn't miss it.


A tall wooden fence, draped with vines and flowers, hid the garden behind.

Akebia vine

Inside the gate, a root monster welcomed us to his green lair.


The Secret Garden is the creation of Brian Whitehouse, a retired roofer, whose house backs on to this right of way. Eight years ago, he and his wife started gardening on the gravelly, weedy site. Gradually they have transformed it into a quiet haven.

Unrolling ferns.

The garden fills a long, narrow strip (about 10 - 12 metres wide) shaded by the high walls of the adjoining homes. The south side is therefore in almost constant shade; here grow an assortment of ferns, hostas, rhododendrons, bleeding hearts and other shade-lovers.

Baby fern

Bleeding heart

Trilliums and hosta leaves

What is this? It's beautiful.

The northern wall is in full sun and the plants are chosen accordingly.

Ginkgo tree, sprouting new spring leaves.

Stonecrop

Spiky plant. Another I don't recognize.

Heuchera

The plantings are enlivened with a variety of containers and found items:

Echeveria in a hanging basket

A piling with a hole serves as a shaded planter

Old lumber, a rusted motor, a metal pipe pouring out green leaves

London Pride around a rock pile.

At the far end, where the ground is (as yet) unworked, planks set on stumps hold pots of seedlings and potting tools. Leftovers and broken shards, to be used later, lie against the wall.

Broken clay images in a pot of shards.

On the way out, we pass a lawn mower. I wonder if it gets oiled and used in the summertime.




Just inside the gate, as we go out, I stopped to examine this green mound. It is a plant so tiny, so dense, that the individual leaves can't be made out and fingers don't penetrate the surface, a plant as improbable as the gardener who tends it.

.