Metro Vancouver’s spate of hot weather is a blessing for local garden centres as backyard gardeners flock to the shops.
Particularly popular are vegetables and herbs — tomatoes and basil are favourites — allowing growers a homegrown supply of fresh produce, in favour of store-bought veggies.
“It’s definitely been a very good year for plant sales so far this year,” said Wim Vander Zalm, owner of Art Knapp Plantland in Port Coquitlam. “And vegetable sales and herb sales are blowing away the numbers from previous years. People are growing their own. They’re getting the message that they need to be responsible and do the best thing for the environment and not haul tomatoes from Mexico. And (customers include) very young families to seniors.”
Sandra Vornbrock shops around at Art Knapp Plantland in Port Coquitlam, B.C., April 30, 2016.
Vander Zalm said this year’s warm weather has definitely had an impact — “people were cutting their grass much sooner than normal this year and bulbs were blooming earlier” — but he can’t say for sure if the gardening upswing will continue.
“You never really know if it’s a really good year until you get to the end of June … I hope it continues to the end, but I never count the chickens until the eggs are hatched.”
Conor Preston, who works at Figaro’s Garden on Victoria Drive, echoed Vander Zalm’s comments, saying this year is shaping up to be the busiest he’s seen since he started working at the East Vancouver shop three years ago.
“We’re about 15- to 20-per-cent busier than last year, but last year was very busy too.”
Like Vander Zalm, Preston cited a variety of factors, including the warmer weather and the home gardening trend.
“It’s getting warmer earlier in the year, so climate change is definitely a big factor. And I’d say we’re getting a lot more young people interested in gardening. Lots of people are interested in growing their own food for cooking and there’s also a huge trend (toward) organic gardening.”
Drought-resistant plants are also in demand following last year’s dry summer, said Preston, citing the popularity of Ollas (pronounced oyas), a type of self-watering plant irrigation system in which terracotta pots are planted in gardens to save water, time and make growing easier.
Meanwhile, Petra Novak, manager of Maple Leaf Garden Centre’s North Vancouver store, said they too are having a good season.
“Everything’s earlier than usual. I think we’re about three weeks ahead of time,” Novak said, adding that colourful flowers are particularly popular, especially geraniums.
“And everybody’s coming in for vegetables. There’s tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, kale; obviously, kale is really popular as always.”
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