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Horticulture Centre of the Pacific - February 2025 eNews
Our Mission is to bring a diversity of people together to learn, enjoy and participate in the rewards of horticulture and environmental stewardship.
This edition features Head Gardener's Message = "Seeds", Featured Garden = The Doris Page Winter Garden, Community Education and HCP Kids Youth program highlights. Family Day at HCP, plus Library hours and the Bookend.
What’s the difference between open-pollinated, hybrid and heirloom seeds?
This time of year, we all get the urge to start seeds.
The local nurseries have several seed companies to choose from, most seed companies offer online ordering and our local Seedy Saturday events are ramping up.
Open Pollinated Seeds (OP)
When two plants of the same variety produce offspring, the variety is known as open pollinated. Provided plants are prevented from crossing with other varieties, OP varieties produce seed that are true-to-type. This means the plants grown from these seeds will be similar (though not the same—they are not clones) to their parent.They are pollinated naturally by birds, insects, wind or human hands. As pollination between plants is not strictly controlled, OP varieties are fairly genetically diverse so tend to show greater variation. Cucurbits are prone to cross-pollination, resulting in weird looking crosses. Over time, breeders have produced newer strains of OP varieties, selecting for better uniformity. Heirloom varieties are OP strains that have been saved from generation to generation, usually cherished for their flavour and history. In general, they have not been as carefully selected for particular traits so may exhibit more variation.
The benefit of OP varieties is that you can save your own seed which reduces costs and share with friends and the local seed exchange events.These seeds will produce plants that gradually adapt to our local growing conditions and climate.
Hybrid Seeds (F1 or F2)
F1 hybrid seeds are produced by carefully controlled cross pollination of two distinct OP varieties within the same species. Plants grown from F1 hybrid seeds will tend to have desirable characteristics from both of its parents and be more reliable and uniform. The label F1 denotes that the plant is a first-generation hybrid variety. In general, F1 hybrid seeds are intentionally created for particular favourable traits, such as resistance to diseases, earlier maturity, or uniformity. The plants also tend to show “hybrid vigour” and will be more productive and vigorous. F2 hybrids are the offspring of a F1 hybrid variety, pollinated by hand or natural means—they are the result of seeds saved from an F1 plant. Plants grown from F2 hybrid seeds are usually less vigorous and productive compared to F1 hybrids. They are also inconsistent and not true-to-type—they may not retain the desirable traits of its parent. Hybrid plants hold up well in shipping, making them more desirable for commercial growers.
I personally like to try all types of seeds, but for seed saving purposes, I grow mostly OP and heirloom varieties.
Our West Coast seeds have arrived, drop in and take a look. Shop early for best selection.
Seeds from West Coast Seeds are in! There are 106 new varieties as well as some seed tapes for arugula, lettuce, carrots, radishes and onions.
The Doris Page Winter Garden
Forty years ago, the Victoria Horticultural Society sponsored the establishment of the Doris Page Winter Garden. Over time, the shady slope, dominated by towering firs, has become home to all kinds of plants, from beautifully mature witch hazels (Hamamelis) and hundreds of hellebores, to a stand of prickly, red-berried butcher's broom (Ruscus) which you're more likely to see in a florist's shop than gardens these days. A few bulbs and corms have multiplied into swathes of snowdrops (Galanthus), carpets of cyclamen, an enchantment of pink fawn lilies (Erythronium revolutum). When the bulb show culminates in pools of white, blue, pink, and yellow anemones throughout the woods, I give my prayer of gratitude to those who first planted this area, and the many gardeners and volunteers that have maintained it since, for their vision of a garden which holds space for all these ephemeral joys.
The Doris Page Winter Garden
Over the years, I have visited a number of other winter gardens, big and small. Very often they're conceived of as gimmicky bedding schemes that look as shockingly silly in summer as they do in winter. In sharp contrast, our winter garden is in a cottagey, woodland style, inspired by Doris Page. It's cozy, quiet, and rewards the visitor who prefers to wander. It seems fitting that the white-stemmed bramble (Rubus cockburnianus), practically mandatory in showy winter gardens, refuses to grow more than one stem a year in ours, whereas Garrya elliptica,
a native plant to the Pacific Northwest that veryrarely gets pride of place, is thriving and in full flower right now. Sure, the flowers are dangling grey 'silk tassels' that you might not even recognize as flowers, yet as the winter weeks go by they have become fringed yellow and blush pink bells, set off by glossy, deep green foliage. Ours was planted in 2019, so it is still relatively small, but I have seen towering ones over 10 ft that evoked pure wonder, the tassels shimmying in a frigid February wind. When the garden turns 50, someone will be writing an ode to it, mark my words.
My odes today are to the old cornelian cherries (Cornus mas) that arch over our paths, filling the February sky with starry yellow flowers. On a sunny day in January, we watched a bumble bee busily gathering pollen from one of our many winter honeysuckles (Lonicera fragrantissima);
no one would describe them a handsome shrub in summer, but there's none with a sweeter scent now. And even while thegrowing conditions on our steeply sloped beds get more difficult and dry each year, the white- and red-berried Skimmia continue to thrive, their shiny green leaves lift the winter gloom.
While most of the HCP gardens are at rest, the winter garden is changing week on week. You've already missed the best of the witch hazel flowers this year, I'm afraid, but the daphnes are only just beginning. Choose to visit on a sunny day and all the bulbs will open their flowers to meet you.
Amy Sanderson
HCP Doris Page Winter Garden volunteer
Programs in progress
Level 1 Apprenticeship Program started 21 January 2025
Full-time Landscape Horticulture Certificate Program started 20 January 2025.
Level 4 Apprenticeship Program started 2 February 2025
Applications for Level 2 & 3 of the Apprenticeship program will open 2 April 2025
The new year is an exciting time for Adult Community Education at the HCP, as we launch new programs and workshops for winter and spring 2025, participate in community events, and prepare to get growing in our own gardens. Learn more about our upcoming horticulture, arts, and wellness classes at our website or sign up for the new CE newsletter.
Bethany Couture leads a new Worm Bin Making workshop on March 2 – all materials (including worms!) included. This is a space saving, odor-free way to turn kitchen scraps into compost your plants will love. Read Bethany’s blog about the beauty of vermicomposting here, and register soon – class size is limited.
On Feb. 15, we'll be at Seedy Saturday at the Crystal Gardens in downtown Victoria. Please be sure to swing by and say hello!
For more information about these and other Community Education Programs, contact Janet atcommunityed@hcp.ca or call 250-479-6273, Wed-Fri.
Thank you Volunteers!
We would like to start the year with a huge thank you to our amazing volunteer team! It has been wonderful to see so many of you visiting, working and strolling through the gardens already this year. Thank you Volunteers!
“Anyone who thinks gardening begins in the spring and ends in the fall is missing the best part of the year; for gardening begins in January with a dream.” Josephine Nuese
Volunteer Opportunities for 2025
If you have been dreaming of joining our volunteer team, this may be the year to start! We have some fantastic volunteer opportunities coming up and will begin accepting volunteer applications in late February and March. Volunteer positions include gardening, conservation, office support, children's projects, and special events. For more information or to complete a volunteer application please contact Kim, Volunteer Coordinator at volunteers@hcp.ca if this opportunity appeals to you.
These non-instructional day camps feature an outdoor program that includes time in our very own HCP Kids Teaching Garden. Ages: 5 - 12 years (school age)
HCP members have free admission to the Gardens, their Guests enter for $9.00 per person over 16. There is no admission fee for those 16 and under.
HCP Memberships offer a wealth of benefits for the body, heart & Spirit with discounts on courses, plants, events and partnering organisations that also share a love of plants and nature.
Garden entrance is discounted to $9 with a same-day C&Q receipt {children under 16 receive complimentary entry}.
Hours: Everyday 9am-3pm
FEEL WORLDS AWAY | DINE WITH THE FLOWERS "Charlotte & The Quail" has called The Gardens home since 2010. "Our lives have forever changed with the time spent here. The Gardens have given us perspective, peace & patience. The seasons have offered us repetition, reminders & reassurance.
The HCP Library is now open Tuesdays!
Drop by the HCP cottage and check out our ever-expanding collection of over 2,800 horticulture books available to borrow free for 3 weeks to HCP members, volunteers and PHC students.
The public is welcome to browse.
Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday from 10am to 1pm
Check out all the titles in the library by going to the online catalogue; you might find something intriguing like Vegetables of Canada or Cooking from the Garden.
Backyard Bounty: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Organic Gardening in the Pacific Northwest. by Linda Gilkeson
"Grow more food with less work in any yard."
The cover of Backyard Bounty just about says it all. With the climate crisis and food insecurity at hand, this may be the most important book we have in the HCP Library.
This is a guidebook and reference, one that you may want to read cover-to-cover because it’s engaging, inspiring and full of practical and valuable information. Gilkeson writes about how to achieve a 12-month “living refrigerator” in your garden by extending the growing seasons. Read the whole article
Two other books by Linda Gilkeson available to borrow from the HCP Library are Year-Around Harvest: Winter Gardening on the Coast and West Coast Gardening: Natural Insect, Weed and Disease Control.
We look forward to seeing you at the Gardens in 2025.
Thank you for reading, we hope you enjoyed the content. hcp.ca
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