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Peter Wharton
1950-2008
former Curator, David C. Lam Asian Garden
Peter Wharton, curator of the David C. Lam Asian Garden at the UBC Botanical Garden, died on June 30th 2008.
Peter spent the greater part of his life developing the Asian Garden, a singularly beautiful garden filled with plants both subtle and spectacular, all skillfully arranged within the native Point Grey forest. Many would say that UBC’s Asian Garden is the Botanical Garden’s signature garden, and it is not hyperbole to say that Peter’s garden is famous around the world.
The plants that grace the Asian Garden represent many things fundamental to Peter’s vision and ethic. Most of the species represented are grown from seed collected in the wild, and many of those, Peter collected himself over the various expeditions he took to China, Korea and Vietnam. Some of the plants in the garden are rare or threatened in their native habitats, and Peter was a strong advocate for using the garden’s collections to promote conservation. His expeditions were always collaborative ventures and the fruits of the relationships Peter fostered with plant explorers, scientists and garden professionals around the world are seen in many other gardens, in his writing and especially, of course, in the Asian Garden.
Peter graduated with a forestry degree from the University of North Wales, Bangor, U.K. in 1973, before training as an arborist at the Merrist Wood Agricultural College, Guildford, Surrey, U.K. He emigrated to Canada in 1975 and had spent 30 years working at UBC. Peter had led or participated in nine field expeditions to China, South Korea and northern Vietnam. Lately, his prime focus was the conservation of the uniquely bio-diverse forests of southern Yunnan and border areas of Vietnam and Burma. Peter was married with three children and lived in south Surrey, B.C.
Peter Wharton was essentially a passionate and eloquent advocate for plants and their habitats, an enormously creative gardener and expert plantsman, a great teacher and a smart, generous individual. He’ll be sorely missed.
