Plants of the Southern Interior of B.C. will be the topic of the guest speaker at the annual general meeting of the Friends of the Summerland Ornamental Gardens next month.
Daniel Mosquin, research manager at UBC Botanical Garden in Vancouver as well as a board member of the Summerland organization, will take the audience on a photo tour.
His message will be that despite being geologically recent glaciation, the plant life of Southern Interior is among the most diverse in the province. Habitat diversity plays a large role in the diversity, ranging from the alpine and subalpine to sagebrush steppe, from interior coniferous forests to aspengrasslands. Mosquin frequently travels throughout North America to photograph plants and landscapes. The event is March 7 at 7 p.m. at 4200 Highway 97 in Trout Creek.
Admission is free and visitors and non-members are welcome. Summerland Ornamental Gardens are located at the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre. They open in winter from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., in fall and spring from 8 a.m. to 6 p.. and in summer from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Admission to the gardens is free, but a donation of $5 per person is suggested for the non-profit garden association to help pay gardeners. The grounds can be reserved for events by calling the research centre. In late winter some of the plants expected to flower at the gardens include water lily tulip, witch hazel, Cornelian cherry, hazelnut, snowdrops, polyanthus primrose, heather, snow crocus, winter aconite, iris danfordiae, kinnikinick, lesser periwinkle and winter jasmine.
The board of the Friends of the Summerland Ornamental Gardens is currently applying for funding for an enhanced water management strategy with educational and demonstration components for the public. This would involve identifying current water use in the gardens using metering to get baseline figures for the gardens. The organization also intends to design and install specific demonstration plantings that can also be metered to illustrate water usage as it pertains to plant type.
The goal is to demonstrate to the public, school groups, university students and others that by implementing various planting options and irrigation methods garden water consumption can be reduced. As a heritage type of garden with the acres of lush lawns and old-fashioned style of plantings, the Summerland site currently consumes a great deal of water.
However, the board wants its garden practices to be good for the future and to become part of the Okanagan Valley’s water solution.
