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Sḵwálwen Botanicals – Changing the Face of Skincare
With over 40,000 botanical beauties available, it's easy to get overwhelmed. Here's what you need to know before you head to the VanDusen Botanical Garden Plant Sale this weekend
With over 1000 attendees and 400 volunteers, the VanDusen Botanical Garden’s Annual Plant Sale is the biggest of the year
When VanDusen Botanical Garden’s gates open at 10 am this Sunday, April 28, more than a thousand people will charge through them.
Why? This is the day of the Garden’s annual Plant Sale, which, like a rock concert, attracts a frenzied lineup and literally thousands more who wander in through day to check out the six-hour sale.
The enthusiasm of the public is only equalled by that of the 400 volunteers who do everything from growing new plants, re-potting donated plants, splitting perennials and caring for trees and shrubs for this major Garden fundraiser.
The result of this huge effort is a phenomenal mega-list of more than 40,000 botanical beauties that has gardeners across Vancouver and the Lower Mainland drooling.
Keeners can pick up an advance copy of the Plant Sale Catalogue for $2 at the Garden in order to plot their plant-sale strategy in advance, or they can simply download it.
The Paeonia x Itoh, or Bartzella, is one of our must-have flower picks at this year’s VanDusen Gardens Annual Plant Sale (Image: Flickr / F.D. Richards)
The big sale is arranged in categories for easy plant hunting: Cannas, Fruit Trees and Berries, Fuchsias, Geraniums, Herbs and Vegetables, Miniature Roses, Mushrooms, Native Plants, Perennials (including Ferns/Grasses), Pot Luck, Rhododendrons, Roses, Shade and Sun, Trees and Shrubs, Tropicals, and Vines.
For edible-garden enthusiasts like me, there is an impressive selection of herbs for culinary, medicinal, and showy purposes (including a “Soup Pot” combo container), along with mushroom kits, tons of tomatoes, salad gardens and more.
Fruit trees and berry bushes also abound, and I was pleased to see an impressive selection of Pacific Northwest Native Plants, many noted for their benefit to the birds and bees that we all love to have attract in our gardens.