It may be hard to envision right now, but the concrete retaining wall heading down Sherbico Hill is about to become a beautiful work of art.
Work has begun along Columbia Avenue and the new pink swath will soon begin to come to life with flowers, vegetables and insects.
The new mural is a project of Castlegar Communities in Bloom (CIB) and it is designed to coordinate with the 2025 National Communities in Bloom theme – edible gardening. The plan is to complete the mural before the CIB judges come to Castlegar later this summer.
CIB, who is financing the project, has commissioned well-known Canadian muralist Tyler Toews to create the mural.
Here is his description of the mural: "This mural is designed to be experienced as a visual journey through the garden season, unfolding as one drives up the hill. The composition begins at the ground level, where potatoes, sprouting seeds, and caterpillars symbolize the origins of growth and the unseen life beneath the soil.
"As the viewer moves upward, the centre of the mural bursts with a variety of garden vegetables, flowers, and busy pollinators, reflecting the thriving ecosystem and inter-connectedness of an edible garden.
"To the left and at the top, the mural opens into a wide sky filled with tall sunflowers. On the far left, a cluster of sunflower heads, ripe and ready for harvest, frames the CIB logo and represents the culmination of the season’s efforts and the rewards of gardening.
"Viewed in this way, the mural becomes a story line of the garden’s cycle – from the first stirrings beneath the earth, through growth, flowering, pollination and harvest."
Toews is also the artist behind the horse mural at Tarrys Community Hall and the mural at the Castlegar Royal Canadian Legion.
