Healthy Gardening Practices

VanDusen Botanical Garden is committed to using and promoting healthy gardening practices. This is done in courses and through the work of Master Gardeners and VanDusen’s gardening staff.

The following websites also provide information on this important topic:

American Public Gardens Association

City of Vancouver Policy Report - Creating a Sustainable City

You may order a copy of the BC Home & Garden Pest Management Guide to be shipped anywhere in the province by visiting Home and Garden Pest Management Guide for British Columbia 2001 ( PDF) .

This BC Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries edition features 264 pages with 92 colour photographs and more than 300 descriptions of insects, diseases other pests that affect BC garden plants. The book is based on integrated pest management principles and includes descriptions of beneficial insects. It also offers a list of poisonous plants. This book is also available for reference in VanDusen’s Library.

If you are interested in more discussion of IPM, the Integrated Pest Management Manual for Home and Garden Pests in BC by R.W. Adams and L.A. Gilkeson is posted on the internet. It is intended to serve as an IPM handbook for home gardeners, as well as for use in certification training for people who sell pesticides in garden centres.

Another provincial government publication of interest to gardens is BC Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Pest Management . This site emphasizes commercial crops, but there are good images of common pests and diseases and information about each.

Our neighbouring states to the south also provide outstanding information on integrated pest management. Bear in mind that legislation in Washington, Oregon and California regarding pesticides is not the same as that in British Columbia, so consult your local garden centre with specific queries.

Visit the Washington State University Cooperative Extension’s Hortsense site to figure out what plant problems you are faced with and what course of action to take. This site wisely urges gardeners to select non-chemical means of control as a first choice.

A similar site from Oregon State University is an Online Guide to Plant Disease Control . Oregon State University, Washington State University and the University of Idaho collaborated to produce three outstanding manuals on pest control, one on diseases, one on insects and one on weeds. All three are available for reference in VanDusen’s library. The disease volume has been developed into an excellent website, incorporating colour images not found in the book.

One of the best sites originates at the University of California at Davis Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program . This site is easy to navigate and has outstanding images of each plant problem. We have many of the same pests and diseases in British Columbia, so the site can be used for diagnostic purposes. Because our climate is different from that of California, some of the cultural solutions may need to be adapted for BC use. Check with BC websites or your local garden centre.

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