Beautiful Gardens - Garry and Brenda Hedberg, South Surrey, BC

Story by Dorothy Dobbie, photos by Dorothy and Shauna Dobbie

The manicured front yard.

One of nine types of bamboo. This one is 50 feet tall.

Garry and Brenda Hedberg have pulled together a little piece of heaven in South Surrey, BC and made it uniquely their own.

The neatly groomed front yard of the brick house is a gardener’s dream of tidy grasses and trimmed and topiaried shrubs, each carefully chosen to set off the other in a pleasing kaleidoscope of colour and texture.

But while we are gazing in delight at the front yard, something even more surprising is happening in the back. Fifty-foot stands of bamboo, happily growing here for 22 years, provide a stately backdrop to the yard and camouflage the little creek that runs behind them.

There are nine varieties of bamboo because Garry loves them, and he has figured out how to keep them under control. He says that where he lives there is a layer of hard pan that keeps the roots pushing out rather than down. He exploited this by building mounds of soil around the root zones so that when the stolons creep out looking to send up a new shoot, he can see them coming.

“They grow out of the mound and make a dash for it,” he laughs. But he is ready. “I can see them when they start running, and I chop them up!”

The result is a collection of wellbehaved bamboo that stand in imposing clumps like a group of soldiers protecting the yard.

Crinum lily is over 8 feet tall.

Podophyllum pleianthum.

He has many reasons for loving the bamboo. One of them is the way they grow like “telescoping ariels”, he says, while showing the hollow sections in a young shoot. He loves his black bamboo which, when polished, is wonderfully ornamental.

And lest you think bamboo can only be grown in Southern BC, think again. There are many varieties, some of them hardy enough to survive even cold Manitoba winters, and there are clumping bamboos that don’t run.

Bamboo is not the only treasure in Garry and Brenda’s garden. There was an 8.5-foot-tall crinum lily, Cardiocrinum giganteum. This flower is a wonder, with 8-inch, trumpet-shaped white blossoms sporting maroon centres. Not really a true lily, it has a vanilla scent and heart-shaped rather than strappy leaves. When planted from seeds, it takes about seven years to blossom, then dies once it is finished. Brenda is amazed at the seed pods whose three compartments hold 400 to 500 little seeds surround by a transparent coat.

And there is more. A mature kiwi vine winds up a patio pillar. Its slightly oak-shaped leaves provide dappled shade below. It was covered in fruit, but Brenda says that, though they have taken as much as two five-gallon pails of fruit from the vine, no matter what they did, the fruit never ripened. “It looks ripe, but it is not edible,” says Brenda, who notes that the unripe kiwis have a very astringent flavour. “Maybe this year,” she says, hopefully. The 2020 summer was uncharacteristically warm.

Then we come to the cobra lily. “That’s our whole little family: Mommy, Daddy and the babies,” Brenda says with a laugh. This tall pitcher plant, Arisaema costatum, has lovely striped heads which are actually leaves that curve over and under to set a trap for passing insects.

Growing among them and beside them is a beautiful, large-leafed plant, Podophyllum pleianthum, a very special species of the mayflower or mandrake plant. The 13-inch leaves are only slightly notched in seven lobes. Brenda pulls back a leaf to reveal a cluster of berries. “They are cherry black when they come out,” she says. They gradually turn pale green as they mature.

“You won’t find these everywhere,” says Garry. “There’s only two greenhouses in Vancouver that sell them— when they can get them.” He grins. “This year they came up everywhere in here. I harvested them and sold them in 4-inch pots. I sold $1,440 worth of them at $15 a pot!”

Groomed to perfection.

Cobra lily.

Bears’ breeches.

The back terrace.

It is not hard to see where the proceeds were spent as you look around this wonderful garden. There are so many interesting plants. Carelessly growing among some ligularia is a clump of bears’ breeches which sport lovely big leaves. Green is the colour du jour here and large leaves predominate. Lovely ferns, including a very happy looking Japanese painted fern, surround a small water feature at one end of the patio.

It is not only plants that make the garden lovely. Both Brenda and Garry have a highly developed aesthetic sense.

Garry, who is retired from business, carves beautiful works of art out of maple—and even a curious piece made from the remains of an aged hibiscus that he polished and smoothed and made into a statue resembling a hand. It even has fingernails and a thumb! However, his work usually involves eternity knots carved from maple wood.

Brenda plants all sorts of wonderful things in pots, like hosta and a graceful Japanese maple. The pots themselves are works of art. Everything is tasteful and tidy, projecting serenity and sanity in a chaos ridden world. This is a garden to rest in and savour.

Looking around somewhat wistfully, Garry alludes to a future without the garden, when “it all becomes too much”.

Let’s hope it never does.

Big plants rule over the garden.

A couple of Garry’s eternity carvings.

To see more of Garry and Brenda Hedberg’s garden: https://www.localgardener.net/garry-and-brendahedbergs-garden/