Human Flower Project

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Putt-Putt with Joe Pye Weed

A miniature golf course in British Columbia offers flower beds for the put-challenged.

Miniature golf with a floral twist

Photo: Tugboat Junction

Despite the purr of electrified windmills, the bared fangs of cement dinosaurs, miniature golf always brings on narcolepsy by about the 5th Hole. We once thought to rev up the experience with an added boost of incongruity by playing the Biblically themed putt-putt outside Lexington, Kentucky, but nope. Even a parting of the Red (astroturf) Sea couldn’t sustain us. We ditched before the New Testament began on the back nine.

Today, however, we came across what may be our last best hope: Tugboat Junction, in Harrison, British Columbia. The Tugboat course, you see, is a marvelous garden, the flowering plants all lovingly laid out, labeled, and even extolled in verse.

Joe Pye Weed is big and tall, never fear, it will not fall

If you, of course, provide the sun—and lots of water by the ton.

Who cares about making par when there are astilbe, bellflower and clematis to enjoy along the way? Check out the complete list of the plants at each hole (slow-loading pdf) along with rhymed couplets, or perhaps we should say “couplets rhymed.”

The ‘Open Garden’ event

at Tugboat Junction, Harrison, B.C.

Photo: Jenna Hauck, for Chilliwack Progress

On the other side of the golfing green

subtle tones of purple seen.

Fennel, stonecrop, vi-bur-num,

Each one with a hint of plum.

Let Tiger, Davis, etc. vie for the PGA title. We’d rather be putting at Tugboat Junction (or gazing off into the sedum).