Going Green all the way to Taipei
Marseene Mainly, of Yale, with Orchids at Cannor Nursery.
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Updated: January 18, 2010 4:31 PM
Grant Granger
Black Press
Early last year, Marseene Mainly, of Yale B.C., was on a bus in Taipei, passing by a big stadium with long queues of people.
“Is there a ball game going on?” she queried.
“No ... it’s a flower show,” was the reply.
That perked her ears. After all, the head of Mainly Publications in Abbotsford was in her native Taiwan to promote, among many things, the company’s successful book How to Supercharge Your Garden – a guide to soilless gardening that has been revised five times.
She got off the bus just in time for the last hour on the last day of the show. There she saw a presentation for the 2010 Taipei International Gardening and Horticulture Exposition, which runs Nov. 6 to April 25, 2011.
“Immediately, my mind went thinking to promoting Canada,” says Mainly, who moved to this country with her family when she was 10.
Now she’s in the midst of organizing the Canadian entry in the exposition’s Global Garden. It will be the only one of the 20 competitors using soilless gardening techniques.
In 1996, a thick pile of notes on the subject came across her desk. The non-gardener began wading through it, trying to understand what it was all about. The more she read, the more she wanted to know.
“I never thought it would be a fascinating subject, but when I was reading the submission it dawned on me, ‘What wonderful technology,’ ” says Mainly.
“I wasn’t really hopeful [the guide] would do really well, to be honest. I thought it would be like a hobby book. But it was my belief while I was reading the manual that I was seeing the future of gardening in my hand.”
She’s designed a mock city display to be built in the 27x27x27-metre triangle assigned to Exponics Canada for the competition. Mainly hopes to round up a team of at least 12 and head to Taipei in May to begin building the display using hydroponics, aeroponics, purolite and lava rocks – techniques she says have been used for growing on the international space station.
“A solution must be sought to save the urban jungle,” says Mainly. “It’s just not enough to go green. In my opinion, the world must go green at an exponential rate just to play catch-up.”
Mainly has been collecting funding from corporate sponsors and suppliers, and has also been approached by the Canadian trade office in Taipei to exhibit Canadian wood.
“We are unique,” Mainly says with excitement, while wearing a red Canada fleece. “We believe we will get a lot of international publicity for that. I think we have a very good chance of winning a medal for Canada, which is very exciting.”
