UBC

"Canadian cities looked the way American Cities looked on Television"

                                                                                        William Gibson

I'll get back to posting pics of the Iris collection soon, there are some great ones coming on now and the rock garden is starting to look pretty colorful. I took my folks up to Vancouver B.C. this past week, to pick Anya up as her freshman year is finished. We had a great time, got Anya moved out of her dorm and helped her setup her place for next year. We found sunshine and flowers at the botanical garden and had some great food!

By far my favorite city, the Father of Cyberpunk put it perfectly, I love San Francisco and Seattle, but Vancouver is the best of both of those with none of the worst of them.

We took a stroll around the UBC botanical garden, the Rhodies were going off and the Magnolias too.

This was kinda remarkable, there was a patch of Fritillaria persica growing under some pine trees in a park. It was as if they were planted like some daffodils as an afterthought but clearly naturalizing well. I love travel and especially visiting different gardens and parks because it gives you new perspectives, I'm definitely going to try some F. persica in dry shade and see how it does here.

Iris acutiloba was in bloom in in the bulb frames at the Lohbrunner alpine garden.

One of these days I'm gonna build myself a right proper alpine house like this.

The troughs were looking great as well.

It was a fantastic trip, I love traveling with Mom and Dad because they like to explore and enjoy good food as much as I do. Mom even found a teacup shop in the Kerrisdale neighborhood to add to her colleciton. A trip to Granville Island to replenish the tea supply and a visit to the best dim sum resturant in Vancouver really topped the trip off. 

The E.H. Lohbrunner Garden is such a great rock garden.

Anya got straight A's this term, she found a great group of friends to rent a house with for next year and even figured out how to sublet out her room for the summer to save some money. I've learned that life can come at you pretty fast and I'm so impressed with how she has figured out how to navigate going to school in a foreign country, and is figuring out what she is passionate about in life. If you aren't doing something you are passionate about then what is the point?

It rained about an inch yesterday and that was a bummer after enjoying sunny skies to the north of us, but today is supposed to be dry and the week looks like it has a few dry days in between the wet ones. The snow level is still at the mountain passes so that does bode well for the drought conditions that the west has been facing so I won't complain. 

Cheers, 

Mark