Three years after the sign went up along University Way to announce the David Douglas Botanical Society’s garden expansion project on the UNBC campus, that effort is about to put down some roots.
This Friday at 2 p.m., society president Linda Naess will plant the ceremonial first tree on the 23-acre site adjacent to the UNBC day care and the public is invited to come and learn more about what’s in store for Canada’s most northern botanical garden.
Backed by grants from the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport and Northern Development Initiatives Trust and years of collecting money from private and corporate sources, and through proceeds on its annual plant sale, the society has $1.2 million in seed money to begin Phase 2 of the project and get planting.
“We’ve done six or seven years of planning and intensive fundraising the last couple of years and we’re ready to go,” said Naess.
“Our project committee meets every week with the project architects, the contractors and the university and they’re an amazing group of people wit the expertise they have. It’s been a lot of work and we’re going now, it’s happening. It’s just a beginning celebration for us to say, we’re here, our dream is coming true.””
A 2.8-acre site was selectively logged last fall and levelled this spring to create space for the society’s new display garden and a community garden funded by the city’s three Rotary Clubs. Work this summer will create a walkway through the new garden area and a parking lot.
Eventually, a new network of trails will wind through the entire site and will include viewing platforms that overlook a wetland area with feature walkways that pass through overhead arbors and trellises loaded with plant life.
In 2018, the society completed Phase 1 of the project which includes an educational garden of plants native to the area, built on a 1.6-acre site that divides the two main parking lots at UNBC.
Not all of the 23 acres of land donated by UNBC will become formal gardens because there’s marshland and a seasonal creek that runs through the property and trails will be built to access those areas. Naess said the new garden will give UNBC students a living laboratory and she hopes it will lead to garden experts at the site teaching botany or horticultural courses to the public.
