Bountiful blooms: A tour of the Sunshine Coast's nurseries

As the price of groceries rises stratospherically, Coasters are growing their own food, as well as flowers from locally produced seeds or starter plants from greenhouses or independent growers at farmers’ markets. As I flitted like a hummingbird from one nursery to the next while writing this article, I gathered a wishlist of fantastical plants, like weeping ornamental cherry trees, white bleeding hearts, dwarf gingkos, and white cherry tomatoes. 

If you don’t want to share your flowers with deer or food crops with birds, bears and raccoons, fortify those gardens with nets, fences, and other devices. Luckily, all the plants, gardening supplies, and expertise needed is a short drive from wherever you live on the Coast. 

B&K Garden and Landscape Supply becomes family-run

629 Pratt Road, Gibsons; bkgardenlandscapesupply.ca

Leanne Hamling was a unit clerk at Sechelt Hospital before she, her husband, her daughter-in-law Sarah Clark and her son recently took over B&K, which is celebrating 30 years in the community.

“The weather got down to minus 12 [this winter] and people are replacing plants that didn’t make it, like grasses. People are also looking for drought-tolerant plants, like lavender and sedums. They also want to brighten up their yards,” says Leanne. 

I take a browse through their 100 varieties of maple trees, as I leave the women in their smart matching jackets. 

The gardening shop has added the 50 Echo tool section with both gas and electric tools. The largest tool on display sucks in leaves at one end, shreds them, and blows out the mulched leaves out the other end. They have plenty of pumps and ponds, indoor plants, decorative touches, and the greenhouse is full of flowers.

Quality Garden and Pet's Golden Jubilee

325 Pratt Road, Gibsons; qualitygardenandpet.com

Quality Garden and Pet had me instantly drooling at the bi-colour fuschia baskets swaying overhead. The store celebrates 50 years in business this year. Owner Danni Du Preez’s eyes light up as she points to ornamental trees like the mystical weeping cherry with frothy pink blossoms, and willows plush with silver catkins. At the back of the vast property is a forest of 12-foot tall potted cedars ready to make an instant screen. 

She guides us through an orchard of dormant young fruit trees. “If you see an espaliered fruit tree, get it, as you might not see another for years,” she says. She warns that there’s a shortage of fruit trees, as suppliers had their fruit tree stocks decimated by the floods. “We only have half the amount of fruit trees that we had last year.”

Danni points out the bags of clover and wildflower seeds that people use as water-wise grass alternatives. Also, they have an irrigation section and her father has the knowledge and experience to help you set up a watering system for your garden. 

Zen out at Sunshine Coast Nursery

1826 Sunshine Coast Highway, Roberts Creek; sunshinecoastnursery.com

Stepping on a winding path at Sunshine Coast Nursery, which has been in business for 40 years (20 years with Michael and Patricia Mills, its current owners) is more like entering a botanical garden. I find myself lingering, appreciating the zen sculptures, glass orbs and extensive collection of pots, admiring their grove of fruit trees, moving dreamily through the flowers and vines, forgetting why I’ve come and feeling as zenned out as the smiling buddhas populating the grounds.Sunshine Coast Nursery is my go-to supplier for water plants. I’ve also picked up fairy garden supplies there. They carry bonsais, dried mosses, gates, gardening gloves and tools, deer and rabbit repellents, grow mats for seedlings, seeds, fencing, and mini fountains. Of course, they have every kind of plant you can imagine such as cacti, tropicals, hanging baskets, annuals, perennials galore, veggie starters, currants, kiwis, grapevines, toothsome berries and fiery wasabi for your homemade sushi rolls.

Sunshine Coast Nursery offers a series of thoughtful, free pamphlets, including Drought Tolerant Plants, Plants of the Pacific North Coast, Fertilizer Basics and Gardening Nutrients, Attracting Pollinators and Beneficial Insects to the Garden, and a must-read for all new gardeners on the Coast, Deer Resistant Plants. 

Nostalgia grows in spades at Rusty Hinge 

1059 Roberts Creek Rd, Roberts Creek, rustyhingeinrobertscreek@gmail.com

It’s no surprise that Rhoda Baxter is a florist and owned a Yaletown flower shop before she opened her exquisite gardening and gift shop in Roberts Creek six years ago, as perennial bedding plants are arranged artfully in front of her shop, in the log mall building. Rusty Hinge carries unique brands of seeds, including Rennee’s Gardens, Saltspring Seeds, and Aimers Seeds, in addition to West Coast Seeds for those looking to do their starters. Baxter trades a gift certificate for the shop if you bring in your old garden implements, which she displays in her shop.

The Roberts Creek experience at Coastal Sun Greenhouse and Farm

1652 Pell Rd, Roberts Creek

Coastal Sun Greenhouse and Farm celebrates its 25th Anniversary in Roberts Creek this year. When you pull in, you get the Roberts Creek experience, or rather the John Yue experience. Past the stands and baskets planted with napa cabbage, keep going towards the back, where you’ll find John tending his plants in one of his four greenhouses.

Inside the greenhouse you find order and beauty inside, where seedlings grow on a radiant heat floor. 

John is passionate about growing each of what must be thousands of plants locally. In the summer and fall he also sells tomatoes and other produce from his greenhouses, including via contactless home delivery. 

John advises home gardeners to rotate their crops and use good soil. He helped us with the issue of a bear diving into our compost by suggesting we leave a container of ammonia on top of the pile. “Bears are sensitive to smells,” says John. 

You will see him or his partner, Chris, at the Davis Bay Market on Saturdays, and the Roberts Creek Market at the Roberts Creek Hall on Wednesdays, selling bedding plants to get your garden growing.

'We have everything' at Wilson Creek Nursery

1709 Ward Court, Wilson Creek

Elia McNutt has been the owner of Wilson Creek Nursery for more than 27 years. You can pick up her luscious flowers at the Sechelt Farmers’ and Artisans’ Market on Saturdays, or call ahead and meet her at her greenhouse, where she has “everything”.

The divine Deluxe Landscape and Garden Centre

5534 Sechelt Inlet Cres B1341, Sechelt; deluxelandscaping.com

Deluxe Landscape and Garden Centre has had its doors open in Sechelt for over 20 years. Pity that it’s taken me so long to find them, with their vast stocks of large trees, plants, mason bees and other beneficials, bird supplies, seedlings, and everything else you need to grace your garden.

How does Kym's garden grow?

7910 Fawn Rd, Halfmoon Bay, [email protected]

The real question is, with so many unusual and exotic plants and trees, what doesn’t grow at Kym’s Plants? Kym Barnett, horticulturist and master gardener, has amassed in just five years an impressive collection of surprising, delightful, and rare plants. 

“A neighbour taught me how to propagate plants when I was eight years old,” she says. Propagation is her life-long passion and obsession. With ten thousand palm trees, plus monkey puzzle, arbutus, pecan, walnut, heartnut, almond and persimmon trees available, she has an extraordinary gift.

Have you ever heard of the pawpaw tree? Kym sells these B.C. natives, which bear a custard-like fruit resembling a papaya and were once part of the Indigenous peoples’ diet. The pawpaw fruit has fragile skin, and can’t be preserved, which is why it never became commercially produced. I returned to load a pair into the car, but not a male and female as expected, rather two different species for the best fruit, Kym recommends. 

Barnett has a miniature forest of slow-growing evergreens ready for bonsai. I failed bonsai class, by killing a perfectly good baby pine tree by over-pruning the unfortunate specimen, but even I could have success with these little guys. 

She points out incense cedars, Mexican hat plants, Japanese umbrella pines that are naturally fire retardant, mimosa trees, evergreen dogwoods, native arbutus trees (drool), and then she moves onto the vegetables. 

“I usually get my tomato seeds from Ukraine, but they will be unavailable this year. I will have some though. I still have lots of purple Brussels sprouts from Ukraine,” she beams. She has more varieties of bok choy than I’ve heard of, including pak choy and toy choy, and fenugreek, as well as custom moss baskets. Her future plans include another greenhouse to accommodate tender perennials. 

Halfmoon Bay Nursery

7820 Fawn Rd, Halfmoon Bay; halfmoon-bay-nursery.myshopify.com 

Walking into the Halfmoon Bay Nursery's greenhouse is like taking a tropical vacation. They have many impressive indoor tropical plants— some of them massive—in the aisles. They also have trays of plant starters that they grow themselves, including herbs, greens, robust tomato plants, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, arugula, and snap peas that are ready to go into your waiting garden beds. There are colourful faces of pansies to greet you, vines of clematis, and every other flower you could wish for. Along the fence are bins of soil, peat moss and compost to make your garden grow lush. They carry the staple West Coast Seeds and Eco Seed Co-op for those of you who are self-starters. 

Kym’s and Halfmoon Bay Nurseries are located close together, so between them you can stock up on everything you need, whether you have a brand-new garden, or an established one.