Speaker Biography

Glen Patterson spent his working life in the forestry industry and has long been a member of the Dendrology* Society. Collaborating with architects and engineers, he transferred his family garden to a new deck, high above Coal Harbour in downtown Vancouver. His story will be of special interest to members living in high-condo-intensive Victoria. (* scientific study of trees).

The talk and slide show by Glen Patterson of Vancouver at the April meeting was awe inspiring and a question from the floor seemed to sum it up, "Have you published a book?" And Glen, with his self-deprecating smile, replied "Who would be interested?" If reaction from the Victoria Rhododendron Society audience is to judge, then there would be a wide reception to such a book about the transfer of his exquisite three quarter acre garden on Pilot House Road in West Vancouver, to a roof top overlooking the harbour and Stanley Park. Glen, at seventy-five years young, decided that by the time he was eighty he would need different living circumstances: ones to provide him with a safer, healthier lifestyle. In short, a condominium with a swimming pool, a gym, flat and non-slippery surfaces, and the conveniences of city living. How to reconcile these needs with a tranquil woodland garden was his goal. He started looking for a suitable place and found a hole in the ground for a future new condo on Jervis Street, adjacent to the Vancouver harbour, in April 1999 and made arrangements to buy it. That gave him two years to design the garden, prepare the plants for moving, and build the garden. The garden was finished in two years, that is January 2002 and the apartment was ready for occupancy in July 2002.

This was a project which transferred one seaside garden and the youngest eighty-year-old gardener in Vancouver to a city condo roof garden. Now many people facing such a challenge would falter at the exigencies before them. Glen's condo is on the third floor of the tower, from which he is able to walk out onto the roof of an adjoined two-story townhouse. Glen seems to have relished the problems, to have sought out the most up to date knowledge from the internet involving a friend like Richard Mossakowski, a retired structural engineer and his Vancouver Rhodo Society friend, who was very helpful to Glen in that he downplayed the advice of the contracted building architects that it would be too expensive to increase the strength of the roof deck for the garden from 100 to 250 pounds per square foot. He calculated that the additional strength with 2 inches more thickness of slab and 3 pounds more reinforcing steel per square foot would only cost an additional $ 3 per square foot or $ 6,000 for the total 2,000 square feet. That advice permitted Glen to argue that this additional strength was affordable.

Glen hired an architect, and relied on the expertise of his Japanese gardener, Jim Nakano, who had worked for Glen for many years. West Creek Farms Limited helped Glen greatly with the selection of the constituents of the soil mix. Their lab is in the Fort Langley area where they have a young Agriculture Graduate, Laura Principe, who did much of the lab testing for the various mixes considered, such things as porosity, permeability, pH, cation exchange ratio, etc. The Washington State Lab was engaged by them to do some of the more sophisticated tests. Over the two year period while the condo was under construction, they worked together on the development of the right soil mix to overcome the problems faced by roof gardeners, that is the biodegrading of the organics in any soil mix and the usual difficulties of replacing degraded soil. Glen's part was the physical testing at home of his mainly ericaceous plants in the different proposed mixes. Glen said he was able to do pH tests and permeability and of course, observe the condition of different plants in the mixes. Glen mentioned the problems using white pumice, owing to its breakdown in frosty weather, were overcome by finding that black pumice had the good qualities of white but didn't break down in frosty weather. An important part of the soil constituents selection was determining the size of the black pumice granules to use, some being as small as 3-to 5 mm. The sand used was graded but with the small particles eliminated. Coconut coir and fibre were used for the organic content as they don't biodegrade quickly. Another product used was "Zeolite", a volcanic mineral which brought the cation exchange ratio up to the required 10% level.

The garden move from Pilot House Road in West Vancouver to downtown Vancouver's Jervis Street took place on one evening, crossing the Lions Gate bridge with the truck and low bed trailers. All the major trees and shrubs were lifted one at a time. A clamshell device was used to contain many plants for the lift all at one time. The crane had a boom of 130 feet for lifting the trees and plants into place on the roof deck! The criterion for the root-balls was no larger than three feet across and one and a half feet in depth. A tall order for tall evergreens and a hundred year old Acer palmatum dissectum. The workers seemed to relish the unusual work order, placing themselves at the edges of the workplace with vertical drop of eighty feet and with no guard rail. However, while the workers did venture out to the edge of the garden slab, they were not in any danger being securely hooked up with a heavy rope attached to a waistband, so that they couldn't fall over the edge. Jim Nakano was given a radio to converse with the crane operator but he preferred to use hand signals on the slab edge.

Contours of a simulated granite rock to house three koi pools, waterfalls and stream bed, plus holes for each large tree to sit in had been constructed. The trees’ and large shrubs’ root balls were bound with a plastic strapping about 1" wide, but very strong and tightened around the root with spaces between the plastic. By this system, instead of wrapping in burlap as most often recommended, the planted roots are accessible for using rods and hose nozzle to ensure that all the air is not trapped in the burlap. All air was successfully removed by this method and the plastic stays around the roots in the future to discourage root growth. The plants don't need space to grow for their roots as they are watered with an automatic sprinkler system. This is like a "bonsai" system and once every few years there may be some need for root pruning. Of course, much of the need for growing roots is eliminated by the cloud pruning of foliage which restricts the foliage growth and eliminates increases in plant sizes.

Glen says he fertilizes minimally in response to soil tests and the fertilizer he uses is either sprayed on the soil for certain elements or is the long lasting slow release type of fertilizer. The trees and shrubs are shaped and pruned so they do not cause any resistance to even strong winds and there is no "whistling noise" whatever. There is hardly any noticeable movement of the trees and shrubs in the wind., even though the trees are not anchored with wire or any other impediment. From Glen's windowed living room the views of the North Shore Mountains, Stanley Park, the lawn and garden below the condo, showcasing the plants he couldn't fit on to the roof top garden which he donated to the Vancouver Parks Board, the busy harbour, the sails of Canada Place, makes his achievement the more remarkable. We echo the questioner, "What about a book on it, Glen?"