Like the gardens she creates and nurtures, master gardener Judy Zipursky has a presence that is at once calming and vibrant. After 34 years as an occupational therapist in the mental health field, she's now retired, but she hasn't stopped giving back. "As a therapist, I incorporated gardening into my programs whenever I could," she says. "It is therapeutic on many levels to be responsible for growing a garden and seeing flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables mature. It can give one's life a sense of hope."
After taking the Master Gardener program at VanDusen Gardens, she became involved in creating a series of healing gardens about 14 years ago. Master gardeners currently assist with 16 different healing garden projects throughout the Lower Mainland, from the North Shore to Langley, with the majority in Vancouver.
Since then, Zipursky has been a part of healing gardens in places ranging from long-term care facilities to hospitals. She has also helped with a garden at a facility for pregnant women facing addiction issues, where she witnessed first-hand the difference a life-filed plot of land could make. Instead of staring out at a concrete patio, these women were surrounded by flowers and grasses, offering a sense of hope and possibility. "I am interested in the concepts of creating sanctuaries and sacred spaces that one can feel at peace in," Zipursky says.
One project especially close to Zipursky's heart is the Tupper Greenway Project. Flanking Sir Charles Tupper High School in East Vancouver, the block-long healing garden commemorates the fatal swarming of 17-year-old Tupper student Jomar Lanot, a gentle, guitar player from the Phillipines, in 2003. His death highlighted racial tensions, galvanizing the multicultural student body, teachers and surrounding community. Creating the garden was a way for the community to heal and hundreds came to help out. It officially opened in June 7, 2008, after the four-year collective effort of students and staff, the City of Vancouver, and master gardeners.
After reading an article in the Courier about the school's attempts to find hope in tragedy, Zipursky was inspired to offer her services, and she hasn't looked back.
Every month for the last nine years, she and other master gardeners work with community volunteers to maintain the garden. Once a deserted and underused space, the greenway has blossomed into a gently winding series of flowerbeds, herb gardens and berry patches. Over the years, students from the school's art classes have added pottery plaques and mosaics – one class grew and tended a vegetable garden – and the garden has hosted festivals, plant swaps, and concerts. There's always someone using the greenway, from a musician practising cello, to mothers visiting with each other while their children play.
But sadly, notes Zipursky, the master gardeners will be forced to pull out of the project next year, after 10 years of commitment, because they don't have enough volunteers helping out. Numbers have dwindled to about three community members. "We desperately need new gardeners," she appeals.
She has created the Vancouver Tupper Greenway Garden Meetup to encourage volunteers to join and get involved in their community. For Zipursky: "An extra bonus for me is getting to work in these gardens and the wonderful people I have met over the past 14 years. They have nurtured my own soul and lifted my spirits. "
At one end of the Tupper Greenway, surrounded by benches and the gentle arch of a cherry tree's sweeping branches is a stone with words from Lanot's notebook carved into it: "Culture is the root of our lives; love is the most powerful force."
• Amy Logan is a Vancouver writer, editor and English instructor with an ear for trends in the arts, community and environment. She is a regular contributor to Metro News, and joins the Westender family for the summer to explore the artists, creatives, environmentalists and adventurers who make Vancouver tick.
