When did you last go exploring on campus?
The start of a semester is always a busy time, demanding a mental reset after a lazy winter break and a quick readjustment to a full new schedule of classes, and the switch to online courses for the first few weeks made it even more difficult to justify leaving your desk. That’s how I’ve felt in these strange, early days of 2022, which is why I was so pleasantly surprised by UBC’s Botanical Garden.
Located below Totem Park Residences on Southwest Marine Drive, the garden is fairly out-of-the-way compared to most students’ usual haunts, but I had a spare morning that seemed to demand something interesting after the monotony of endless Zoom lectures, so I took the long walk down from the top of Point Grey. I’d only been reminded of its existence a few days before, and I wasn’t expecting anything more than a brief distraction.
The first thing that greeted me from the turnoff on Marine Drive was a sign and a few short buildings (one of them holds the gift shop, though it won’t open until March). There was no indication whether the garden was open, and only by wandering around the back of the gift shop did I discover a sign indicating its opening hours — 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Not an auspicious start, but I had time for an hour in the garden, so I dropped a coin into the by-donation admission box and stepped inside.
Though it’s a slim few metres from the road, from the first steps onwards it’s surprisingly quiet in the garden. Passing cars fade into an intermittent roar, and it’s almost possible to pretend you’re listening to a distant stream and not the road back to all things academic.
The plants come mostly from eastern Asia, lending a title to the rather unimaginatively-named Asian Way which loops around the garden, and are studied and curated by UBC botanists. There are few similarities between the garden’s trees and the cedars and firs native to BC’s more natural gardens, and the thick bark-covered vines climbing most of the larger trees came as another shock: they looked like strange roots to my Lower-Mainland-foliage-accustomed eyes. At the time of my out-of-season visit, however, there were only a few green shoots to break their brown monotony.
The remarkably tranquil atmosphere was enough to prove the garden has something to offer, but it took my discovery of the tunnel to convince me it might be something special.
Yes, the Botanical Gardens have a tunnel; it crosses under Marine Drive. If the road sounds almost natural from the entrance to the garden, it’s reduced to an echoing vibration underneath it, like a very small, very corrugated-metal gateway to another world. Beyond it lies a whole separate side of the garden, filled with protected Garry Oaks and a food garden growing crops to be donated, but by this time I’d spent most of my hour and only managed to quickly dash past them.
Back in the main garden, I jogged past all manner of landmarks, all thoughts of lectures and academics forgotten. I was fascinated by this enormous garden I’d barely known existed, and I knew I had to see as much of it as I could.
I passed what must have been a chipmunk sitting on a stump, chattering as I ran by; I passed the Greenheart Treewalk, hanging in the branches and soon to reopen for the season; I passed side trails, short red bridges and what was apparently some sort of donated boulder. I couldn’t see everything, but as I stepped back around the garden’s darkened entrance I couldn’t have been happier.
I intend to return to the Botanical Garden later in the season, to take advantage of everything I missed after the weather changes and the world is a little less grey. If you’re tired, too, after weeks of online classes, set aside a few hours to take advantage of somewhere expansive, inviting and entirely free for students — you deserve it.
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