Designing landscape gardens in Vancouver is so much easier than in most of the rest of Canada who experience much colder weather. Broad leaved evergreen shrubs like rhododendrons and camellias grow into small trees and display their outrageous colours above lush foliage in the spring. Many gardens in Vancouver have subtropical specimens on display. This only adds to our bragging rights to our friends in the the rest of the Canada when we show them our photos of banana palms, tree ferns and phormiums. A word of cautious reason ofter all this bragging: many of these fabulous plants are not reliably hardy in Vancouver landscapes as very cold and wet winters can kill these beautiful exotics we have been bragging about - sometimes even ones you have tried to protect.

I have been fortunate enough to spend most of my gardening career here in Vancouver with a five year jaunt to London, England where I completed my Garden Design training at Capel Manor College. No one in London can believe that Vancouver experiences pretty much the same climate as they do. Canada is so typically associated with lots of snow that is is hard for people who haven't been to the West Coast to imagine that it is any different. Those who have been here never want to go back - rightly so!

So gardeners, take advantage of this wealth of warmth and rain that we enjoy here in Vancouver to grow beautiful lush landscape gardens that challenge the zone hardiness rating.