Visit Denman Island on June 17 and 18 for a home and garden tour touted as one of the six "must do" events of the horticultural season in sa国际传媒.
The tour goes from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and features 10 eclectic, unusual and truly extraordinary sites. David and Carol Freeman's place, perched high on a bluff with a breath taking view of Baynes sound and the Beaufort Mountains, is a noteworthy example of this Denman Island tour tradition.
The Freeman's home is a cob house. This is a building formed from the mud you get when you mix sand, straw and clay with water.
When David and Carol describe the process of creating their house, one gets the sense that the structure literally grew right out of the ground. Their son John Freeman, an experienced cob builder, found the sand and clay on Denman close to where they live. Then the cob ingredients were mixed by hand and sometimes, like with wine making, with their feet. Once it reached the right consistency the Freemans began to pile the mud and with their palms and fingers shaped it into walls. In cob building, curves add strength to a structure and over a period of three months they marvelled as the thickly laid mud bent and turned to form the three metre perimeter walls. Enhancing this year's tour, many well-known Denman artists will be exhibiting garden art on site. The tour is an annual fundraiser for the Denman Conservancy Association, a non-profit charity that protects ecologically sensitive areas on Denman Island Tickets are available at Long lake Nurseries and Dig This (Nanaimo); Volume One (Duncan); or by calling (250) 335-2576 or e-mail at [email protected]. For more information check out
the website: http://www.denmanis.bc.ca/gardentour/