it's starting to feel a lot like spring!

After a long wet winter, my garden is emerging from hibernation.  Come to think of it, so am I! Yesterday, I spent some time in my garden jumping from area to area doing a little pruning here, a little weeding there and moving plants about.  Today I was less frantic and decided to actually check out what was growing in my garden.


Yellow crocuses are blooming in my front border.

Purple crocuses are just emerging in my back border.

 My rhubarb is poking it's head out in my vegetable garden.

And self seeded parsley plants have started to grow.

I'm looking forward to the continued spring awakening of my garden.  Have any plants that are emerging in your garden?

Living walls at a local mall

Now the DDS' are more likely to be found at an early bird Nursery plant sales than shopping for shoes at the mall, however, we were recently enticed to take a field trip to Guilford Mall in Surrey, B.C. to view the relatively new interior and exterior design that includes fantastic living walls.


Below you can see the outdoor living wall that covers a pedestrian overpass that connects the mall.  There are lots of hardy low profile plants here that illustrate how you can have a palette of plant colour even in the winter in our Pacific Northwest Climate.  We spotted lavender, Japanese forest grass, junipers and hydrangeas among many others -growing on the vertical.

 

 

 

Below you can see the walls inside the mall.  The height and abundance of the wall is quite impressive.  Lush tropicals seem to thrive inside the mall.  

It's exciting to see even the local mall is going "green".  There are lots of residential products out there for you to have your own living wall such as this one from Lee Valley.  I can see how this would be enticing, especially in a small space balcony where growing vertical could give you way more square footage of gardening space.  At present I still have some horizontal space left to fill, now if only I could buy some plants at the mall!