Community Highlight: Jessica Udal
Our community is an integral part of the success of our company. HAVN’s vision and vitality are brought to life with the support from our community members helping us work towards achieving this dream. It is our pleasure to highlight some of our members, to showcase their incredible talents, hard work, and creativity in our weekly segments.
Jessica Udal, our talented landscape designer, brings a delightful mix of warmth and elegance to our team. Underneath her cool exterior, there's a little wild spirit who's always up for a good laugh, eager to go on thrilling adventures, and happy to chat with everyone. Being an island local through and through, she embraces her surroundings and exemplifies her love of nature. HAVN’s landscaping reflects Jessica’s combined talent and genuine passion for creating mesmerising spaces that represent the natural world. Jessica’s enchanting blend of sophistication and adventure makes her a true gem!
Q: What did you work on for the HAVN project?
I've known Nick for quite a few years through mutual friends in Victoria. I moved back here a few years ago and had done my master's in landscape architecture at UBC. When he found out about my background, he asked if I'd be interested in working on the landscaping for the HAVN project. I was thrilled about the opportunity to contribute to the community and create something unique. Working with Nick has been super fun, and the project has been fantastic.
Q: What is your background and how/when did you get into this line of work and start your business?
I'm originally from Gabriola Island, where I grew up on a property with my mom, who was a really big gardener. So I kind of always had that interest in plants and then, yeah, eventually sort of came around to making a career of designing landscapes and gardens. I moved back to Victoria and started working for a firm in Vancouver from home. What really appealed to me in this project was it was just so different from many of the other projects I’ve worked on. It’s kind of a community and being a public space floating on a barge. It posed unique challenges in terms of climate, light, and salt conditions, but it was also a great opportunity to find plants that suited this specific Mediterranean-like environment. I had to think of the light and salt and sun conditions and then just like having it be evergreen for the most part throughout the year.
Q: What are some passion projects or side projects that you're working on or eager to start, and why?
I'm very passionate about my backyard garden, which is a work in progress. I can't resist pulling into a nursery and buying some plants to put in. I have various areas, including vegetable patches and a lot of cut flowers. I love cut flowers! I worked at a florist for a long time, so my approach to landscape design is kind of like trying to look, and get it to feel like arranging a bouquet in some ways. You’re constantly arranging things, especially on this project because everything is in containers. As I transition to a new job with more public projects, this project I think is a good example of building relationships. I’m a pretty relationship-oriented person so similar to Nick, it’s about building relationships in that same kind of way. I think that's like a lot of what landscape architecture like, ends up being about that. So much of it is like word of mouth and who do you actually want to collaborate with which plays into the creativity and success of projects.
Q: What are things that you enjoy about the west coast?
Being from the island, the west coast feels like home to me. I love the dynamic energy of the area, with ever-changing tides, winds, and weather. The lush and Mediterranean-like feel adds to the allure. Kind of like it feels pseudo tropical.That's one thing I really love.
Coming from the east coast, I, I noticed that it was like, wow, like I got used to it and like from a landscape design perspective, there's just like so many plants you can work with. It's like way broader than anywhere else in Canada at least.
Q: What are some more fun facts about you?
I'm just like a super plant nerd. You know, like everywhere I go, like see your plants, I want to like, look it up and know, like all the kind of scientific facts and it's family. My favourite plant or flower is often what's blooming around. I was at Mount Doug the other day and it's like a Menzies’ Larkspur blooming right now and the Garry oak ecosystem plants are like just out in full force at the moment.
It’s just so beautiful. t's a whole other world to be a part of, and I find it incredibly rewarding. The variety of plants and their characteristics can reveal so much about the environment they thrive in, and it's fascinating to observe and understand these connections. When traveling there’s a lot of things are like that bring so much livelihood, you know, and it's so indicative of, like, where it is that you are, you know, like the size of leaves and like the colors and shapes, like, say a lot about the environment that they're in, you know, like big leaves are usually in shady places and, because how much photosynthesis they can produce. Lots of fun stuff to know!
