BC Living
You’ve Gotta Try This in February 2025
Recipe: How to Make Pie Crust from Scratch
Valentine’s Day Drink Recipe: Hy’s Love Is Love Cocktail
Nature’s Pharmacy: 8 Herbal Boutiques in BC
How Barre Enhances Your Flexibility
Top Tips for Workout Recovery
Inviting the Steller’s Jay to Your Garden
6 Budget-friendly Holiday Decor Pieces
Dream Home: $8 Million for a Modern Surprise
Local Getaway: Hideaway at a Mystical Earth House in Kootenay
9 BC Wellness Hotels to Relax and Recharge in This Year
Local Getaway: Enjoy Waterfront Views at a Ucluelet Beach House
B.C. Adventures: Things to Do in February
5 Beautiful and Educational Nature and Wildlife Tours in BC
7 Beauty and Wellness Influencers to Follow in BC
11 Gifts for Galentine’s Day from B.C. Companies
14 Cute Valentine’s Day Gifts to Give in 2025
8 Gifts to Give for Lunar New Year 2025
Sea buckthorn provides an unique focal point for this easy and deer resistant container.
A new introduction – sea buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula) ‘Fine Line’ – forms a unique focal point for this easy (and deer resistant!) container for a season or two. Columnar in habit, eventually maturing at about 2 m (6 ft.) and unusually hardy to zone 2, this shrub is fine in sun or part shade. You’ll want to take a closer look at its feathery foliage, which turns butter-yellow in fall.
Handsome companions for our shrub are the phlox hybrid ‘Intensia’ and Osteospermum ‘Vanilla Symphony’ – both bloom happily until hard frost without deadheading. Both have very long flowering seasons; the phlox attracts butterflies, too.
In all but the warmest zones (and even then) these two bloomers should be treated as annuals. When you do remove them in late fall or winter, tuck some early spring-flowering bulbs in beside the buckthorn: ‘Tete-a-Tete’ narcissus, crocus, tiny red species tulips and possibly a red-berried Gaultheria (wintergreen) or three.
In January, poke in some cut branches of golden yellow or red twig dogwood (Cornus spp.) to add zip.