Who would expect to find a mysterious gate in the middle of a forest? Yet here it was! Stumbling upon it
was like something out of a fairy tale …
In fact, I’d come across the UBC Botanical Garden’s beautiful
Moon Gate.
Traditional Chinese gardens often include Moon Gates. These
are circular openings in big walls, and are meant to invite visitors to stroll
through. Walking through the round gate
– a symbol of perfection – is thought to bring visitors good luck, and a
feeling of arriving in a wonderful place.
This gate is sheltered by a pretty wooden temple. The gate
leads into something else completely circular: a tunnel right under Marine
Drive.
It’s certainly good luck to avoid the traffic overhead on Marine
Drive!
The tunnel leads to the UBC Botanical Garden’s North Gardens. They cover about 32 hectares,
and are split into several sections.
The Alpine Garden
was built using left-over stone from the construction of the University of
British Columbia’s Main Library in
1925. This is the stately old library today, by the way:
The Food Garden
is packed with yummy plants that I managed to resist nibbling … and a good
thing, too! That’s because the Food Garden is harvested for charity by an
intrepid group called the FOGs. Now, nobody minds being called a FOG: it stands
for Friends of the Garden.
The Food Garden is surrounded by fruit trees. Have you ever
heard of espalier? This is an ancient
technique (dating all the way back to the Romans) to train plants so that they
grow flat against a wall or fence.
These are espaliered apple trees.
Speaking of apples, every year the UBC Botanical Garden holds a whole festival devoted to apples! This
year, the Apple Festival happens on
October 13th and 14th.
In the Festival's Apple Tasting Tent,
you’ll be able to sample about sixty kinds of B.C. apples. 20,000 kilograms of
apples are sold at the autumn Festival each year.
The Apple Festival also has crafts for kids, face-painting,
games, stories, and entertainers.
The Physic Garden
isn’t about protons and electrons. Here, physic refers to medicine. It’s from an ancient
Greek word that means “the science of nature.” The Physic Garden is full of plants
and herbs that can be used for healing.
In Europe, many formal botanical gardens actually began as
collections of medicinal plants, hundreds of years ago. And the use of herbs and plants
for healing is incredibly old
– Neanderthal people used medicinal plants over 40,000 years ago!
The Arbour of the
Botanical Garden supports climbing plants like wisteria and clematis.
It’s a shady refuge on a summer’s day for a furry bear in a sweater.
Look – here are some cacti! I’ll have to tell my
buddy Butte about this.
The UBC Botanical Garden welcomes school groups for tours.
I’m going to find out if I can book a whole pile of us teddy bears for our own customized tour … I bet the FOGs
would enjoy it!
Story © S. Clouthier
Photos © S. Clouthier and D. Wei
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