Gardener Goes Travelling: Hatley Park Gardens

I realized that I could not fit everything about the gardens of Victoria in just one post, so here are my pictures from two more gardens:

Hatley Park Gardens: This is an excellent garden for gardeners. It is much smaller than Butchart gardens, but the Japanese gardens here are more impressive in my opinion. The Japanese garden is the best I have ever seen, with mature trees around a lovely pond. The blossoming cherries cascading over the pond, graceful arching bridges, and trickling streams are perfectly placed. Of course, there was also no line-up of people waiting to get in here, and the setting seems much more intimate.

There is a bog garden adjacent to a pond with a nice little collection of primulas.

The gardeners are friendly, and they like to talk too. It was too early in the season to see any roses, which are individually labeled for the benefit of those interested. These gardens over the ocean also boast windmill palms, banana trees, and a nice little formal Italian garden with statuary that looks appropriately weathered and worthy of the stately surroundings.

The Italian garden:

Formerly the Royal Roads Military College (which closed in 1995), this building is now open to tours. The campus has now become a university, offering various courses.

Front entrance to the building, for which a separate entrance fee is charged. We only toured the gardens.

Government House Gardens: Free and open "sunrise to sunset", these gardens surround the house of the Lieutenant Governor of BC. We came upon these gardens incidentally, while driving through the elegant Rocklands residential area.

There were formal rose gardens, perennial borders, an herb garden, wonderful terrace/rock gardens, and some water features where mallard ducks lolled around.
Driveway into the Government House property:

Lawn and perennial borders:

Crimson-colored primulas, pink hellebores (top left) and some other perennials:

The terrace gardens, tucked into a rocky slope behind the buildings, were the most impressive. They featured a wide variety of spring bulbs, succulents, and perennials picked for color and texture contrasts. RLM was instructed to recreate elements of this garden for our yard at home; photos were taken to aid in this project.

A variety of heathers form fluffy pillows at the bottom of this slope:

The terrace gardens:

Back of house, overlooking the terrace gardens:

A lovely Lewisia, tucked into the rocks (this plant is also hardy to La Ronge, for those locals who want to try it).

A Camassia of some variety:

There were volunteer gardeners all over the property, mostly retired folk who seemed to love the communal enjoyment of gardening. Some of these people live in condos and get their gardening needs fulfilled by this garden, while others are obsessed gardeners who just can't get enough at home.
Mallard duck with Bellis (English daisies) in the foreground:

Herb garden full of sage, thyme, and lavender:

Botanical tulips (also hardy in La Ronge):

In short, Butchart gardens are impressive and a must see for everyone. Hatley Park gardens and Government House gardens will thrill anyone who feels fondly for plants and thinks of the smell of well-rotted compost like sweet perfume.

As a result of this trip, I went online and ordered more forget-me-not seeds and decided to grow a passionfruit vine. The forget-me-nots look absolutely wonderful growing amid tulips and other taller spring flowers and I know that other gardeners are successful at growing them here. Good luck to RLM as he attempts to recreate all the rock garden beauty we saw over there!

Gardener Goes Travelling: Butchart Gardens

We spent the last week on a shopping-and-garden-tour-holiday to Victoria, British Columbia. Well, the holiday wasn't exactly proposed to resident-lawnmower-man in quite those terms, but we did throw in a few art galleries and hiking to round out the experience. The destination and timing of the trip was inspired by an unknown traveler who posted their vacation photos a few years back, leading me to believe that this was a great time of year to see tulips in Victoria. The weather was cool all last week (in fact, I think northern SK was warmer), but the flowers were spectacular.
The Empress Hotel, situated on Victoria's inner harbour. No, we didn't stay here, but our hotel was nice and located nearby.

Victoria is definitely the most beautiful Canadian city I have ever visited (and I hope to visit Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax sometime in the future). I was impressed to see that eco-friendly, green living has taken firm root here. Many lawns are dotted with dandelions and little white and purple flowers, which do not detract from the overall appearance. As usual, the city's public landscaping is breathtaking and I stopped frequently to admire the tulips along the sidewalks near the harbour: "Gasp! Oh wow, look at those burgundy tulips!"

The gardens we visited:

(1) Butchart Gardens, (2) Butterfly Gardens, (3) Hatley Park Gardens, at the former Royal Roads military college in Esquimalt, (4) Government House Gardens

Butchart Gardens: These gardens are a a truly impressive display of floral colors draped over impressive terrain, with sunken gardens in a former limestone quarry pit being just one feature. However, they are less interesting for the botanically-inclined, as they feature large numbers of similar plants rather than collections of interesting specimens. Any non-gardener would be impressed with these gardens though, in the same way I'd be impressed with a 5-tier ornate wedding cake with fancy icing. We got there early, avoiding the traffic congestion at the entry gates that resembled the US-Canada border crossing. At $25, this is the most expensive garden, but it really is the Disney world of gardens. Unfortunately, the large gift store is largely geared towards tourists, not gardeners. Click on any of the pictures to see a larger image.

View from the entrance to the sunken gardens, built in a former limestone quarry:

Moving fountain, with mechanized dancing sprayers:

Spring flowers on "the mound", a rocky outcrop in the center of the sunken garden:

Thousands of tulips were in bloom on our visit, (April 26th, 2008):

Drumstick primulas and daffodils:

View of Brentwood bay, looking over the fence into the Japanese gardens:

A nice combination of peony-flowered tulips and blue forget-me-nots:


Butterfly Gardens: Close to the Butchart gardens, this attraction is mostly about the butterflies. It is a humid conservatory containing a few tropical birds and plants, living harmoniously with 3,000 butterflies. We learned that most of the butterflies come from butterfly farms in Costa Rica and the Phillipines. We got to see a real live vanilla orchid, and smelled its fragrant seed pods. The guide demonstrated some eggs and caterpillars on a potted Passiflora (Passionfruit). Apparently the plant had never bloomed. (I asked if it had bloomed. The guide said she didn't know why it hadn't bloomed. Pity.) Kids would love this place.

An orchid of unknown variety: