My dear friend and travel companion Larry Wick, one of North Vancouver’s most well-known gardeners, has died at the age of 99.
Larry travelled with us to South Africa, Spain, Morocco and Myanmar.
Everyone loved Larry. He was a wonderful, gentle, kind-hearted guy, a great gardener with a passion for plants and zest for life that rivalled the energy of most people half his age
One of my most favourites stories about Larry is how, after a exhaustingly long flight from London to Cape Town, he got up from his seat on the plane and offered to help two teenagers to get their luggage down from the overhead bin. He was in his 90s at the time. It was his nature to always want to offer help and assistance.
One day, I remember going to his garden in North Vancouver only to find him carrying heavy rocks, one by one, from his car to build a new retaining wall. He had driven up to Squamish to get the rocks, had loaded them on his own and brought them back to his garden. Again, he was in his early 90s when he was doing this. Amazing.
I have many very happy memories of being with him in Madrid and Morocco, Hong Kong, Singapore and in Myanmar, especially in Mandalay. It was little bit of a joke with us that Larry always liked to ask when boarding the bus, “Is this the bus to Mandalay?” So, it was great to be able to tell him when we were in Mandalay, “Yes, Larry, now we are on the road to Mandalay.”
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In South Africa, I remember him buying a beautiful wooden statue which he insisted on carrying carefully with him on the bus and he always sat it next to him and refused to put it with the luggage for fear of it getting damaged.
In Myanmar and Singapore, I remember seeing him walking completely unfazed by the intense heat. While the rest of us were tucked up inside an air-conditioned restaurant, we could see him casually walking in the garden, examining miniature bananas or other exotic plants.
Larry was a member of at least four garden clubs. I think he was actually a member of five clubs at one point but had to cut back because he was having a hard time attending all the meetings.
Larry had two beautiful gardens – one in North Vancouver, which he opened every year to people on the Art in the Garden tour, and another on Keats Island, which he took people to by water-taxi. I never got to see the Keats garden but friends tell me it was wonderfully exotic with lots of hardy banana and palm trees.
We will all miss Larry very much. I can think of few people who have lived such a full and exciting, varied and honourable life and travelled so extensively and with such enthusiasm.
We will all miss you, Larry, very much. You were one of a kind and I will always remember you as a gentle, humble and friendly soul who was always happy to share his time and wealth of knowledge with others. Larry Wick was an inspiration.
