BLAST FROM THE PAST

CITY OF GARDENERS: The Arts & Crafts-inspired Garden City Movement shaped the Townsite’s green space. Above, Miss Kathleen Mary Smith at home on Maple Avenue with a basket of roses, 1931.

Botanical heritage still thrives

BY JOËLLE SÉVIGNY

“Plants are Heritage Too,” was the headline of the Powell River Town Crier newspaper on Monday November 1, 1993.

This is to say that not only structures make up our heritage, but the environment and the landscape around these structures are also part of the legacy left to us.

The urban planning method used in the construction of Powell River was the Garden City Movement, which means planning communities to be surrounded by greenbelts; merging a countryside and a city environment together. It emphasizes the natural environment and beautification of the town through gardens and landscaping.

landscaping beside the laboratory, 1949

This was quite a change in the ideology of the time, where most towns arose around an industry without consideration for the existing natural beauty.

The Powell River Company employed full-time gardeners to maintain green spaces around the Townsite. Landscaping was even done on the mill site, bringing joy to the worker’s eye. Powell River was famous for its gardens; every visitor remarking on the well-kept lawns, the variety of roses and the picture painted by “In the early 1990s, the asters, dahlias, hollyhocks and so on. The Triangle Gardens which span the Townsite Heritage 1,000 feet starting in front of the Patricia along Marine, was initially land used Society began the as a holding nursery for the Powell River project of restoring [the Company’s Townsite gardeners. In the early 1990s, the Townsite HeriTriangle Gardens], first tage Society began the project of restoring this land, first by having to clear by having to clear many many blackberry bushes! In 1993, more than 100 historic plant features and more blackberry bushes!” than 30 plants species were identified in and burning bush – this last one which the gardens. will only get more and more fiery as fall

artistic landscapes beside the director’s house on Marine Avenue, 1952.

So if you’re looking for a new place comes along. to go for a stroll, you can walk through Blast from the Past is a monthly historthese historic gardens today and enjoy ical column written by the Townsite Herithe colorful display of plants ever changtage Society’s coordinator Joëlle Sévigny. ing with each season; rhododendrons, The THS tells the history of Townsite from lavender, hydrangeas, heather, spiraea, 1907 onward. POWELL RIVER LIVING • September 2020 • 31