You’re Invited to

Cottonwood & Strathcona’s Annual Open House

Sunday, July 11, 10am to 2pm

Everyone is Welcome!

Join us on Sunday, July 11 for a marvelous community event with wonderful live music, amazing plant sale, unique silent auction, free gardening & sustainability workshops, solar eco-house, fresh local honey, kids zone, master gardeners, garden tours, and more!

Open house activities

Live Music!  Tambai Marimba!  Fiddlers!

Sway to the music of awesome fiddlers or dance your socks off with Tambai Marimba, Vancouver’s great youth Marimba Band. Tambai Marimba: Cottonwood Garden, 10:30am to 1:30pm.  Fiddlers: Strathcona Garden, 11am to 2pm. 

Free Gardening and Sustainability Workshops

Free gardening & sustainability workshops * Permaculture * Backyard Chickens * Composting * Solar eco-house * Winter Gardening * Native Plants * Mushroom Growing * Corsage Making * Kids Zone * Birdhouse Making * Bee-keeping *

Please see Workshops for details.

Wonderful Plant Sale!  Bargain Prices!  Great Plants!

Strathcona & Cottonwood’s Annual Plant Sale features an incredible variety of plants at bargain prices including perennials, vegetables, heirloom fruit trees & berry bushes, bamboo, flowers, shrubs, native plants, shade lovers, sun lovers & more!  All of the plants are grown by our gardeners or donated by local nurseries.  Prices are awesome and the range is impressive.  Over 500 plants at bargain prices.

Plant sale starts at 10am, Sunday, July 11, at Strathcona Community Garden (corner of Prior & Hawks).

Silent Auction
If you haven't been to our Silent Auction before, you're in for a visual treat.  Beautiful hanging baskets with fuchsias in full bloom, heritage apple trees, and a stunning Passion Flower vine, to name but a few of the entries we've had -- all generous donations from local nurseries and gardeners.  Come and check it out and maybe you'll go home with a spectacular plant to highlight your garden or patio.  Sunday, July 11, Strathcona Garden, 10am to 1pm.

Honey!  Local Bees!

Honey sales from our own bees, who thrive on the diversity of flowering plants in our gardens.  The honey is fresh, local, and delicious.  Come early! The honey usually sells quickly.  Honey Sales: 10am at Cottonwood Garden and at Strathcona Garden.

Magical Oasis in the Midst of the City: Garden Tours

Please join us for tours of Vancouver’s oldest community gardens, as we celebrate 25 years of community building, local food production and sustainability.  Recipient of a City of Vancouver Heritage Award, Strathcona and Cottonwood Community Gardens feature eight magical acres with 350 individual garden plots; countless varieties of native and exotic perennials; one of the largest collections of heirloom apple trees in BC; thriving honeybees; a solar house that generates its own power, recycles water, and has a licensed composting toilet; beautiful water gardens, terraced gardens, oval gardens, fragrant gardens, reflecting ponds; an Asian garden, native garden, permaculture garden, wetlands; cherry, apple, plum, mulberry, fig, pear, persimmon & Asian pear trees; blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, currants, Saskatoon berries, gooseberries, grapes & kiwis; eight types of bamboo; nut trees; and many ornamental trees and shrubs.  There are two solar greenhouses; toolsheds; extensive composting; and many species of birds, butterflies and hummingbirds.  A pair of bald eagles nests overhead. Garden Tours: 10:30am to 1:30pm, at Cottonwood Garden and at Strathcona Garden

Native Plant Tour
Come to the Native Garden at Cottonwood and we'll show you which BC native plants you can grow to replace some of the invasive plants that have come into BC.  Sunday, July 11, Time to be announced.

Cutting Edge Sustainability: Solar House

Strathcona’s Eco-house is a model of sustainable building.  This garden house generates its own power with solar panels, re-uses all its water with a grey-water recovery system, was built with recycled materials, and has a licensed composting toilet.  Built over 20 years ago by teenage women learning carpentry skills, this is one of Vancouver’s oldest off-the-grid houses. Learn how the eco-house was built, principles of grey water recovery, solar power: 10am to 2pm, Strathcona Garden.

Mayor Gregor Robertson Opens New Garden Accessible for Seniors and People with Disabilities

Join Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson as we celebrate the opening of this new ¾ acre inclusive garden that is designed to enable everyone, regardless of age or physical ability, to garden.  Based on the principles of universal design, the garden will feature raised beds that are high enough for seniors and people with disabilities to garden from a seated position; pathways 3-4’ wide and surfaced with a firm surface appropriate for persons with walkers, canes, strollers and wheelchairs; water taps at a convenient height for people who have difficulty bending and close to raised beds so that carrying a hose will not be needed; a tool shed with easy access and reachable tools; meeting spaces with wide-enough, smooth surfaces. 

Official Opening of New Accessible Garden: 11:30am.  This new part of Cottonwood is along Raymur, across from the Food Bank, on the east side of Strathcona Park.

Cottonwood Garden & Strathcona Garden are sister gardens located next to each other near Strathcona Park.  Cottonwood Garden is located along the south side of Strathcona Park, which is on Prior between Clark & Main.  Strathcona Garden is located just west of Strathcona Park, on Prior & Hawks.  The two gardens host the Open House together.

For more information about the Open House, call (604) 608-0384 or (604) 253-3384,

or email info@cottonwoodcommunitygardens.ca or visit www.strathconagardens.ca

VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED FOR THE OPEN HOUSE - SUPPORT COTTONWOOD COMMUNITY GARDEN AND MAKE THIS THE BEST OPEN HOUSE EVER!

Please call (604) 608-0384 or email info@cottonwoodcommunitygardens.ca