Gail is the gardener and Roger is the builder, and together the two Andersons have created a French country garden and house that is so appealing, it was chosen as the location for a Disney Channel made-for-TV movie.
“The movie was called Zapped and starred Zendaya Stevens,” said Gail, who added it was an adventure for them and the rest of their Mill Bay neighbourhood, as there were trucks parked outside for blocks and tons of people came to watch what was going on.
“It was a really great experience, although having 70 people in our house for a month was a little strange.”
The Andersons’ garden is once again going to be on show, this time for the 22nd annual Cowichan Valley Garden Tour on June 5, which features master gardeners in every property, and a tea garden where Times Colonist columnist Helen Chesnut answers questions and gives a garden talk.
The two love garden tours themselves, although they lived in Calgary for many years and were unable to indulge their passion.
They always planned to retire to Vancouver Island, but moved here sooner than anticipated when prices in Calgary skyrocketed and they fell in love with a property here. Gail, who was born and raised in Duncan, had always wanted to move back and get her hands into the soil.
Roger explained that they did have to compromise, however.
“Everyone wants to live on the water, be close to Victoria or have a great view, but we decided to have a really nice garden. When we first started looking, we drove all over the southern Island with a video camera, but when we got home and asked ourselves what was our favourite location, there was no contest — Mill Springs in Mill Bay.”
They liked Gordon Head, too, said Gail, “but if you have to renovate a house and garden, after already having paid, say, $650,000, it would have been more than we wanted to spend. And by building a new house and garden, we were able to pick just what we wanted.”
They moved to the Island eight years ago and while both are retired now, they upsized from their previous home of about 2,000 square feet, to about 2,800.
“Our move here was all about lifestyle, filling your bucket,” she said. “Living out the rest of our days doing what makes us happy.
“We’ve always been homebodies, and we wanted to have room for our three sons to come, bring their better halves and hang out.”
Their requirements for a new home were very specific.
The couple wanted a large, broad lot for the garden, an open-plan home, an extra-large kitchen and a wrap-around verandah with plenty of room for outdoor living.
They love their broad verandah. “On a lot of porches, you have room for one chair and maybe six inches for your knees. But this space is really big, which is great because we like to eat outside all summer.”
Their big kitchen is also ideal, though she admits the first cabinet colour they chose was too dark. “I redid them two years ago. It took quite a while — and 42 paint chips — but it’s much brighter now. The new colour is called elephant tusk.”
And the garden is their delight.
Since building their house, they have developed the property in seven phases.
One year, they spread topsoil, put in a sprinkler system and sought the advice of experts on plants. “Our lot is a gravel pit, so we had to bring in a lot of topsoil,” Gail explained. “We were told what the standard was for sod and flowerbeds, and we doubled it, so we had dump trucks coming for the better part of half a day.
“One year, we did the arbour in the front garden and planted lots of wisteria. Another year, we did the stamped patios, and another we did the cedar pergola.”
She describes the garden as cottage-style, “some would call it crowded,” and describes it as being filled with lots of everything.
“I love coneflowers [Echinacea] and they come in many, many colours. Also gerbera daisies, sunflowers, delphiniums, dahlias …
“We get a little snow here every third year, but my god, you can garden all year round, whereas in Calgary, the ground is frozen from October to Mother’s Day.”
And gardening here never feels like work, the retired preschool teacher said.
“She is like the Energizer bunny and only has two speeds: Top or stop,” said Roger, who used to work in information technology for oil companies and government, and when they moved here, for the Vancouver Island Health Authority, now Island Health.
Recently retired himself, Roger freely admits to being the mule when it comes to his wife’s grand plans. “I haul things around, negotiate with nurseries and plan how much to spend.”
He said his wife is the creative genius. But Gail noted that Roger is the builder and “very, very handy.”
When they decided to have a koi pond, she spent 22 hours watching YouTube videos to see what was involved. “I can’t do electrical and pump things, but I can dig and I got a good-size hole dug before tendonitis trouble,” she said with a laugh.
They filled the pond with 1,000 gallons of water and five koi, which they refer to as their water puppies. When she goes into the pond with her hip waders on, they swim all around her and she pats them, said Roger.
When it comes to projects, they joke about having a magic number.
“When we did the shed, it cost $4,000, and then we did the concrete and it was $4,000, and the pergola was $4,000 and the pond was about the same. That number keeps coming up,” said Gail with a chuckle. Neither of them begrudges the expenditures.
“I don’t love to travel and I’m not a clothes horse, but I really love my home,” Gail said. “I do a lot of thrift-store shopping and we do a lot of the work ourselves.”
Roger said the pergola was the biggest challenge so far, dealing with all the angles and working without any plans. He had to figure it out himself. A friend with a bandsaw helped with some of the most difficult cuts, but he did the others — some up to six times.
“I had a lot of anxiety because it’s a lot of weight to have over people and I didn’t want it crashing down, so I drilled deep into the vertical posts and used clamps.” Soon Gail will have it planted with honeysuckle.
One of their favourite things is the beautiful Disney-enhanced arbour, where people always want to have their pictures taken. “The set decorator spent six hours stapling mini lights in there and it is loaded with hundreds,” Gail said.
The Andersons say they are happy to share their garden with the public and support the garden-tour fundraiser, because they’ve been on many themselves and believe it helps people think outside their own boxes.
“These tours force you to see other gardens,” Gail said. “You might think you wouldn’t like a Zen garden, for instance, but when you see one in full-blown application, you might really like it.
“Garden tours give us a chance to learn from others, and to share. I think Roger and I can show people how not to be afraid of gardening. To know they can learn about it just as we did.”