Palm trees in Victoria, Canada's Mediterranean

City cultivates a tropical image for visitors

Bill Cleverley
Times Colonist
Friday, September 05, 2003

Credit: Bruce Stotesbury, Times Colonist

City of Victoria parks manager Mike Leskiw stands among a small grove of palm trees on the median at the corner of Douglas St. and Tolmie Avenue.

Cue the warm ocean breezes. Victoria, already Canada's Island paradise, is reinforcing its banana-belt image.

Parks crews have planted three palm trees in the Douglas Street median near Tolmie Avenue in the first step of a Mediterranean makeover.

"We're trying to spruce up the city and trying to give it a bit more of a Mediterranean look," Victoria parks manager Mike Leskiw said Thursday.

"We want to make it noticeable when people come into town on some of the main drags. Where it's possible, we're going to put in some feature beds that help people to see that Victoria is really the banana belt of Canada."

The city has bought about 10 of the hardy windmill palms, a species which can already be spotted in other parts of Greater Victoria, including Beacon Hill Park.

"We thought it would be nice for tourists that when they are taking pictures of Victoria there was some kind of exotic plant around so they could say: 'I was in Victoria and look it's so warm here (they have palms).' It's a good tourist thing for us if we can promote the city."

While novel to some, the move is disappointing to UVic botanist Nancy Turner.

"As an icon for Victoria, I don't think so," Turner said. "I don't like the idea. I'd much prefer that we appreciate and enjoy our own wonderful biota that we have here rather than trying to bring other peoples' backyards to our region."

Native to the Himalayas, the Windmill palm is common in the U.S. southeast and is grown in other parts of British Columbia as well as Washington state, Ireland, Great Britain and Austria.

The palms, which can grow to 12 metres high, usually retail for about $150 a trunk foot. However, the city managed to buy these at a substantial discount, Leskiw said.

"If you have a 10-foot palm tree, that's usually $1,500, but the fellow had them and gave us a really good deal on them."

Planting the exotic trees on medians is nothing new. Tsawwassen recently planted about 20 on medians with great effect, he said.

Turner, on the other hand, recently saw two palm trees planted to replace a young Garry oak that was "rooted out for a development." It saddened her.

"I just feel like we're losing track of our own heritage and we're trying to get somebody else's," she said.

"I'd rather see them planting some native species, some species that are native to here. Even arbutus would give it a Mediterranean look because they're a Mediterranean species too."

Although better known for its hanging baskets (as well as rubbing the rest of Canada's nose in our moderate climate with the annual spring flower count), the capital city endures the occasional bout of cold weather and even some snow. Leskiw said the palms are quite hardy and should weather well.

"Most of the palms around town like those in Beacon Hill and on private property have been here for a number of years and they've gone through a number of storms."

Windmill Palm Tree at Birds of a Feather Ocean front B&B