When you step through the driftwood-and-cedar gate of Nori Fletcher’s garden, you can’t miss the color—it’s exuberant, a glorious mass of flowers. But when you walk the sawdust-covered pathways to explore the beds you soon discover that a profusion of vegetables, herbs and fruits intermingled with the flowers and contribute to the display of texture and color.

It’s a garden grown to be eaten as well as admired: every plant, edible or not—and most of the blossoms are edible, turning up on the table as nasturtium butter or stir-fried daylilies—has been carefully placed for pleasing visual effect.

As head gardener at Hollyhock—a holistic learning centre on Cortes Island, 90 miles (150 kilometres) north of Vancouver—Nori has made a garden with a dual mandate: to help provide fresh produce for the table every day from March to October, and to create a place of spiritual rejuvenation at the heart of the 48-acre (19-hectare) centre. Hollyhock draws more than 1,700 visitors annually; many come for workshops on subjects as esoteric as Mongolian overtone chanting, holotropic breathwork or shamanic soul retrieval, or as down-to-earth as paper making, sailing or vegetarian cooking. But some use Hollyhock as a retreat, and spend their time soaking in the hot tub overlooking the Strait of Georgia or enjoying a massage at the hands of the centre’s healing arts’ practitioners. A daily procession of islanders and tourists also drop by to see the garden or shop at the garden store for bouquets, seeds, fresh or dried herbs, raspberry vinegar, rosemary oil for cooking, calendula oil for skin care, sweet woodruff sachets to deter moths, or dream pillows stuffed with lavender, hops and roses.

Nori has worked at Hollyhock for all of its 14 years of operation, the first few years as a cook. She arrived on Cortes Island in 1979, after a year of studying biodynamic/French intensive (BFI) gardening at the Farallones Institute in California. Although BFI embraces organic gardening in tune with the universe and is perfect fit with a holistic learning centre, it’s rooted in two movements developed in Europe around the turn of the century: The French intensive method was designed in the late 1890s to increase crops, and an Austrian, Rudolf Steiner, initiated biodynamic techniques in the 1920s. Steiner advocated a return to organic fertilizers as a cure for the ills inflicted by manmade products and promoted a return to raised beds, companion planting and sowing by the phases of the moon. Alan Chadwick, an English horticulturalist who studied under Steiner, combined the two philosophies as BFI and brought it to California in the ’60s.

When Nori arrived at Hollyhock after a few years of working at a dairy farm on the island, about one third of an acre of land was under cultivation. Today, the main garden near the central lodge and a smaller vegetable garden down by the beach have a combined area of nearly an acre. Despite their size, and the installation-in-progress of a gravity-feed drip irrigation system, Nori has given up trying to grow all the produce required by the kitchen. Instead, she concentrates on plants that combine abundant output and aesthetic rewards. These have included ‘Dragon Tongue’ bush beans (which produce purple-striped bright yellow pods), purple tomatillos, and huge, pale ‘Armenian’ cucumbers.

Even off-season the Hollyhock gardens are never completely dormant. “Having fresh food year round is really important,” Nori says, “so I like to push the seasonal edge.” She grows overwintering varieties of kale, broccoli and leeks, and plants as early as possible in spring. The key, she says, is being aware of the local microclimate, but a large greenhouse and cold frames also help. “We sow greens like spinach and miners’ lettuce, in the cold frames each fall and they’re waiting for us in spring.” Once the early crop has been harvested, the cold frames are used to harden-off seedlings started in the greenhouse. When the weather warms, the cedar-slat floors are removed from the cold frames and melons are planted there so they can easily be monitored for slug damage.

Hollyhock’s kitchen is renowned for its gourmet vegetarian fare. Dishes such as stuffed zucchini Breton, tofu dumplings and frittata de espinaca are served buffet style and eaten at large, communal tables in the dining room, at sitting areas in the garden or on the desks with views of the garden and ocean and distant islands. Brimming bowls of salad accompany most meals, and to ensure a constant supply of salad ingredients, Nori and her four assistants start a new lettuce crop every three or four weeks, choosing from more than a dozen varieties. Salads also feature arugula, radicchio, sorrel or spinach with tulip, pansy, hollyhock or calendula petals for color and flavor. When diners first encounter flowers in their food they’re often skeptical. “But we’ve created a lot of converted tulip eaters,” says Nori.

Asparagus, which thrives in the salty air of the seaside garden, is a regular feature on the spring menu. A seasonal harvest of 85 pounds (38 kilograms) is not unusual. “Lots of people have never tasted asparagus straight out of the garden and they’re amazed how superior it is,” says Elizabeth Mcdonald, one of Hollyhock’s five senior cooks. Tomatoes right off the vine elicit similar responses and are grown in quantity in one-quarter of the garden not dedicated to asparagus. Nori’s favorites include ‘Persimmon,’ ‘Valencia,’ ‘Sweet 100,’ ‘Lemon Boy’ and ‘Ultra Girl.’ She maximizes the output of the indeterminate varieties by removing most of the suckers and training one or two main leaders up cords attached to an overhead wire, which is suspended between six-foot (180-centimetre) stakes. The method combats blight by increasing air flow; it also hastens ripening.

In the main garden near the lodge, the entire eastern corner holds squashes—three varieties of zucchini, crookneck squash, and an French heirloom pumpkin, ‘Rouge vif d’etampes.’ Rows of raspberries that last year yielded nearly 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of fruit dominate the southwest side, and an ancient, still-bearing apple tree stands firm at the centre. Most of the remaining area is laid out in narrow, gently curving beds that echo the ranks of waves breaking on the beach down the hill. And the scent of herbs is everywhere: cilantro, tarragon, dill, mint, oregano, lemon grass, rosemary, thyme, garlic chives, anise hyssop and lemon balm. On a sunny afternoon when Nori’s helpers “clear cut” the four-by 30-foot (120- by 900-centimetre) beds of basil that has grown nearly two feet tall, the air is heady with its spicy aroma.

Although vegetables, herbs and flowers mix freely through the garden, there is nothing random about their placement. “When you watch season after season you notice if a plant likes where it is,” Nori says. If a plant isn’t thriving in one location, she moves it. “I used to feel nervous about moving plants, but Yetta Maibauer, one of my assistants, is fearless,” Nori says. “She can move anything. You just have to be sure to properly prepare the area you’re moving it to and to dig out the entire crown.”

Harmonious color combinations are equally important, as well as balance in height and form of plants. “In the past it was a struggle just to get everything planted,” Nori says. “Now that the garden is established we have more time for design.” Monet’s Passion by Elizabeth Murray and The Impressionist Garden by Derek Fell have recently joined more practical volumes on her bookshelf. These books confirm the direction she was heading, rather than signaling a new departure. “When I look at French Impressionist paintings, or at photographs of Monet’s garden,” she says, “the style seems very familiar to me.” Monet’s work inspires her vision for the main garden, which she hopes some day will be graced by a central gazebo and large arches like the ones that span the Grande Allée at Giverny.

Such lofty dreams may have to wait. In the meantimes Nori can take pride in having created a bountiful space that feasts the eye and soothes the soul as well as nourishes the body.