Seaside Gardening on Bedrock (or gardening without dynamite)

John and Margot live on a south-facing slope of granite with the Pacific Ocean rolling at its feet. "Whale Rock" rests in a shade garden above the house.


All around John and Margot's garden, builders are blasting away the original grano-diorite bedrock to make way for the newest West Coast style of architecture. The new trend proclaims "blending in" with the landscape with muted colours, stratified rooftops and see-through window schemes. The overall effect ends up looking...a bit Kremlin. Stalinesque. (You can see a new roof line just above Whale Rock.)

Apparently, blending in requires blasting into the landscape. A typical sunny day on the West Van seaside pulses with the cry of gulls, crash of waves, and dull thud of dynamite. So many of these lovely contours are cracked apart and flattened so $20 000 (...$50 000...) instant gardens can be installed for a quick sale.

Meanwhile...

...Here's a stairway between a bank of the rampant Himalayan blackberry and the "new" garden bed just coming into its third year. The blackberry is actually under control (ha ha), and kept for picking. Notice the bank of perennial Geranium on the left, dwarfing all passers-by on the path.

John has wended his way around the mountainside, hand-building rock walls to retain soil for garden beds, and stairs to get there. Often, beds are strategically located to catch run-off rivulets that cascade over the bedrock.

This bed of Darmera peltata receives a constant trickle--necessary moisture for its next summer-long phase of large umbrella-like leaves. Right now, the flower heads look like sea creatures, reaching for surface light.

Back to John's "new" garden bed, you can see the degree of the slope by the hand-railing behind the Coral-Bark maple (Acer palmatum 'Sango Kaku'). Anyone else see a heart in this photo?

Didn't plan that--just proof of what makes the world go 'round, I figure.

The incredible blue line behind the Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas) is Lithodora diffusa 'Grace Ward' which is seen below, as a foil to a close-up of a Coral-Bark branch...

...and in a tapestry with one of the creeping veronicas and the dwarf Spiraea bumalda 'Limemound'...

Yes, a lot of good plant vibes going on here!

If you want to know the secret of turning out a garden like this on a slope like that...John and Margot have carefully engineered the Right Plants in the Right Places, and used a whole lotta mulch. I help.

We sort garden debris into weeds for the curb, green compostables, and chippables. John has a homeowner-sized chipper, and strategically disperses fine mulch for pathways and garden beds: building and holding soil, retaining moisture, and smothering weeds.


I've learned a great deal in this garden, about blending a garden into the landscape, without using dynamite.

We thought we'd just come up and take a look around.