Cypress Community Garden is an Award-winning grassroots initiative located along THE ARBUTUS GREENWAY in Kitsilano, Vancouver.
The Community Garden as with all of Kitsilano, is located on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱ wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) people
Cypress Community Garden is registered as a not-for-profit Society with the province of British Columbia (Cypress and Sixth Community Garden Society), and operates under a license agreement from the City of Vancouver.
GREEN SPACE: Cypress Community Garden provides much needed green space in the area next to Burrard.
Flowers, shrubs and vegetables serve to attract birds (we also have a Bird Garden at the east end of our site), and the Perennial garden at the west end is filled with butterflies and hums (you can hear the sounds) with several types of bees from spring to fall. In addition our Community Garden works to promote important pollinators with our areas of indigenous plants and other pollinator-friendly shrubs.
Community gardens are important social and educational spaces that serve as dynamic catalysts in terms of fostering pride in community. Vancouver residents of all ages and many international tourists visit the gardens to learn about organic gardening, and to relax in the public areas.
Since the mid 1990’s Cypress Community gardeners have tended this block-long area that originally bordered the train tracks and right of way of CP Rail.
Garbage clean-up by garden members along with grass cutting and plantings created a vibrant walkable green space that earned us the “Most Beautiful Community Garden Award” in 1999.
Cypress Community Garden in 2014 and earlier-BEFORE the “clearing” in March of 2015
REBUILDING AFTER THE ‘CLEARING’ IN 2015
Our Gardeners–as with other community gardeners–are also resilient as we learned in 2015 when much of the gardens were removed with chainsaws and heavy equipment and we had to rebuild:
March 2015
April 2015 and Rapid Rebuild
Gardeners rallied quickly to clean up and community spirit kicked in after the destruction in 2015 of trees, fences, water lines, rockeries and vegetable boxes.
March 2015: Uprooted trees and shrubs piled at the west end of the garden area at Cypress Street
Over the next year, our members removed broken wood and pavers, re-planted perennials and shrubs, and re-built vegetable boxes inside rapidly constructed new fences.
The result is that once again we’re a popular city and neighbourhood green space and a favourite for those using the Arbutus Greenway that the City of Vancouver has created along the former Arbutus Corridor and CP Rail tracks.
