Category Archives: Gardening

Arts, Gardening

The 2024 Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour On Cortes Island

The Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour is Saturday June 22, from 10 am to 4 pm. This is an annual fundraiser for the Cortes Island Museum, as well as a showcase of some of the island’s hidden gems.  

“It’s a great opportunity to feature creative talents of people on the island, and it’s a self guided  tour of studios and gardens that takes you all the way around from Whaletown, down to Smelt Bay, and Cortes Bay. We’ve got painters, textile artists, weavers, spinners,  ceramicists .  We’ve got a number of potters and pottery studios that are participating. And then some beautiful spaces with gardens that range from low bluff to high bluff. You pick up a map, which includes a button, and you just go around the island visiting people with talents you may not have known about, or see spaces that you were curious about but never had an opportunity to actually walk into. Walk through the gates and see what people are growing there,” explained Melanie Boyle, Managing Director of the Cortes Island Museum.

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Gardening

A New Season For The Whaletown Garden Centre

Noah Davidson traces his gardening itch back to the family plot in Ontario  but prior to his arrival on Cortes Island, he worked in restaurants. He started out behind the cash register of his father’s restaurant in Toronto and went on to work in a number of fast food establishments. This continued after his move to British Columbia. Noah worked at the Floathouse Restaurant, in Gorge Harbour Marina, during his first two years on Cortes Island.  

“A couple of seasons after working with them, I decided to experiment with the possibility of starting a business on my own property. I remember asking the Gorge, ‘if this doesn’t work out, would you mind hiring me back, because I don’t know whether this is going to be a grand success or a grand failure.’  They said, ‘you know, you’ve given us two good years and we’d certainly take you back,” he explained.  

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Gardening

Folk U Welcomes Gardener Extraordinaire – Billie Taylor

On Friday, October 27, host Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined in the studio by gardener extraordinaire – Billie Taylor. Billie shares about her experience gardening on Cortes, the ways her garden has changed in the past few years, and her love of composting. Join in for a spontaneous conversation on adaptive gardening, climate crisis, and resilience.

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Arts, Gardening

The 2023 Creative Spaces Garden & Studio Tour

The ‘Creative Spaces Garden & Studio Tour’ returns on Saturday, July 8. 

“This is a self-guided tour, and once you get your ticket, you can choose what gardens or artist studios you want to visit, in what order, and you can stay as long as you want at each place,” explained Nancy Kendel, a museum board member whose garden will be among those exhibited. 

“We have 17 venues this year, 21 participating artists and gardeners,” added Managing Director/Curator Melanie Boyle.

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Gardening

2023 Gorge Hall Mother’s Day Plant sale

The 2023 Gorge Hall Mother’s Day Plant Sale will be from 11 AM to 2 PM on Sunday May 14. This has been a Whaletown Community Club (WCC) tradition for more than 30 years.

“It’s a community event. The pleasure of people seeing each other, talking to one another outside of the absolute necessity of needing something from a neighbour. This is an opportunity to see the gardening health of Cortes and  the vibrancy of it by seeing what’s on the table. The vigor of the gardening culture has always been an integral part of Cortes,” explained Gabriel Dinim, President of the Whaletown Community Club.

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