View Royal Garden Club 75th Anniversary Celebration

Welcome to the View Royal Garden Club 75th Anniversary Celebration!

Join us for an afternoon with Jeff de Jong and Gary Lewis, two notable garden speakers. Let's celebrate this milestone together, whether you're a seasoned gardener or just love being surrounded by blooms, this event is perfect for everyone. Don't miss out on this special occasion to connect with fellow garden enthusiasts and share your passion for all things green and growing. See you there!

First Speaker

Jeff de Jong -"Plants That Shine"

Historically the 75th Anniversary is celebrated with the diamond gemstone. The diamond gem is resilient, striking, tough, and very beautiful. What a perfect occasion for Jeff to speak on plants that make our gardens sparkle. The Garden is a celebration of beauty, and that beauty takes on many forms. Jeff de Jong will raise a glass to some of the living diamonds that sparkle. Every season has its magic and Jeff hopes to add a shine to celebrate the seasons of a PNW Garden.

BIO:

Jeff de Jong is a horticulturist living in Victoria, BC. He currently is an Instructor at UVIC in the Continuing Education Department. Jeff teaches a variety of courses including one he developed for the home gardener who is interested in Garden Design. He is a Garden Speaker and has spoken to numerous organizations and clubs across Canada and the USA. Jeff is an avid gardener and grows a wide variety of shrubs, perennials, and food crops. He hosted a Local Gardening Radio Program in Victoria for 9 years. He leads garden tours Internationally and will be leading his sixth tour to New Zealand on January 25. Jeff also enjoys painting watercolour botanical illustrations.

Second Speaker

Gary Lewis M.SC-The Complete Talk on Ground Covers

Reduce maintenance, control erosion, improve the environment, and beautify the landscape with ground covers.

Gary will highlight the functional and aesthetic uses of ground covers in the landscape. Widely thought of as utilitarian, these plants offer a diverse range of beautiful and intriguing options with a variety of colors, textures, and forms. Gary will show how to use these plants to take your outdoor space to the next level and create a more sustainable garden. They can unify a landscape, knit together plantings and hardscape, and add extra layers of beauty, dynamism, and surprise. As a replacement for lawns, they can reduce our use of water, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, carbon-based fuels, and transform a yard into a diverse landscape of habitat and food for native insects, birds, and other wildlife.

Gary will provide copies of his book “The Complete Book of Ground Covers” for purchase and signing following his presentation.

BIO:

Gary Lewis is the owner of Phoenix Perennials, an award-winning, cutting-edge, retail and mail-order nursery in Vancouver, and an expert on perennials and horticulture. He holds two degrees from UBC in Conservation Biology and Plant Ecology. He is one of Canada’s most knowledgeable plant experts with a deep and special interest in rare and unusual herbaceous perennials. He also recently published The Complete Book of Ground Covers. The book won the Gold Laurel Award from the Garden Communicators International. Gary is the Vice President of Planta. The Plantlife Conservation Society is an organization that works to conserve plants and their habitats in Cuba and other tropical regions. He is on the Advisory Committee for E-Flora BC, an online atlas of BC native plants. He serves on the Perennial and Bulb Selection Committee of Great Plant Picks, an educational awards program of the Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle that works to build a comprehensive palette of outstanding plants for BC and Pacific Northwest gardens. From 2009 to 2015 Gary was the Canada Region Director of the Perennial Plant Association.