Community spotlight: meet some of New West’s greenest thumbs

Walking into the greenhouse at Queen’s Park is very much like entering a world of pure imagination – think Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but instead of sweets and dessert for your taste buds, it’s a floral feast for the eyes, and in some cases, the nose. Hues of eggplant purple, lush green and bright red dot the site, with fans working around the clock to keep hundreds of plants comfortable. 

Some of these plants will be used for the hanging baskets you see throughout the city – but the majority of them are stock plants: some still need to go out for the summer run, others will be used for next year. 

It’s incredible to think hundreds of small plants go into the massive displays in New West city spaces and parks. You can find some of them along Waterfront Esplanade in Quayside, at Century House (this year’s display is a peacock), and in the heart of Queen’s Park. 

“[The creativity] comes from our staff,” explains superintendent of parks operations Dan Jokic, who is standing not too far from a floral volcano; a moon hovering above it. “We have four gardening crews – so four gardening supervisors – they each have their own area of the city, their own speciality, and they do most of the designing work.” In fact, Jokic says they’re getting ready to figure out what they’d like to put together for next summer. 

While I probably should have put two and two together (forgive me, I was enamoured by the volcano – which has an interesting backstory, stay tuned!) my jaw drops as Jokic tells me an overwhelming majority of the plants in the displays are grown right here in New West. Granted, there are certain plants they need to order in (there’s one plant that is patent protected and can’t be grown elsewhere, so they have to purchase that one) but everything else is born and raised in the Royal City. 

“We have three staff that do all of the production. The majority of the workload is just planning [for the] winter crop and the summer crop,” he says. 

As for the inspiration behind the designs, Jokic says it often comes from team members. The volcano display, for example, came from one of the gardeners who wanted to bring elements of his culture into a design. The design is inspired by his El Salvadoran ancestry – El Salvador is also known as ‘The Land of Volcanoes’ with about 170 in its territory. 

Like clockwork every year, people will post to a variety of New West-oriented social media sites to ask about stolen succulents – something that parks operations has fallen victim to.

“It happens, but we’ve tried, we put cute little signs out, and that actually seems to be helping,” explains Jokic, referring to the signs that ask people to ‘please let the little plants thrive by staying on the pathways.’ “It actually happens much less than you would think,” says Jokic, noting that it seems to be the same person who will take them. “We don’t let it slow us down.”

If you’re ever fortunate enough to be given a tour of the incredible greenhouse, look for the walls of thanks from families and children who have left the team notes on post-its: the gratitude seems endless. “Those are important to us,” says Jokic, “we’re lucky that we get a lot of that feedback. It makes us happy. You gotta keep that.”

Another initiative they’re proud of: donating fruits and veggies to the community. During the greenhouse tour, I spotted rows of tomatoes and beans. Jokic says last year, they managed to donate about two tons of veggies to the different food hubs in the city. 

While they’re really limited in being able to give tours – Jokic says they need to balance public interest with making sure the plants stay healthy – they do offer flower basket classes throughout the year, mainly in the spring. 

“We did a family day event before COVID. Obviously we haven’t brought it back, but we definitely look forward to [when we can bring it back]. We’ll do up little succulent planters in the greenhouse. We’re always open to ideas for the programs that people want to see.”