LORNA Greenway's home may be small but her passion for flowers is blooming in a big way.
As I step into her sunny, west-facing room at Lynn Valley Care Centre, my eyes are drawn to the gorgeous array of flowers and greenery on the balcony.
Every inch of available space has a plant on it.
Here, the iris has come and gone. The marigolds and the dianthus, including an unusual hairy variety, are in bloom. The tomato plants, beans and strawberries are doing their best to bear, in spite of our sodden spring and summer.
"The rain doesn't bother me," says Greenway. "I don't let the weather control my life. When it's raining, I'd go inside and paint."
Bright and beautifully composed, Greenway's watercolours of flowers and tropical fish echo the colours and graceful design of her garden.
As a child, the closest she came to the world of plants was when she and her pals went swinging from the trees across the street from her home on Marine Drive in West Vancouver. She attended Pauline Johnson elementary and was 13 when war was declared.
Enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943, slightly in advance of the minimum age of acceptance, Greenway became an aerial photographer. After the war, she worked in the audio-visual department at the University of British Columbia, commuting daily from the North Vancouver home she and her daughter, Laurel Hickey, had purchased in 1975.
With retirement came the gift of time.
"That's when my life really began," says Greenway, "when I retired and really started working on my garden."
The mix of annuals and perennials with vegetables and evergreens on Greenway's balcony make it easy to imagine what her garden must have looked like. Hickey describes the combination of flowers and naturalized meadows as an English cottage garden gone a little wild.
Over the years, as tending
the garden got more challenging, it was converted gradually to lawn, until at last most of the plants were in containers.
In 2010, Greenway decided the time had come to leave her home and garden. The container plants, including her favourite tree lilies, were distributed to friends and family and she made the move to Lynn Valley Care Centre.
Time passed. The seasons turned. A room with a balcony came available on Greenway's floor.
She packed up her paintings, her Chinese chest and her collection of pigs, and entered a new chapter of her life.
With Greenway ensconced in her new digs, containers, bags of potting soil and plants and more plants made their way to that west-facing balcony, thanks to Hickey and her friends.
Here were new challenges. The space, not large and bound by cement walls, faces west. The plants had to be correct for the conditions and placed to get the exposure each required with room to maneuver her walker.
Once those parameters were in place, Greenway was free to exercise her creativity in colour and organization. Container after container was filled.
"I have lots of help," says Greenway, "The people here help me. They move the heavy pots, yes, but they also give moral support."
Earlier in the year, Hickey had noticed green showing in the troughs of her vegetable patch.
The shoots turned out to be tree lilies, growing from the bulblets left behind by the original plants. Potted up and transferred to her mother's balcony, the flowers are now in full and glorious bloom back in Greenway's garden.
"When mom moved here," says Hickey, "it was a necessity, her health was that precarious but the decision to move had to be hers. Her health has improved dramatically. She's so much more vital and it's wonderful to see."
Greenway agrees that life is better but she's clearly not interested in that conversation.
As the garden moves from summer into fall, Greenway is observing and planning.
Which plants will overwinter? Which must be removed? Her next purchase? A few more evergreen shrubs?
"They can go against that wall," she decides.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or email her at [email protected].
