The Ebb and Flow of the Seasons - Spring Bulbs

September 30, 2004 - Working at the Vancouver Park Board can have a huge impact on your life, especially if you stay more than the few years you originally planned on. Staff have been known to arrive at retirement surprised at how quickly the time sped by, and many saddened at the prospect of missing a park spring or winter of which they have grown so accustomed.

Those of us who work at the main administration building at the Beach Avenue entrance to Stanley Park are attuned to the ebb and flow of the seasons like some Pavlovian canines conditioned to varying stimuli. For us it is easy to know when to pull up the summer bedding annuals to make way for glorious spring bulbs because we watch from our windows as one of the finest horticultural teams in the business prepares for a changing season.

By the end of September, Park Board gardeners all over the city will be pulling up annuals, cutting back perennials and blanketing the beds with home-grown compost in preparation for spring bulb planting. While most Vancouverites were sunning at the beach or blading on the seawall, the green-thumbed staff poured over Dutch bulb catalogues and ordered up a public show of flowers set to debut in parks city-wide by spring 2005.

In all, Park Board staff plant over 50,000 bulbs each fall from the diminutive snowdrop to the stately Darwin hybrid tulip with all sorts of other bulb-like specimens in between. Their magic at combinations and placement make the Vancouver garden system the envy of many a city and we couldn't be prouder.

So if you see Park Board staff by end of September or early October braving the fall rain to gentle in their dormant charges, remember that this is a hint to homeowners to do the same.

Better yet, give them a friendly wave as another season passes by!

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