New Westminster residents are soaking up the atmosphere of the city’s greenhouse year after year.
The city is once again holding classes where residents can learn the secrets of the city’s beautiful hanging baskets and create a lush, colourful hanging basket for their home. The classes attract a lot of repeat customers, including some who’ve been coming since the first class was offered nearly 20 years ago.
“People were always asking us about our baskets and how we make them and what we do,” said Claude LeDoux, the city’s manager of horticulture. “Gene Shutek, the (then) director of parks and recreation, said to me, ‘Claude, why don’t you create a course to show people how to make it?’ That is how it started.”
New West resident Lois Weninger is among those who have been attending the classes every spring for the past two decades.
“It’s fun,” she said. “Claude is really warm and likes to help people with their baskets and make them all perfect. You could make them at home but everything is there for you.”
Working hand-in-hand with LeDoux at the classes is Joan Miller, an employee in the city’s greenhouse.
“She is incredibly helpful,” Weninger added. “She is a big part of the team and a real delight to work with.”
Once people have made their creation, Weninger said they get to nurture it and enjoy beautiful flowers all summer long.
LeDoux leads the two-hour class that includes hands-on instruction and all the supplies needed to make a 14- or 18-inch basket containing plants, custom-blended soil mix, slow-released fertilizer and the city’s “infamous and mysterious” wick with watering plan.
“The most fun is that you are putting these together in the greenhouse complex, in the room where staff work at potting up plants,” he said. “You have the real environment of being in the greenhouse operation and the knowledgeable help that are going to assist you in learning about the plants and about the soils and fertilizers, how to water them and where they should go. That’s really key to this – it’s the experience of being in that setting and the knowledge you are going to get.”
The City of New Westminster’s hanging basket classes are $64 for 14-inch baskets and $74 for 18-inche baskets, including all instruction, hardware and materials. Classes are being offered on Monday, April 27 (12 to 2 p.m.); Saturday, May 2 (8 to 10 a.m.); Thursday, May 7 (6:30 to 8:30 p.m.); and Saturday, May 16 (9 to 11 a.m.)
To register, drop by Queen’s Park Arena or call 604-775-5111.
