Meet Phil
City Gardener and Unofficial Tour Guide
Making Prince Rupert Shine
If you live in town, Phil jokes that you’ve probably seen him – but maybe only from behind – working hard on one of our beautiful local garden beds. He’s one of the community’s many talented municipal Parks crew staff in charge of landscaping for the City, and among the cheeriest of us. Chatting to him, you can tell he has real passion for his work. He gets excited talking about when the plant catalogues show up and he can see what’s available for next season. He calls it his ‘candy store’. But his favourite thing? The thing we love to see in City employees, a drive to bring joy to the community we serve.
“I think I love almost every part of my job, but my favourite is the interaction with the community – our friends, our neighbours that are out there. I do take pride in people noticing [the gardens],” Phil says. “That’s why you do what you’re doing. For your community to enjoy something that you do that they may not have noticed before.”
Growing the Next Generation
Tending to the gardens is one aspect of the job, and so is mentoring the next generation of plant enthusiasts. His role includes overseeing many of the summer students that do seasonal work in the Parks department. It’s another one of his favourite parts.
“I’ve so lucked out with the students over the years,” Phil says. “Probably one of my favourite parts of working with them is when you observe and see those that really enjoy what they’re doing and pay attention.”
He learns from them, too, when they show talent for laying out the beds. Some of them are naturals at it. And they keep in touch – reaching out for advice about their own gardens.
Active Off-Time
Prince Rupert is lucky to say that Phil has been with the City since moving home 14 years ago to be closer to family. In his spare time, he loves to be outdoors, and is an avid hiker and trail runner with his two dogs. He was born and raised here, but had relocated to Tofino, where he also worked in landscaping at a resort. He was often relied on as an unofficial ‘concierge’ for visitors in the area to share local intel, and he’s carried that skill with him here. He loves interacting with visitors that he meets when he’s out and about. He sees similarity between the two coastal communities, with Prince Rupert starting to see more people that want to take advantage of all that the wild North Coast has to offer.
“It made it easy to move home,” Phil says.
And we’re glad he did.