We reopen April 26 at our new location in Cobble Hill.
About Us
Welcome to Island Passions Nursery!
Our focus is on the plants that will put the WOW factor into your yard or patio.
Our plants are often described as long blooming, eye catching and definitely different!
We would like to say its all about how we grow them but often its more about genetics.
We choose to grow and sell only select proven cultivars of unusual plants.
Many of the cultivars we offer are not available anywhere else on the island.
All of our plants are Canadian made with the exception of the Holland lily bulbs we purchase from a Canadian wholesaler.
Our website has the details for the four different locations on Vancouver Island for obtaining our plants.
These are our greenhouse location and the three weekly Markets we attend in May and June.
This website also contains important growing and care tips in our blog for many of our plants. Our blog goes beyond the basic information plant tags give you. We are certain it can save you time and money and most importantly help you get the very best show out of your plants.
Going forward we are supporting Canadian companies only for all of our supplies.
If a plant at a big box store or large nursery does not say made in Canada it is highly likely a large percentage of your money is leaving Canada.
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We hope to see you at our popular yearly event at our new location in Cobble Hill for the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May 2025. We will post the address in Cobble Hill the week before we are open as our greenhouse landlord lives onsite and does not want any earlybirds. Please do not attend before Saturday April 26th. Signs will also be posted to ensure you find us.
The first sales day of the year is VERY busy so thank you in advance for those of you bringing your own carts. For those of you who have attended our previous location before we are very pleased to announce the new location has easy direct access to the greenhouse and more parking.
** Please note, our greenhouse is only open to the public 4 days each year.
After our greenhouse location sales you can find us at the Farmers Markets listed on our website.
We are BIG on flowers and fragrance.
Angel Trumpets blow away everything else for large fragrant flower shows.
You can find Angel Trumpets in parks like Beacon Hill Park as the show is amazing and the deer will never touch it as its a poisonous plant.
In case you are worried it is a poisonous plant please consider this. You probably already have several poisonous plants in your yard. Rhodos, Foxgloves, Hydrangea, Daffodils and Cedars are poisonous just to name a few.
Please note our cultivars are proven cultivars that offer a significantly bigger, better and earlier show than others.
Our blog has a dedicated posting for the purchasing and caring for Angel Trumpets to assist you in getting the most out of your Angels Trumpets.
Two new exciting varieties for 2025!
Or maybe you want a fast bold tropical statement!
These are King Kong Cannas.
They will get 7 to 9 feet tall in one season.
7 feet in a pot.
9 feet in the ground.
These can easily fill a 10 gallon pot in one season!
The picture above is a 10 gallon pot that grew from one of our two gallon sales pots in one season.
Other cannas cannot compete with this one for vigorous growth. These also draw hummingbirds from June to October.
These Cannas are disease free. This variety does not seem to be susceptible to the canna virus that is already present in the majority of other cannas available to you elsewhere.
$25 per 2 gallon pot.
Our blog has a dedicated posting for tips on growing cannas.
Some of our plants
Giant Lilies
Canadian made Palm Trees
Mexican Snowballs
Our giant lilies multiply like normal lilies but deliver bigger flowers that just grab your attention.
Also available is a spectacular martagon lily called Black Beauty. It is a crazy name as its not black at all. The coloring actually resembles the well known Stargazer lily but one stem can have 20+ flowers on the second year. Even more in following years. This one blooms a very long time.
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Our list of all varieties of lilies for 2025
Purple Prince
Beverlys Dream
African Lady
Budlight
Touchstone
Zelmira
Tiny Massive
Rose Lily Anouska
Rose Lily Sita
Black Beauty
In the gallery section of our website you can click on the lily pics to identify what they look like.
We usually sell two lilies per pot for $18 except Black Beauty.
Mexican Snowballs
Canadian made Palm Trees
Mexican Snowballs
This plant continually produces stems of
Candy-corn looking flowers in the shape of hearts for 6 to 7 months.
We have never seen another succulent bloom interesting flowers for anywhere near that long.
It draws hummingbirds like crazy. We suggest you put it where you spend your time. It makes a great patio table plant and the hummingbirds will visit many times daily.
This plant is very popular for Mothers Day for all the reasons above. It is certainly one your Mom will enjoy for far longer than a bouquet of flowers.
** Please note we no longer supply these plants to grocery stores.
We anticipate selling out of these by the second week of June in 2025.
$20 each.
Canadian made Palm Trees
Canadian made Palm Trees
Canadian made Palm Trees
Palm trees can have VERY different traits within the species. Ours are grown from seed harvested from the fantastic Vancouver island palms pictured above.
The main difference with ours is the fans. The fans are much more rigid than others so they withstand the elements way better and the resulting appearance of the palm is night and day different from others.
Be picky when shopping for palms. You cant make a genetically weak palm great
We generally sell only one size of palm. This is due to the fact that the majority of our customers do not want to spend hundreds of dollars on palms but they also do not want to wait 10 years to see it get large. So we offer 5 gallon palms which stand 3 to 3.5 feet tall out of their 5 gallon pots for $100.
*It is our humble opinion and experience the majority of palms below the five gallon size are a complete waste of time.
Small palms ( 2 gallon pot size ) are highly likely to fail. They do not have the strength to get past the first tough winter.
** Please note We anticipate selling out of palm trees by the end of May.
Stunning Rose Lillies
Canadian made Palm Trees
Amazing flowers!
These produce three times the petals and bloom twice as long as normal lilies. These have no pollen.
Their longer bloom time and zero pollen also make them excellent cut flowers.
Rose lilies are an easy dependable show that gets bigger every year.
The one in the picture is called Anouska. Yes they get that AMAZING when established.
We also have a white variety called Sita.
$18 per pot containing two plants per pot.
Passion Flowers
These are the plants that launched our business in 2003.
Often you will find them in areas frequented by tourists as very few plants grow fast and bloom interesting flowers continuously from May to late October.
These are very versatile as we have grown them in half shade all the way up to full sun.
We have the German hybrid double blue called Clear Sky that is an evergreen to -13C.
You will find blue passion vines everywhere but you wont find Clear Sky at any other nursery. Most other passion vines available are not able to handle below -6C despite what their tags say as our winters are too wet.
These will climb or you can do something REALLY different. You can put one in a hanging basket and get a completely different look from other hanging baskets.
$25 each.
Iochroma Australis
This one blooms a ton of flowers all summer.
We are pretty sure you wont find this one anywhere else!
This one has to come in for the winter but it so worth it.
Prices vary depending on the size.
This is another one the deer will not touch as it is poisonous so please do not bring this one into your house over the winter if you have pets that might try to eat it.
Dwarf Butterfly Bushes that bloom the entire season
Dwarf Butterfly Bushes that bloom the entire season
Dwarf Butterfly Bushes that bloom the entire season
Ours are the Buzz series of dwarf butterfly bushes that produce an astonishing amount of flowers on compact three and half foot tall plants. These even work in planters.
These flower non-stop from May all the way to mid October and the fragrance is fantastic.
You will see many other dwarf Butterfly bushes out there but we find some are actually way too small even for a dwarf.
In our own trials Buzz Hot Raspberry provides by far the best results of all dwarf butterfly bushes and we have tried a lot of dwarf butterfly bushes. Ours will get 3.5 feet tall and wide. Fantastic in a deck pot or wherever you spend your time. The picture above of shows a first year plant early in the season. Later in the season they will be conssiderably bigger with way more blooms
$25 each
Spotted Giant Calla.
Dwarf Butterfly Bushes that bloom the entire season
Dwarf Butterfly Bushes that bloom the entire season
Everything about these is significantly bigger and better than other callas.
Huge leathery leaves.
Enormous flowers and a subtle fragrance that is simply amazing!
They make absolutely stunning cut flowers if you can find a vase big enough. They last three weeks as a cut flower. You just can't bring them in if you have a cat. For whatever reason cats seem to leave callas alone in the yard but in the house they might eat them and it wont go well for the cat.
The deer never touch this Calla.
**New for 2025 is a pink that does not get as big as the spotted giant but puts on a really impressive flower show.
Prices vary depending on the size of the plants.
**Please note These will sell out at our greenhouse sales days in Cobble Hill in 2025.
Hardy Orchids
Dwarf Butterfly Bushes that bloom the entire season
Hardy Orchids
Yes, you can grow hardy orchids here!
These are compact plants that clump up and produce many more as time passes.
These are incredibly hardy and even colder zones are growing these.
These make excellent cut flowers as well.
We have Bletilla Blue Dragon and Bletilla Shi Ran.