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Akerley’s interest in rock gardening began at a young age, and really picked up when he was a teenager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was 14 when my family moved from Delta to downtown Vancouver and I didn\u2019t know anybody so I\u2019d ride my bike around the beaches,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was at that time the Pacific Northwest Palm and Exotic Plant Society donated hardy palms to the city for planting along the beaches. It\u2019s a huge legacy. If you go down to English Bay now, you\u2019ll see all these tall palm trees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He joined the society and eventually became vice president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was eye opening that you could do something like that in the micro climate along the beaches in Vancouver, it looked like California,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom that point on I’ve liked to replicate landscapes and sort of celebrate landscapes and what they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As an adult, Akerley had property in Greater Vancouver where he created European style rock gardens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe oldest rock gardening traditions are western European from areas like Scotland and the Czech Republic,\u201d he said. \u201cThe European tradition style uses mostly alpine plants. It\u2019s easier to do that in Vancouver where you have cooler temperatures in the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Akerley moved to Kamloops in 2022, he brought some plants from Vancouver to start building the bones of his new garden which is based on a newer school of rock gardening that has risen in Denver, Colorado. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He bought a mixture of soils that mimic the poor soils of the steppe biome, the semi-arid grassland ecosystems found around the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The garden doesn\u2019t use fertilizer and is permanently planted without requiring a greenhouse or covering during the winter months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis garden has its own theme,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very western but by design has dryland plant species and wildflowers adapted to a steppe or montane environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost nothing in Akerley\u2019s garden is a cultivated variety of plant or wildflower, rather he started native and non-native plants from seed with some taking years to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen people see the wildflowers a lot of them ask if I dug them up from the local hills and that\u2019s not what I\u2019m about,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m a seedsman, I like to grow things from seed. Digging something is likely going to die anyway, wildflowers don\u2019t take well to being transferred. For me, the win is producing something from seed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curious onlookers often ask if the garden gets eaten by deer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA lot dryland plants are adapted to dry conditions by way of their aroma or unpalatable flavour and its pretty leathery stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cThe leaves are fuzzy or leathery to reduce evapotranspiration and animals don\u2019t want to eat that nor the cacti.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The former president of the Alpine Garden Club of British Columbia, Akerley is a regular speaker for the North American Rock Garden Society, and at local garden clubs and provincial master garden groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I want to promote this type of gardening as an alternative but not everyone is going to grow stuff from seed,” he said. “You can find cultivars that are more common and similarly drought tolerant but maybe not quite as much as their wild counterparts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “You can use all native plants with native soil and it would look just as good with just as much colour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Once you know what you\u2019re doing it\u2019s pretty easy, the difficult thing is gaining the education to know what will succeed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"|\"](\"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jay-cactus.jpg?w=1024\" "\\"|\\"")