“Remember the day we found two bulls at a stand-off?”
“Right! One bull was from Mason Bluff Farm, and the other was from the farm on the other side of us. We had people on horseback and ATVs trying to keep them apart and herd them back home.”
“We were like pioneers in the Wild, Wild West!”
Nancy Webber and Harry Hill laugh as they reminisce with Paddy Wales, recalling the early acquisition and transformation of 5941 Mason Road into the Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden. The three, along with other ‘pioneers,’ helped clear the property, purchased fifteen years ago.
The idea of a botanical garden was conceived years earlier by Glenn Lewis, an artist turned nurseryman, and Paulean MacHale, a realtor and avid gardener. They felt the Sunshine Coast deserved a botanical garden of its own and enlisted fellow plant enthusiasts including Wales, Hill, Bill Terry, Karin Tigges, Amanda Offers, Beverley Merryfield, Eva and Erwin Diener, and Verity Goodier to support the mission. They went on to form the Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden Society.
Progress proceeded on a shoestring. Meetings were held anywhere free; the first fundraising plant sale operated out of car trunks parked at the Heritage Playhouse Theatre. They searched the Coast for an appropriate site and, at one point, were in talks with the Town of Gibsons for a potential site there. In 2008, realtor Mike Carson, spouse of then Garden president Lori Pickering, saw an acreage listed on Mason Road, Sechelt. It had been the home of Murray’s Tree Farm, and Carson saw its potential as a botanical garden.
“I remember the day so well,” Wales tells of the site visit. “January 2008. Snow on the ground. It was sleeting sideways, and the site was under 8” of slush. But when we saw it, we knew this was the place.”
With many of its original members still involved, the Garden has flourished. Staff has grown from two part-time in 2012 to six part- and full-time in 2024. After overcoming masses of broom and bramble, a third of the Garden’s forty acres has been beautifully transformed, thanks to the efforts of staff, volunteers, donors, and fundraising events.
“I thought it would make a positive statement if the first breaking of ground was to create a food garden,” Harry Hill recalls, noting that the property was zoned Agricultural Land Reserve. “We had no budget, so all materials were donated by supporters and volunteers.” Hill, along with Susan Blockberger, Odessa and Dave Bromley, set to work. “We used the ‘lasagna method’ to create the garden beds: first, you put down newspapers, then cover them with coffee grounds, hay, seaweed, composted horse manure, and finally, soil.” Now the volunteer-run ‘Veggie Garden’ is bigger than ever; its bountiful harvest goes to the Food Bank.
Today, the Garden showcases plants from Pacific Northwest ecosystems. Various ponds attract multiple birds and other critters, to the amusement of many visiting school children. The Welch Family Viewing Platform overlooks the Censi Creek ravine, an exquisite, mossy wildlife corridor with huge Big Leaf Maple trees.
As the Garden celebrates its 15th anniversary, the focus is on plant education, climate adaptation, and biodiversity. A new greenhouse is the hub for a plant propagation program, an initiative promoting native plants for restoration efforts on the Sunshine Coast and for home gardeners to purchase.
“We set out to create a beautiful spot to admire plants and flowers,” Paddy Wales reflects. “The Garden has become more important as time goes on. It’s a living refuge, a classroom to study and preserve native plants at risk. Its role to preserve native plants and habitats on the Sunshine Coast is even more vital.”
