Planting Happiness

Planting Happiness Inspirations from the Native Plant Garden

By Ken Marr, Curator of Botany

It’s spring! Time to start planning for your garden, be it an acre of vegetables or a single flowerpot on the stoop. It’s also the time of year when we take a fresh look at the Royal BC Museum Native Plant Garden.

Spring and early summer are the best times to enjoy the blossoms of the Native Plant Garden. You may be surprised to learn that there are approximately 400 species of plants native to British Columbia growing in this little corner of Victoria, tucked away from the traffic and noise. The species range from very common to quite rare. Many are plants that you could grow in your own garden; some are medicinal or have other traditional uses.

An unpublished manuscript by former curator of botany Dr. T. Christopher Brayshaw, the author of many Royal BC Museum publications on plants, states that in 1968 he and another curator of botany, Dr. Adam Szczawinski, promoted the idea of landscaping the grounds around the new museum buildings with native species.

Some plants were purchased from nurseries—though few native species were commercially available. Plants, cuttings and seeds were brought in from the southern Interior as well as local sites. The City of Victoria arranged propagation space on the grounds of Government House. In later years Dr. Brayshaw collected live plants from other parts of the province and sent them back by bus. Species from non-coastal habitats thrived for a few years, but unfortunately many eventually died, as they are not adapted to our wet, relatively warm winters.

The camas bed on the east side of Fannin tower was established in 1972, when hundreds of bulbs were salvaged from a highway project by Lesley Kennes, now the museum’s birds and mammals collections manager. They still bloom there every summer.

The Native Plant Garden is maintained by a passionate group of volunteers who weed, prune, thin and transplant weekly during the warmer months.

If you’re looking for a little garden inspiration, why not come for a visit? You might even see something you’ve never seen before.

Royal BC Museum Native Plant Garden, early 1970s.

Learn more on our Learning Portal or pick up one of our many publications. rbcm.ca/nativeplants