With ample sunshine, mild weather and a good supply of rain, you'd think gardeners would be thrilled with Pender Harbour. You'd be right; the area is a paradise for gardeners. There are a few challenges, but not much to worry about when your garden can have palm trees, roses blooming in December and year-round fresh veggies.

Attractions

• Community Gardens
• Downtown Madeira Park is a showcase of landscaping and interesting plants, thanks to financial support and volunteer work by the Pender Harbour Community Club and other groups and individuals.
• Caron Gardens - 604-883-9807.
• Book a group tour from May to September; rhododendron and azalea displays, the focus of the gardens, are best in spring.

Events

• Rhododendron Festival - May - Caron Gardens, 4622 Beaumont Road, Irvine’s Landing - 604-883-9807.
• Over 100 rhododendrons in bloom, flower show, tours, seminars, master gardeners on site, refreshments, free admission and parking.
• Seedy Saturday - May - Teri McLean, 604-883-2817.
• Seed swap, plant and garden-related vendors and food at the Pender Harbour Community Hall.
• Spring Tea - Pender Harbour Community Hall, Madeira Park.
• A good variety of plants for good deals are found at this annual Pender Harbour Community Club event.
• Courses & Workshops
• Caron Gardens - 4622 Beaumont Road, Irvine’s Landing - 604-883-9807.
• Gardening, landscaping and garden photography workshops held spring to fall.
• Pender Harbour Community School
• Gardening courses and workshops occasionally offered.

Join a Group

• Pender Harbour Garden Club - Patsy Baker, 604-883-0259.
• If you have a passion for plants, landscaping and gardening, join members at their monthly meetings, trade seeds and cuttings, access their lending library, enjoy social events and help in community horticultural projects.
• Offsite link >> Pender Harbour Garden Club.
• Egmont Garden Club
• The Egmont Community Club is looking for volunteers to organize an Egmont Garden Club and develop a community garden behind the Egmont Hall. Funding has been provided by the Sunshine Coast Foundation for materials and supplies. Contact Doug Elliott, 604-883-0416

Pender Harbour Gardening Guide

Your Pender Harbour/Egmont yard is an ever-changing micro-environment with unique soil and a unique growing season. Dealing with our gardening challenges and taking advantages of our gardening advantages is key to a successful garden and a rewarding hobby. Learn more >>

Gardening Quotes

• “Gardening is not a rational act." Margaret Atwood (Bluebeard's Egg, 1986).
• “When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden." Minnie Aumonier.
• “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." Francis Bacon.
• “Your first job is to prepare the soil. The best tool for this is your neighbor's garden tiller. If your neighbor does not own a garden tiller, suggest that he buy one." Dave Barry.
• “A gardener learns more in the mistakes than in the successes." Barbara Borland.
• "No winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn, April is a promise that May is bound to keep. And we know it." Hal Borland.
• “A garden is never so good as it will be next year." Thomas Cooper.
• “Gardening is how I relax; it's another form of creating and playing with colours." Oscar de la Renta.
• “A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered." Ralph Waldo Emerson.
• “I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden." John Erskine.
• “A garden is the best alternative therapy." Germaine Greer.
• “I'm not really a career person. I'm a gardener, basically." George Harrison.
• “The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies." Gertrude Jekyll.
• “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses." Abraham Lincoln.
• “The trouble with gardening is that is does not remain an avocation. It becomes an obsession." Phyllis McGinley.
• “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." Claude Monet.
• “There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments." Janet Kilburn Phillips.
• “I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite." Bertrand Russell.
• “Bread feeds the body, flowers feed the soul." The Koran.
• “If you want to be happy for an hour, get drunk; if you want to be happy for three days, get married; if you want to be happy forever, make a garden." Chinese proverb.

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