RE: VANCOUVER B.C.
doug.fung@ednet.bc.ca
Fri, 25 Mar 94 22:38:22
Some of the local enthusiasts have been slowly donating plants to the
Blodel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park and they now have a total of
2 nepenthes on display (neither of which had pitchers when I was in
there last week). There is a large bushy thorelli x rokko from a
collector on Vancouver Island and a mirabalis from thailand courtesy of
Tom Kahl in Seattle. I know the director of the conservatory and he
would like to build up a collection of CPs to educate the public. He
has a small collection of things not on display yet (including some
plants donated by Kevin Snively) that he will keep in the parks board
greenhouses until he has enough specimens that he can rotate away from
prying fingers. He is accepting donations of any and all plants so if
anyone out there has anything extra they want to get rid of I can put
you in touch. The conservatory is a large geodesic dome that has
several microclimates and should be good for growing pretty well
anything. There are really very few collections on public display when
you look at it and the director of this conservatory wants to get into
CPs in a big way.
Randy Lamb did donate a few nepenthes to the Vancouver Aquarium a
few years ago but their conservatory is a reproduction of the Amazon
rainforest so I don't know whether the plants didn't fit into the
display or the sloths got to them.
If you get to Vancouver Island, Mike Feurstenberg (who donated the
nepenthes hybrid) runs Hillier Water Gardens and has a large greenhouse
full of plants. He is a few kilometres outside of Coombs which is on
the highway from Nanaimo to Pacific Rim National Park.