Friends of Fort Vancouver Garden Party

The Friends of Fort Vancouver will host its annual Garden Party from 4 to 6 p.m. Aug. 20 in the Fort Vancouver Heritage Garden, 1001 E. Fifth St., Vancouver. Attendees can tour of the garden and talk with National Park Service volunteer gardeners. The party is a free public event located in the garden outside the gates of Fort Vancouver. Fort Vancouver remain open until 6 p.m., one hour past its regular closing time. Admission fees apply for entrance to Fort Vancouver. (Learn more about fees here.) Seeds and botanical books can be purchased at a booth hosted by The Friends of Fort Vancouver, and a wine and beer garden will be available for attendees aged 21 and over. Volunteer gardeners will host a booth where they will discuss preservation techniques from 1845 such as salting, pickling and drying, which helped residents of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vancouver prepare for the winter months. Complete event details are available at nps.gov/fova/learn/news/gardenparty2022.htm.

The Fort Vancouver Heritage Garden is a smaller-scale reconstruction of the larger garden that was located on the north side of Fort Vancouver in the 1800s. The garden is a popular destination for visitors to Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, and showcases the historical flowers, fruits, vegetables, and herbs grown by the Hudson’s Bay Company as they experimented with bringing produce common to European gardens to North America. Visitors to the garden today can also see examples of crops that were once grown in agricultural fields surrounding the fort.

Above photo courtesy of National Park Service/Junelle Lawry