Dream Journey ... Edible Landscape on Vancouver Island

View of Sooke Harbour House & Whiffen Spit 

Exceptional outings .... an edible landscape on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Botanically-inclined travelers with a penchant for slow food aim for

Sooke Harbour House, an unparalleled retreat that's not to be missed 

when touring Vancouver Island.

 Trace the West Shore’s Old Island Highway from the city of Victoria to Sooke village,

and follow along to the inn.

The Kitchen Garden

Perched on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, 

Sooke Harbour House is an idyllic destination, with luxe rooms, and a restaurant that garners accolades too numerous to mention. Guests and the public are invited to tour the 

organic gardens - a vertiable edible landscape.

The gardens & the sea (gooseneck barnacles...sea urchin...geoduck) 

yield ingredients for the restaurant’s imaginative fare. 

Wild native plants - nodding onion, wild thimble, salal berries, the young light green needles of grand firs, licorice fern root - are cultivated alongside leeks and kales, 

herbs and tasty edible flowers.

All contribute to the highly original, regional Northwest coast cuisine served 

at the inn's remarkable restaurant.

Autumn View

The mist-shrouded hillside setting encompasses yet another wonder.  

Meander to the water’s edge for a glimpse of the sinuous Whiffen Spit, a natural formation akin to a work of the Earth Art movement, like Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, or Alain Idoux’s Lavender Wedge in Provence.

I fell under the spell of the sandy spit of land. Waking early, I walked out, my footsteps following the landform’s 1/4-mile curvilinear pattern sketched into sheltered Sooke Harbour. 

Photos:  Sooke Harbour House

The inn features casually elegant rooms: Inviting jacuzzis, fireplaces, and views,

while the serene setting is known for top-notch bird watching,

 and to-die-for vistas of the Olympic Mountains.

Even the parking lot is noteworthy: 

An environmentally-wise, green design of grass turf and a recycled plastic grid set in sand.

Link to Sooke Harbour House on Bay Area Tendrils .... Hotels & Inns 

- column on the right -

A Culinary Banquet ....Up on the Roof at the Fairmont

Photos, Courtesy of the Fairmont Waterfront 

The Fairmont Waterfront

      Rooftop Garden

   Vancouver, B.C.

In 2007, while researching Vancouver gardens for my San Francisco Chronicle 'Garden Walks' column, I checked into the Fairmont Waterfront for the final day of an enlightening journey.

I had enjoyed trekking through public & private gardens, plant nurseries & garden shops.

Still, my itinerary included one more mission:  To see first-hand the rooftop garden at the Fairmont Waterfront.

I'd been reading about it for some time. And so, to top off my visit to beautiful Vancouver, I indulged in the luxury of a spacious, contemporary room with great views, and my favorite touch, a marble bath. Blissful!

The garden had been installed about a decade prior to my visit, and the plantings refreshed in April, 2006. 

Fifteen cubic yards of compost later, the garden boasts box hedging to effectively define the layout of the planting beds. Espaliered apples and bay trees add beauty and structure to the design.

Organic gardening practices are employed in these productive gardens, where the Fairmont chefs harvest such delicacies as alpine strawberries, rose blossoms, lovage and calendulas, for the tasty fare at Herons.

One tip revealed on my tour of the garden: Orange pekoe tea with a little bit of soap added is used at times for aphid control.

Executive Chef Patrick Dore at the garden gates of the Fairmont Waterfront, 

where organic herbs & produce are harvested for Herons Restaurant & Lounge

Bird's Eye View

VANCOUVER, VanDusen Botanical Garden

Photo Nancy Wong:  VanDusen Azaleas

Photo Raymond Chan: VanDusen Canadian Heritage Pond

VanDusen Botanical Garden

A city energized by cultural diversity, Vancouver is one of my favorite destinations. I prefer to stay at The Metropolitan, a small hotel downtown that employs feng shui principles, emerging in elegant ikebana by Hollis Ho. These asymmetrical floral arrangements act as subtle counterpoints to animate the hotel rooms, lobby and Diva restaurant.

VanDusen Botanical Garden, a hilly 55-acre setting, can be approached by the No. 17 city bus. Boasting a collection of contemporary sculpture, an Elizabethan maze,  and year-round blooms, VanDusen was recently invigorated by a new entry area. The Phylllis Bentall Garden, with paved terrace, pool, and mixed borders, invites you to explore VanDusen's springtime displays of magnolias. Eye-catching swathes of narcissi advance to a pathway replete with rhododendrons and scented azaleas. And from late May through early June, cascading golden panicles tumble from archways over the Laburnum Walk, juxtaposed by ground-covering bluebells and alliums.

Month by month the landscape turns heads as Himalayan blue poppies progress to a sea of wildflowers blanketing meadows followed by fiery fall color. Seasonal stars include alliances of heathers, hollies and hellebores. To contemplate VanDusen's charms, ramble along to the Cypress Pond, Heron Lake, or the restored Korean Pavilion, intricately carved with floral patterning in burnished tones.