Our speakers for February are a husband-and-wife team, Jim and Margaret Cadwaladr. Jim has been the Executive Director of the Veronica Milner Garden and Woodland in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island since 1996, Margaret the author of In Veronica’s Garden, published in 2002, ‘a social history’ of the garden. The garden itself has been described as ‘a stunningly beautiful garden nestled into the Canadian West Coast Douglas-fir forest’, a description probably not at all inaccurate.

But aside from Jim and Margaret, mention of the garden evokes an obvious third person, though one who will not be with us this February, the creator of this beautiful garden herself, Veronica Milner. Close friends of mine, who were also close friends of Veronica, refer to her mostly with praise and affection. Alas, they are the only ones I have heard who do. Spoken of as a ‘larger than life personality’ on the cover flap of Margaret’s book, the ‘creative force behind the garden’, it is pointed out, ‘was related to Winston Churchill and Diana, Princess of Wales’. Prince Charles and the late Diana came for lunch. Indeed, when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited this part of Canada they stayed in Veronica’s house (Veronica had to move out, however, to make way for her guests). Born into English aristocracy herself, Veronica never forgot her lofty origins. Nor did she evidently allow others to forget them. Taxi drivers, it is said, were not pleased when she considered the honour of driving her to be enough compensation for them. On occasion she assumed the title ‘Lady’, though she was officially entitled only to ‘Madame’, a title whose ambiguity did not please her. She was not appreciated by members of the International Dendrology Society on tours because of her self-importance and lack of consideration for others, and her family in England found her impossible, especially in later years. Socially she was extremely selective in choosing the people with whom she would associate, the selection usually being determined on the basis of bloodline rather than personal qualities. Exceptions were made occasionally for people knowledgeable about plants, people to whom she could be most gracious. Ted and Mary Grieg supplied her with rhododendrons as new varieties arrived from England, probably never charging her for them, but the time came when she sent them on a paid vacation to Hawaii. Newly married as a young woman, Veronica moved to Glin Castle in Ireland, and, upon being widowed after an unhappy marriage, married a wealthy Canadian businessman to whom the house and property at Qualicum Beach belonged. Whatever might be said of Veronica herself—and remember, there are those people, few as they might be, who liked her—she did turn part of her second husband’s property into an extraordinarily beautiful garden, preserving the rest of the woodland in its natural state, and, by willing it to Malaspina College in 1996, before she died in 1998, preserved it all for the future.

Veronica is certainly the central figure in the social history of the garden, and it is on this aspect that Margaret will speak. But the garden, having slipped somewhat in the later years of Veronica’s life, has been renovated and improved extensively over the last few years under Jim Cadwaladr’s direction, and this will be the focus of Jim’s part. The garden itself contains several special collections, especially of woody plants, but most especially of rhododendrons. Aside from the attraction of the beautiful house and gardens, the Milner Garden provides an effective horticultural educational and research base. The Cadwaladr team should be particularly informative, and entertaining, in their VRS lecture the evening of February 17th, 'A Social History of the Milner Garden and Woodland'.

Jim and Margaret Cadwaldr