This is the second in a series proudly highlighting some of Abbotsford’s most amazing backyard gardens.
Karen Burke’s garden has truly been a labour of love.
The roots of the project go back almost four decades, when Karen and her husband Michael had their house built in 1981 on a former farm property in Abbotsford.
But the garden as it is now didn’t develop until this decade. The couple sold that home and lived in three others before returning in 2010.
It was then that they decided to turn the backyard into what they really wanted – “a really neat space,” Karen says.
They hired Timmermans Landscaping and collaborated on what should be done with the sloped area, which was mainly just grass with a large Douglas fir – planted in 1981 – taking centre stage.
“I wanted something I could play with and change and dig up and just do what gardeners do – they move plants around instead of furniture,” laughs Karen, whose love of gardening was inherited from her grandmother.
The result was a tiered garden featuring plenty of greenery surrounded by vibrant pops of floral colour.
This year, Karen is particularly enjoying the peonies that blossom every June, when she normally isn’t able to enjoy them because she’s away on vacation.
She also loves the dahlias that she plants every year throughout the garden, and often shares those and the peonies with friends.
Bedding plants such as marigolds and impatiens are also added each year, while other bursts of colour come from rhododendrons, azaleas, salvia, bleeding hearts and others.
The Douglas fir was removed, with the approval of the city, in 2017 due to the large number of needles and sap that were causing issues.
A separate area of the yard, in the pool area, features a rose bed, while off to the side is a raised-bed vegetable patch flourishing with lettuce, broccoli, onions, potatoes and more.
The front yard includes a wild dogwood tree, a cedar and a maple tree that were planted when Karen and Michael first built the home.
Also out front is a yellow rhododendron that Michael’s mother game to him on his May birthday in 1981 and which continues to bloom every year around that time.
Karen spends much of her time in the garden every spring and summer.
“It’s the activity and how beautiful everything is. It just keeps you going,” she says.
