Nature-Garden Property
Ladner/Delta, Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Cdn. $1,250,000.
Rare half-acre mature garden property for sale in Delta, the Green Heart of Metro Vancouver. This comfortable home with detached office is a 10 minute walk along the dyke to Ladner Village with its charming shops and artisan summer market. Year-round great garden appeal. Plenty of recreational opportunities available for kayaking and canoeing, with many walking and cycling trails nearby. Golf courses, boat launch and marinas also nearby. A year-round mecca for birders, with Ladner often claiming top stop at the national Christmas Bird Count. Skiing on North Shore Mountains less than a one hour commute, with Whistler a three hour drive. Centrally located: 13 kms from Gulf Island ferries and 22 kms from Vancouver airport.
This property offers everything for wholesome living during these Covid times: A spacious lot with two separate buildings for home offices, all surrounded by exceptional natural beauty! Offering lots of opportunity to nurture nature and your soul.
Please enjoy the picture gallery of the country-style home and gardens throughout the seasons: https://vimeo.com/382235282
Home and Other Buildings:
This well-maintained energy-efficient 1450 sq. ft. bungalow/rancher features a welcoming, cozy living/dining room, a functional kitchen with birch cabinets, one 4-piece bathroom and a laundry/utility room. There are 3 bedrooms, of which the master bedroom offers an ensuite and French doors opening to a multi-level curved deck.
The original home is of solid construction, and is insulated to an R-2000+ standard and comes with a 97% efficiency furnace, resulting in low utility costs. Renovations were based on recommendations from an energy audit: new thermal windows with 1 ft. deep wooden sills; country-stone gas fireplace centrally located (inside wall); much wood throughout (local yellow Alaska cedar and Douglas fir) and pine wainscoting in hallway; widened outside walls (extra insulation) with cedar board & batten siding; new roof in 2011 with plywood underlay.
Much attention has been paid to detail, with artistic/natural touches throughout, creating a Gulf Island ambience. The picture windows invite the gardens to become part of the inside living space. The house is naturally cooled in summer and feels cottage-cozy in the winter. The clean crawl space is very well insulated. A covered deck runs along the back of the house and showcases a woven wall with planter visible from the kitchen window.
The detached 600 sq. ft. building features a 340 sq. ft. office/studio with 6" insulated walls and wooden ceiling with rafters for a cabin-feel. Triple panel patio doors open to stone patio with a wonderful garden view. This presents a great opportunity to work from home. The other half of the building features a 260 sq. ft. workshop with workbench and storage shelves.
Another 100 sq. ft. hobby/cabin outbuilding, nestled among Western red cedars beside the curved deck, features a loft, skylights and windows, and is insulated with electrical service. This building, too, can be used as office or hobby space.
Plenty of covered storage space with two sheds and extended overhang storage for kayaks/canoes. Large composting bins in operation.
Property
This property offers a variety of habitats for wildlife and holds great biodiversity value. It is a year-round nature-lover's paradise with a dozen mature trees and over 50 smaller ones. The trees create ever-changing shafts of sunlight. Songbirds make use of the layered landscape which provides food, water, shelter and places to raise young. Barred owls often roost in the cedars, while bald eagles can be seen in the cottonwoods beyond. Bats are present during summer evenings, and it is dark enough to observe some stars on a clear night. Anna's Hummingbirds feed on a variety of winter-flowering shrubs, and nest most years in the yard, as do wrens, chickadees, robins and bushtits.
This spacious property's intriguing 0.42 acre triangular shape allows for stunning long garden views. As the gardens extend past the property line and includes the boulevard strip between the sidewalk and the road, the gardened areas come to half an acre. Two stone water features are a major bird attraction. Native plants are part of the extensive low-maintenance woodland gardens and bog garden, which are designed using nature-scape principles. Organically maintained vegetable garden comes with apple trees and blue berry and red currant bushes. Frogs are heard in the waterway which is flanked by native riparian vegetation.
The gardens consist of established plant communities, which crowd out undesirable plants and hence require minimal weeding. Much leaf-litter is left on the ground as these provide for the beginning of the foodchain and the building of soil; some areas are mulched with woodchips. Weeding is not a significant garden task: pruning is the main garden task, as is keeping specific garden plants in check, leaf raking off lawns in fall and snow removal of sidewalk when there is the occasional snowfall. Trees are maintainted by a professional company. In autumn seed pods from Rudbeckia are left to feed birds naturally, and Japanese Anemome stalks produce fluff the following spring to line nests. Bird feeders are only out in fall and winter. The long sidewalk needs to be maintained for the public who jogs/strolls by and enjoys viewing the ever-changing gardens. Pots and planters accents are changed for a seasonal display in high-visibility areas. The vegetable garden requires more care, obviously, and here many cole plants are left to self-seed and provide early spring greens. Large parts of the naturescape gardens carry themselves throughout the year!
Surrounding Area:
Ladner lies in the municipality of Delta, 30 km from downtown Vancouver. This property is adjacent to the Ladner Marsh Wildlife Management Area, south of the Fraser River. Delta offers numerous natural attractions along its many waterways. It is situated near the end of the Fraser delta along the coast of the Salish Sea. It enjoys a mild maritime climate with significantly less rainfall compared to adjacent municipalities. The air is very clean.
The village of Ladner is surrounded by dyked farmland within B.C.'s Agricultural Land Reserve, next to marshes with islands such as Westham Island (Reifel Bird Sanctuary), and a major preserved bog (Burns Bog). The entire river delta with its foreshores and uplands with farmland is a globally important stop-over for migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway. In fact, it is known as Canada’s #1 Most Important Bird Area (IBA). See: http://www.ibacanada.ca/site.jsp?siteID=BC017 .
Delta has the distinction in Canada to be the municipality that grows the most variety of food crops!
Along nearby Boundary Bay, snowy owls can be seen most winters, while tens of thousands of snowgeese from Wrangle Island (Russia) overwinter in the Fraser delta. The area is also known for raptors, from barn owls to harriers, hawks and bald eagles. The web-site of the Delta Farmland and Wildlife Trust offers more insight into the many birds of our region: www.deltafarmland.ca , this page is about local wildlife: https://deltafarmland.ca/resources/farmland-wildlife/
The Delta Naturalists’ Society has created a brochure on Delta birds and local birding: https://www.deltachamber.ca/birding.html
Website for local nature club: http://www.bcnature.ca/clubs-and-notices/regions/lower-mainland/delta-naturalists-society/ .
This property presents . . . . .
. . . . the opportunity to live a sustainable lifestyle! Continue to provide habitat for wildlife, take care of the many trees that sequester carbon, grow some of your own veggies and shop locally, drive a super efficient car, engage in the many nearby recreation opportunities, and enjoy staycations with nature at your doorstep. Your ecological footprint will be greatly reduced!
The spaciousness offers many opportunities for hobbies and gardening. The various gardens require work, but of all garden styles, naturescaping is relatively low maintenance. The lawn areas are easily mowed, and the plant collections are not groomed / manicured. Naturescape principles are further explained below. If desired, naturescape garden services and/or coaching can be provided complementary for the first year. Living on this property, close-up to nature, is a fascinating, ever-changing experience.
Because of set-backs and its unusual shape, the property is not sub-dividable. A second story can be added to the main house as it is of solid brick construction. There may be a possibility for renovating the office/studio/workshop into a coach house over time, as population pressures on the Greater Vancouver Region increase (check with Delta).
This is nature at your doorstep, while being close to all the attractions big city life offers: the best of both worlds as well as an opportunity to live a lifestyle that treads lightly on the planet.
CONTACT
For more information on this park-like property featuring a "cottage in the woods" with separate studio, 30 km south from downtown Vancouver, please contact:
Kendall Ayres REALTOR
Cell: 604-250-6981
Office: 604-946-1255
Front view:
Living room with fireplace:
Home office:
Bog garden:
Bird's eye view:
Floor plan:
Ladner, Delta B.C.: (Google map)
Property:
Plant Collections:
Brackets of handkerchief tree:
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Current status: Open/apply now. Date posted: Jun 1 2020 ID: 17725