'It's so sad': B.C. gardeners grieve as they take stock of cold snap's toll

Across British Columbia's South Coast, gardeners are finding dead or damaged plants due to the cold snap that sent temperatures plunging in January.

If you ask the “King of Succulents” Johnny Tai how his plants are doing, do it gently.

The 80-year-old Richmond, B.C., gardener hasn't recovered yet from what he calls the “crime scene” he found in two greenhouses one morning in mid-January - thousands of dead and dying plants, thanks to a sudden cold snap and snowfall.

“I don't even want to talk about it. It's so sad,” said Tai, whose backyard collection of 10,000 succulents is open to the public, attracting hundreds of visitors each year and earning him his regal nickname in Chinese media.

Across British Columbia's south coast, gardeners are finding dead or damaged plants due to the cold snap that sent temperatures plunging to -13.7 C in Richmond. As spring nears, hydrangeas are bare of buds and evergreens are losing their foliage.

Andrew Fleming, superintendent for VanDusen Botanical Garden and the Bloedel Conservatory in Vancouver, said plants were pushed to the brink by year-on-year drought and cold, wet winters - before the “tipping point” of the cold snap.

Tai and his wife Sonia, said in interviews in Mandarin and English that they lost 2,000 plants that night in January.

“I have been growing succulents for about 30 years in Canada and it was the first time losing so many of them,” said Johnny Tai.