She's Growing a Garden Oasis | Suburban Vancouver Garden Tour

There's a new gardener here on the Epic Gardening channel and her name is Chris. You've seen her in our videos. You've seen her greenhouse tour, but there's a lot you haven't seen. So today let's go on up to Vancouver and check out Chris's garden. It's turning out to be a beautiful day here in Vancouver. It is midsummer. And although we did just go through a heat wave, many of the plants are looking like they're back to normal, especially the perennial plants that I have in front of me right here. And I'm sure as we go through the different areas of my garden, you're going to notice a bit of crispiness and that's okay. So first, let's talk about this pollinator patch. And I'm not sure if you can see, but there are tons of bumblebees and honeybees visiting this purple patch. And this is anise hyssop or agastache funiculum. And it is a wonderful plant. Not only does it have this long display of purple flowers, the leaves and the flowers are very licorice smelling and tasting. So if you like that kind of flavor profile, this is a really great and easy plant to grow. This yellow patch right here is coreopsis. It's looking a little bit sad, but after a bit of deadheading, it's going to be fine. I see a lot of buds, so that's going to keep flowering throughout summer. And then out front along the path, I've got a lot of yarrow, which is not only drought tolerant, it's pretty. And the main thing is that it attracts a lot of beneficial insects that help keep pest populations down very naturally. So it's a multipurpose plant. Actually all of these plants serve more than just adding beauty. So there are two additions to this area that I've added this year. So there is the luma apiculata, which is this taller evergreen shrub. It's actually going into flower, which is really, really pretty. So the leaves are quite small. The flowers are white and kind of poofy and it fruits. It doesn't need another pollinator buddy, unlike this pineapple guavas. I mean, I really like it for its foliage, but I hope it flowers and fruits at some point. It does have a pollinator buddy on the other side, which I'll show you very shortly. So this whole area, all pollinators, very low care. And then back here, I have some other plants. They are perennials. They are not in the ground and I'll show you why. So let's just swing over here and I'll show you what's going on back here. This is the South side of the greenhouse. This area gets the most sun and heat from that direction. So down here on the ground in little containers are plants that can tolerate the additional heat and the sun, or maybe they actually do need all that extra heat to do well, because I noticed a lot of the flowers and fruit are just looking really, really great because they are getting that extra sun. Um, before I show you that, I want to just comment on this green stock, which turns out to be a really great thing for my garden. So I always thought, Oh, Pacific Northwest, you don't really have to water all these things. Well, you know, things are kind of shifting. Things are feeling crispy, but I mean, look at this thing. It is really lush, really green, and I haven't really had to water it that much. Even though we had that heat, I've got some perennials in here, like the pineapple sage, which is just looking really good. I've got some strawberries, some beans that we direct sowed. I've got a sunflower in here as well. Um, and I made sure to plant it on one of the lower tiers so that it could grow nice and high and not like be all weird and floppy. So I think that's the height. It looks really good. I love it. And then also here is lemongrass. So again, it's liking the heat that it's getting right here. And this lemongrass was actually from the kitchen scrap video that I did a little while back. So from those little stubs of lemongrass, it rooted, I stuck it in here and I'm really pleased to have this kind of grassy look to break up that texture. And also from that video, I've got my celery stump, which is pumping out some lush leaves. So it's just a fun little situation that I have here. I'm just going to keep experimenting with different plants. And then over here I have a bunch of peppers. I never thought I would really like this stuff, but I have a whole bunch of peppers that I started from seeds this winter. So let's see if I can remember all of them. This one is the cold hardy chili pepper, capsicum flexuosum. And I've got this really strange, I think it's called a caterpillar pepper, arabibi gusano. There is aji pineapple somewhere here. And I've got some other ones that I've kind of forgotten the names of, but I'm just seeing a lot of fruit appear kind of out of nowhere. Like the heat hit, the flowers just started pumping out and the fruit is now here and I'm super, super pleased. So in Vancouver, we just don't get a long extended period of heat. So a lot of the peppers just don't really do well, but this year it's looking really, really good. So it's a good thing and a bad thing just because, I mean, with this extra heat, it's just been a big shift trying to understand how to deal with plants in a new way. Also back here is a plant that I've never grown before and I'm really excited to see it flower and fruit. So this is chayote. It grows like a cucumber. So it goes from down there up into a vine and it actually should be in the ground, but I just don't have a space prepped for it, but it's in a large container and it's looking for spaces to grow. And there are actually flowers, which is very, very exciting. Down here, right in front, we've got a banana plant. So this one is not super well suited for growing outdoors in my area. That's why it's in a container and that's why all of these plants are in a container as well. Actually, I forgot to mention, I've got citrus back here also containerized because although these are hardy citrus, at least hardy down to my zone 8B, they are not going to do that well if I don't protect them in the winter. So hence the small containers. I've got yuzu and sudachi and I also have a kumquat that's still sitting in the greenhouse. So with the containers, it allows me to protect them. For larger containers, I would normally wrap them when the frost hits. But with all these smaller ones and especially the peppers, which I can actually grow as perennials, I'm just going to tuck them all in when it gets cold. And then, you know, come spring, I'm going to bring them out and get them acclimated. And we can just start another cycle so I don't have to start them from seed. And that's another reason why I grow a lot of perennials is because I don't have to start any of these from seed next season. Now that you know the feel of this south end of the greenhouse, let's take a look at what's on the north end because there's a new addition that I added this spring and it's been pumping out a lot of color. So let's go take a look. Up until this past spring, this area along the front hedge, so sort of between the greenhouse and the street, was always this empty area full of weeds that I just needed to deal with. And this year I was like, no, let's do something about it. So we moved one of my wooden beds from the other side over here, filled it with soil and it became one of my son's cut flower areas, which is pumping out a lot of color, a lot of peaches and pinks. This is kind of the color palette that we're really loving right now. We've got some asters in bloom and I actually never thought I would like asters so much. I never really thought I would enjoy having a cut flower section so much. It has brought a lot of fun, a lot of color to the area, and it's allowed me to access this area a lot more, which I really like because this area has never really been visited. It's kind of been like a holding area for materials, a dumping area for, you know, stuff that I've cut back. And now there's a purpose. So we've got flowers here. Back here in this other bed, along the hedge, we have some tomatoes and these are kind of like the leftover ones that didn't have a spot on the other side of the garden where I focus more of the food growing. But down here we've got some yellow zucchini. And you know, the thing with the zucchini is that with the spring that we had here in Vancouver, it was cold and wet. The starts that I had sitting in the greenhouse were just not the happiest. And I really didn't have much expectation for these plants. I was thinking, you know, if they look okay, if they flower, maybe I can have the blossoms, but I actually see yellow fruit. Thankfully, the rats which do live in this area of the hedge, they haven't discovered the squash yet. So I need to harvest these soon. Again, I don't remember the names because this bed was kind of the, let's just cross our fingers and see what happens kind of bed. So I've got yellow squash and I've got two types of zucchini on the other side, right here behind me. And down on the front, I've got dry bush beans. Actually one is Thibodeaux, one is Batia and they're looking really good. I mean, beans are super easy. That's why I like to fill out a lot of spaces with beans. So the flowers are pretty. I've got some purples and some whites and the pods are forming, which is a great sign. And then also tucked down here, I have an eggplant. I believe this is fairy tale. So it's got this really like small fruit and it's just hilarious to look at. It's a really small plant. It's great for containers. I guess with this bed size that I have here, I could have gone with something larger, but I'm really liking the space. So really this whole area along the hedge was just not used. So just having flowers and some food being produced is a big win for me this year. So this area of the garden is right across from the greenhouse area. And I like to refer to it as the thyme patch or the apple tree bed. And what I really love about this bed is that it has a lot of ground cover action. So right in front of me, a ton of woodland strawberries, just hugging onto the soil, protecting the soil. It also flowers and fruits, which is really nice throughout the spring. Also throughout the spring, what's pretty is the thyme ground cover. So it's not in flower right now. The flowers are done. But usually late spring, you see this nice sea of pinks and mauves and kind of this purpley kind of color. And it's just covered with pollinators, which is really, really great, especially for a food garden that requires pollinators. Also, what I love is that I don't have to spend a lot of money on mulch. So it just kind of covers the ground. But with the plants that are newly established, or if I want to highlight an area, I do like to put like a bit of mulch around plants like this evergreen shrub that I just put in a couple of months ago. So this is a grevillea. It is an Australian native plant and it flowers in the winter. So it's going to be really neat to see this do its thing when there really isn't much going on during the winter months here. So again, I love hummingbirds. So this is really well suited for hummingbird gardens and it's just a really nicely shaped plant, really beautiful leaves. And then I've got two beds right here that I really want to talk about. So let's go take a look before we talk about what is going on in these beds. Let's take a look at what is going on over there. So you will probably notice this color gradient of gold turning into green. So what we're seeing here is this top section, which is this leftover turf grass stuff that I had in that section, just turning brown and crispy because I don't irrigate it. And then as you come lower down to this area, you see a lot more lushness and greenness. And that's because what's down here around the beds is predominantly clover. So I'm a big fan of growing mixed turf grass lawn plants. So that could be things like clover, prunella, chamomile, yarrow. I've got all sorts of other things you're growing in here adding to this lushness. And it's a great way to kind of show how you can have a really nice lush green cover that is not traditional turf grass lawn. So it's a great demonstration. I didn't really intend for it to happen, but because with the heat and also being in the middle of summer, it naturally happened. And I just wanted to highlight that because there is a way to, you know, have a lot of this grass look without having to invest a lot of time and money and water to create that kind of feel. So this bed right here is my son's little growing bed. Usually first thing in the spring when the soil is workable, we like to put radishes in here. So we do a few rounds of radishes, quick growing greens, but right now we've removed everything and we're just trying to decide if we want to do fall plants like for a fall harvest, or if we want to do overwintering plants like cauliflower and the broccoli. So I'll let him decide because this really is the spot where he gets to do what he wants to do. But one thing that we agree on is growing a lot of peas and beans up this tall, I would say like seven foot panel. And we just pulled out the peas, which were, I think there were two varieties. One was like a sugar snap pea. The other one was the flat snow peas and it was super lush and pretty. And you can't really see it here, but we have a little seating area right behind the panel. And when it's in full foliage form, it gives us some privacy back here because the street is right there. I love my neighbors, but it's nice having a bit of a privacy screen here. And then behind me right here is the tomato bed. The tomato bed is looking a bit different from last year because what I had last year was this trellis kind of thing where the plants grew tall and skinny up a string. And for the past few years, that's the style that I've really enjoyed doing because it freed up a lot of space. It allowed me to grow a lot more plants with the same area. But this year, because the top beam fell down, I just went with stakes and the plants seem to be performing beautifully. They were a bit slow to get to this size just because we had that cold spring, but I do see fruit. This front area is all of my favorite variety. So this is black cherry or the chocolate cherry. And it has these wonderful big trusses that allow me to, as they ripen, pick from the same easy to access truss. But when it gets cooler and the plants stop having the fruit ripen on the vine, then I can cut the entire truss and just take it inside. And it's a lot easier to manage taking a big truss inside. So let me swing over to the back here and show you what is going on in here because I've got some neat varieties right here. Over on this side, we get a better view of the different varieties that I'm trying for the first time this year. Actually, before we dig into that, let's talk about this beautiful current or wild tomato that I have here. So this is the Galapagos wild tomato. I've had it before and it's really lovely, very prolific. Can't wait to see fruit set on those. Let me explain why I have all these satchets around the fruit. It's because the rat and squirrel situation in my garden is getting progressively worse every year. This is the first year I've had to protect my fruit with one of these little bags. So I'm going to see if that helps. So this first variety here is the Japanese black triphala. I don't really know the pronunciation there, but it's producing a lot of beautiful fruit. It's a really lovely shape. It's a bit bottom heavy. It's supposed to be a nice mahogany colored fruit with smoky flavor. And that's the profile that I really like. It's that smoky syrupyness. Looking forward to that one. Right behind that, we have a very strange fused cherry tomato. I think it's called race tomato or tomat. A really neat novelty one. Not sure how it's going to taste, but really can't wait for that one. I have one out front here, which I may have mislabeled, but I think it is orange banana. It's a very strange shaped fruit. Seems quite prolific. The plant is very robust and healthy. So that is a neat one that I've never tried before. And then on the backside here, I've got a current tomato, which is from Quebec. It is petit moineau and it was the first one to ripen this season. So it was really lovely, very small. And that's probably why it was one of the first to ripen and change color. So we really enjoyed that. My son got to pick that one. And then over here is something completely different. I've been calling it my experimental patch. This is the area where I'm growing a lot of cereal crops. So cereal crops including this sorghum. So I've got a row of sorghum. I've never grown it before. I don't know what to expect. So there's sorghum, there's dragon claw millet, which is actually, there's one right here that's showing this weird tufty action. I think it's supposed to get taller, but maybe it'll gain some height eventually. And then back here, all of this leafy stuff is teff, which is supposed to be one of the smallest cereal grains. So, I mean, I see it right here. It's adorable. It's very lush, but I don't really know what it's all about or what I'm going to do with it because I'm growing such small quantities of each. Again, it's more of like an experiment because I've never grown cereals. And then before I show you the super neat stuff back here, I do have a couple of melons. I've got the Montreal melon, which is this larger patch and Oka melon. Both of these I chose because they are a bit more cold tolerant. So it's almost like I kind of knew when I bought these seeds that we wouldn't know what the season would feel like. So, um, with a later start, hopefully these will still size up and give me some sort of fruit, um, as we get into the colder period of the year. So that's this bed and let's not forget there's beautiful calendula here for the pollinators. So back here, although it doesn't look super exciting, it is pretty exciting for me. And it kind of encapsulates maybe my identity. There's oats, which is very Canadian. Canada produces a lot of oats and there's also rice, which speaks to the Asian part of me. So let's talk about these oats, which I find are kind of hilarious because a lot of people out in the prairies are probably going to laugh and say, why are you growing this? It grows like it's a grass. I actually have four varieties here. So I'm trying to compare to see if they're different. Some creature seems to be trampling over it. So I may not get a great comparison when it comes to harvesting, but we'll see. I've got, um, Tara oats, streaker, hulless, uh, baton and vicar. So I don't really know what the huge difference is. I do notice that the ones in the middle are a bit stronger. I'm not sure if it's because they get a bit more water. Um, but we'll see excited for that. And then behind this fennel right here, I've got three types of rice. One, I only have, um, maybe two plants, but we'll see. And then the other two varieties, one is an upland. The other one is a low land. So the difference is one is more paddy growing style. So I guess it needs more moisture. So I've been trying to keep that a bit more watered. The other one is upland meaning that it can grow outside of the traditional rice paddy, like always moist situation. So they are still quite low. The plants are maybe like a foot and a half high, not sure what to expect. Again, that's why I call this my experimental patch. I'm really happy that things are shaping up and that's kind of it for this area. I really want to show you what is going on in the back garden. Cause there's a lot more back there. We're back on the greenhouse side of the front garden, and we're going to walk down this path to get to the back garden. But first I want to show you what is going on in this area on the North side of the house, because it's never been an area that I talked about because there was nothing really going on or it wasn't an area that I was very proud of. It's still a work in progress because there are some open areas that I can definitely fill out, but I'm really liking the color and how it's actually shaping up for the remainder of the season. So I mentioned before, I love hummingbirds. I have hummingbird mint. This is a type of Agastache right here. Beautiful colors. I love this orange and I also have an orange one that I started from seed a few years ago, right here. And as we move back, we're going to see this patch of red and this one, although it doesn't look like a zinnia, most of the zinnias that we grow for cut flowers are very poofy and pom-pom. This one is a very simple one, lovely red and it's actually quite charming. These were started from seed, very easy to grow. And I think I want to continue with these ones as opposed to the poofy ones. It's just kind of my style and it gets a lot more height, which I really like. And then these sunflowers were just kind of plopped here for fun to add a bit more height. I do have my gas meter back there, and I always try to sort of block it out with some foliage and some bushy plants. So it's serving its purpose. And as we move back, I've got some containerized plants. I've got a tea plant back here. So a real camellia sinensis where you would get to like black tea, white teas, oolong teas. And as we move back here, there is just a profusion of yellow flowers. I allow my bronze fennel to flower. So a lot of beneficial insects like this area. But what I've learned over the years is that once the seed heads start to appear, I really have to remove them. And then down here, my son has planted random bush beans, which actually works because there was not much of a ground cover here. I've got one Gomi and one I forgot to mention earlier. So this is Eliagnus multiflora. It is a Gomi plant. It's a nitrogen fixing plant, and it also produces red fruit. So they were on the other side of the garden earlier, but I moved them over in the spring just because it has more space here to kind of leaf out and do its thing. So that's the Gomi. And then this is such a showstopper right now. This is Elecampane and it is a really tall perennial sunflower. And this is the first year it's gotten to this height. I think it is finally settling in and it's adding a lot of nice color up here and against the darkness of the house. So right behind me here is just this swath of Mediterranean-esque plants that flower yellow. I really do have to trim it back because it's kind of becoming a bit too overwhelmed. It's just this big blob, but it's low priority. It is flowering for the pollinators, which is fine. So let's head on to the back because I think we've covered everything out in the front. We're now in the back garden and this bed in front of me has one of my favorite crops to grow or rather my favorite groups of crops, the brassicas. So here in front of me, I've got three perennial sprouting cauliflowers and two of them are under the net. The other one is left open because I just couldn't fit the net over it. So the net is here and it's more of a deterrence for the squirrels and the rats. It seems to be doing its job. Although the cabbage moths are laying their eggs on the plants. So if I really need to protect it from both the fuzzy creatures and the insect creatures, I need something that doesn't have these large holes, but it's actually not too bad. I'm going to keep it up for now because up until this point, it has been really hot and this extra airflow has allowed these plants to not suffer. So perennial sprouting cauliflower. So that is going to come back year after year, hopefully. And then I've got this really cool cabbage right here. Never grown it before. It's called fielder kraut. And what's unique about it is that instead of the round head, it has a pointed head. So I'm still waiting for those to form. I do see some of the leaves starting to wrap and form that head, which is very exciting. Back here, I have two varieties that seem to be producing a lot of leafy stuff to eat, even though we're going through some weird weather patterns. I've got the rainbow lacinato, which is the strappy leaved dino kale style, and then a purple island kale, which has these humongous, beautiful tender leaves. I'm excited to grow those. And then hopefully if the plants are looking healthy towards the end of the year, I'm going to let those overwinter. And then come spring, they're going to do their beautiful yellow profusion of flowers for the pollinators. And then who knows, maybe I'll collect seed, maybe not, but we'll see. As long as we have some leaves to eat, I'm really pleased. And then right in front here, this section of the bed is a mishmash of leftover things. I've got some sunflowers, which adds some height, adds something interesting in the middle. This is what I was hoping would get a lot larger. This is cardoon that I started from seed. I think because it has been a bit colder, it really hasn't sized up much, but it's a perennial. It'll come back as long as it is liking the spot. There are some volunteer tomatoes and everything else here is like volunteer plants, including the calendula. This oregano is just sort of taking over. I may need to remove that. And I have a dahlia down here. It's my first year growing dahlias. So I'm not really sure what to expect. It's summer. I think it's supposed to be flowering, but it's okay. It's still alive. And I still have some leftover arugula flowering for the little pollinators. And then back here, you'll notice the A frames, not much going on. I was a bit behind with getting the beans into the ground, but they are coming up. I see lots of flowers and what I like to do with my beans is grow them up super tall. And then it's really easy to harvest from underneath the A frame. And another thing that I like to do is choose varieties that are easy to identify and harvest. So I've got a purple potted one and a yellow potted one. And what I mean is that when the fruit is ripe, I can just go and harvest really quickly as opposed to searching through the leaves to look for green pods. So that's one of the weird things that I've done over the years. And then here is the scarlet runner bean coming up this A frame and it has the lovely red flowers. And I may have mentioned this before, but I do prefer the pods of the scarlet runner beans over the other beans. For some reason, I think it's because the pods are a lot larger and you get a lot more food out of it. The reason why this A frame is looking a little empty is because I had planned to put cucumbers in here or rather I had cucumbers and the squirrels ate all of the plants. And so I kind of missed the window for the main season crop of cucumbers. And then I decided not to seed more. So it's looking a little empty, but there are some beans seeded in there. So hopefully they will grow up very soon. Back here we have another perennial sprouting cauliflower. And this one was one that had overwintered. I don't know why the creatures didn't eat this one, but it is doing its thing. And then back here, we have a small pocket of tomatoes, again, just leftovers or extras from what should have gone up front. So that is looking good. As you can see, the sun is coming in and that is why the goji, which is kind of like the big plant piece of the back garden is looking fabulous. So there are actually three plants here. Can't really tell because they've all just kind of merged into one giant mass. They are about, I think about six years old and they are this size. And the reason why they are extra big this year is because I didn't give them their annual springtime haircut. Usually what I do is trim them back because they do fruit on new wood and that allows them to push out the new growth kind of like from back here, as opposed to here. So without the haircut, it's actually taken up this path, which is fine because the plants are very healthy, very happy. And each one of these kind of soft stems is just loaded with both green fruit. And I do see some that are producing a lot of the red fruit or rather the ripe fruit, which is a good sign. So I usually need to net this because the birds are starting to like the goji fruit, but I haven't seen the birds yet. Maybe they're waiting for the ripe fruit, but again, we'll see back here. I've got a really neat leafy crop, quite uncommon. It is called Good King Henry. It's a perennial leafy green, very similar in taste and texture to spinach. Although it doesn't bolt and again, it's perennial. So it's doing its thing back there. I think it can tolerate some sun, but I have it in a shadier spot just because it always seems to be a bit happier when it has that shade. So this is the back garden. You have a sense of what areas I kind of manage on my own. There are some other little pockets that I haven't really developed yet, but those are projects for the future. I hope the tour gave you a better sense of the context of the space that I'm working with and how I approach gardening with the different plants. And thank you for hanging out with me in my garden. I can't wait to show you more of the space as we progress through the seasons. Well, there you have it. Chris's garden. Absolutely incredible. We'll be up there in person soon. Subscribe, cultivate that Like button for more tours. And until next time, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.