Rond Point Robert Schuman 6, box 5
1040 Brussels, Belgium
Welcome to beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia! Canada’s most western province hugged by the Pacific coast and the Rocky Mountains. Known for its wealth of diverse landscapes, old growth forests, vast fields of agriculture, and home of the 2010 Olympics. Total population of just over 5 million people, in 944,735 km2. Vancouver’s population is 2.5 million.
We will be staying at the Coast Coal Harbour hotel which is nestled in downtown Vancouver directly steps away from the ocean and Stanley Park. A welcoming reception evening will start our event with tapas and drinks at the Coast on Sunday Sept 17th, this will be an opportunity to welcome everyone and have some relaxing conversations.
Day 1
A stroll through Granville Island, rich in history and a well-known tourist attraction which has over 28,000 visits a day and home to 300 businesses. It has been transformed over the past 2 years by ParaSpace Landscaping who renovated, added structures and plantings. They continue to maintain the island grounds as well as seasonal displays. A ParaSpace representative will take us on tour looking at these new renovations, chat about hurdles and successes. These grounds have won National Awards of Landscape Excellence.
Next, we will take a water taxi over to the location of the 2010 Winter Olympics and now home to thousands of people who live within a series of sustainable and resilient streetscapes. These were installed and continues to be maintained by ParaSpace.
Last stop of the day and not far from our hotel. We will stand on Canada’s largest non-industrial living roof. Home to over 26 different species of 400,000 individual plants and grasses, 4 beehives with European honeybees. It has a highly sophisticated black water treatment plant which recycles grey and black water for toilets and rooftop irrigation.
The green roof is designed to act as an insulator, reducing summer heat gains by up to 95 percent and winter heat losses by up to 26 percent.
This roof has won many awards including, Green Building Excellence Award for Exciting Building by The Canada Green Building Council in 2017.
Day 2
VanDusen Gardens Vancouvers hidden gem! Here we will be guided through buildings and various landscapes. This 55-acre oasis in the heart of Vancouver with over 7,500 plant species and varieties from around the world!
The Garden's multi-award-winning LEED Platinum Visitor Centre was named Most Sustainable Building of the Year in 2014. Shaped like an orchid when viewed from above, its organic lines echo the way nature and conservation have been considered at every turn.
We will have lunch at this location and then move on to two Residential Estates in the area.
The residential Estates are maintained by Cable Baker and his team at RCB Garden Service and Down to Earth Landscapes, who focus on residential landscape maintenance and installation. These are high residential estates which reside in the Granville Street neighbourhood, one of Vancouver’s most affluent neighbourhoods. This area was first developed by the Canadian Pacific Railway as an elite neighbourhood back in 1907.
Day 3
While remaining in the heart of Vancouver we will travel over to the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus, 3 sides surrounded by forest and the 4th side by ocean. This 400-hectare piece of land has a 100-year history, and is not only home of a university classrooms, residences, and museums also a Botanical Garden, Arboretum and Tree Canopy walk. It is here we will learn more about our native species, current pest hurdles and trends we are seeing in the landscaping.
After viewing the diverse landscapes in this area, we will have lunch and move on to some historical residential estates in the area.
Day 4
We have some travelling to do as we head to the North Shore where we will visit private residential estates, BlueShore roof top Zen garden, waterfront residential barges and take in a gondola ride.
Our day will be wrapped up with a casual dinner on the ocean.
Please note that the programme might still be subject to minor adaptations. We thank you for your understanding.
Before or after this professional excursion, you may want to take in other tourist destinations :
Grouse Mountain Grind and Gondula (there are summer activities)
Gondula Squamish – Vancouver to Whistler tour with gondola and beer tour
Whistler – summer concerts have not been announced yet, great shopping