Committee of Firms excursions in the West Coast of Canada

Professional excursion of the ELCA Committee of Firms:

Welcome to the green city of Vancouver!

Text: Bryan Bomy, UNEP

From September 17th till 21st, 2023, our colleagues of the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association (CNLA) kindly hosted the periodical professional excursion of the ELCA Committee of Firms. The participants met at the beautiful green city of Vancouver and had the opportunity to visit different impressive green projects in and around the city. It was very inspiring to exchange knowledge and experiences with our colleagues from Canada.

On behalf of ELCA and all the participants: thank you very much to our Canadian colleagues for this wonderful professional excursion!

Day One: Grandville Island, Olympic village and roof garden

The first day was an opportunity to discover Granville Island. Several employees, including Director Jeff Foley of the company “Para Space Landscaping Inc”, were able to explain to us the evolution of the site into a natural setting open to biodiversity as well as the work and maintenance carried out by the staff. Other sites visited include the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games village in False Creek, which became a residential area after the competition. It reflects Vancouver’s commitment to green spaces and sustainable construction.

Day Two: Residential Gardens, VanDusen Botanical Garden and Stanley Park

On the second day of the excursion, South Granville was on the agenda. Cable Baker and his “Down to Earth Landscaping” team have unveiled numerous residential gardens, remarkable for their vegetation and continuity with natural spaces. The company has been taking care of several gardens for over 20 years and pays attention to every detail. The participants were then able to discover the VanDusen botanical garden, a place steeped in history. Ancient Native American land transformed into a golf course at the beginning of the 20th century, was transformed into a 22-hectare botanical garden in the 1970s. In addition to exhibitions of plants from around the world, the site includes a vast collection of native plants from British Columbia (northwest coast). The day ended with a visit to “Stanley Park”, the third largest urban park in North America (404 hectares) and 10% larger than Central Park in New York. The park is located within the Vancouver metropolis and is home to more than 500,000 trees (some more then hundred years old) including essential endemic species from North America; the “Douglas firs” and “western red cedars”. Due to climate change, the Western Red Cedar is likely to disappear from the region.

Day Three and Four: UBC Botanical Garden, private residences and roof garden

The start of the third day was marked by a visit to the botanical garden of the University of British Columbia (UBC). The garden contains an extensive collection of plants for scientific purposes. Douglas Justice (associate director of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture) took the group on a tour through the garden and explained the professional training program. The last stop of the day ended on a residential street where “The Great CanadianLandscaping Company” created and maintains three gardens. Company owner Chris O’Donohue explained the history of the gardens’ design and how the creation was achieved.

For the last day, the group went to the other side of Burrardau Bay, Vancouver's "North Shore" to visit private residences, and the roof garden of North Shore Credit Union (Canadian bank), offering better rainwater management, acoustic performance and integration of biodiversity in the heart of the city.