Secret Cove offers a rocky encroachment to the Pacific as it ebbs and floods through the Malaspina and Georgia Straits. This is perfect habitat for the Arbutus tree. These trees don’t like a lot of soil, but they need the sound and the spray of the nearby ocean.

The Arbutus is deciduous tree, but not at all typical. It always has leaves. New leaves grow and old ones die still, but there is never a moment with no leaves. In the summer, however (right now) the reddish brown bark sheds its skin just like a bad sunburn. The bark is,paper thin. It curls up and falls to the ground. The exposed layer is green, but will turn red again by winter.

One of our little ones….