Butchart Gardens: Part III

As the shadows lengthened we wound our way back through the gardens toward the amphitheater for the evening's free concert by the Victoria (BC) Symphony.  I still had enough energy for a few more pictures.  The light was brightening and sharpening everything.

We passed a kind of orange coneflower (echinacea) I'd never seen before:

Lilies:

Scotsman's purse (empty is what I believe the name implies):

Another great pairing of a drooping grass and begonias:

Salpiglossis (a new one for me):

Multicolored sweet peas:

Fuchsia (It grows into shrubs here):

The concert is held in an outdoor bandshell with a large, gently sloping lawn for seating. Many people come to the park in the evening just for the concert, and bring lawn chairs, blankets and picnics. 

We went back to the car and got the two foldable chairs that we always carry with us. While we waited for the concert to start we each explored the nearby grounds a little and found things we hadn't seen yet, like the fountain where they set off the fireworks on Saturday nights, a totem pole or two, more perennial beds, and a mixed menagerie carousel.

Check out the cat with the mouse in its mouth.

The theme of the concert was Paris, starting with something Mozart wrote there and ending with a selection of more contemporary works. 

After awhile Rick and I got restless and wanted to see what the gardens looked like illuminated.  There are little lamps placed throughout the gardens to allow for safe and interesting evening strolling.

We discovered that the fountain at one end of the Sunken Gardens was also lit up at night, and was dancing like a little Las Vegas Bellagio.

We ended up at Butchart Cove for one last look in the long northern twilight before heading home.

The following day we headed back to the USA. We loved Canada and had a lot of fun there. It was like visiting a parallel universe where everything is really familiar, but yet new and just a little bit different.  It was frankly, a little spendy, especially gas and groceries, our two major expenses.  Our next few weeks we will be working our way east through Washington state, toward Idaho for most of August.

Butchart Gardens: Part II

We're back at Butchart Gardens for the afternoon and evening, this time with Kona too.  (If you don't care for gardens and flowers, sorry, but you might as well log off now.) Upon entering the Gardens, visitors are greeted by a cafe, gift shop, information booth and several gathering places to eat and meet.  Near this entrance area there is a dining room and a conservatory for delicate hot-house flowers.  I haven't mentioned it yet, but the fragrance everywhere was heavenly.

Three views of the gardens surrounding the dining room:

Conservatory hot-house specimens:

I thought I'd let the flowers speak for themselves for awhile. (If only they could share their scents as well.) These are some of the more effective groupings I noticed.  Groupings or pairings are characterized by contrasting or complementary colors, forms and textures of blooms and foliage. I tried to capture that in these pictures:

The next two flowers are fancy begonias that were looking down from hanging baskets. The baskets' heights allowed me to get under them and shoot up into the light - a very unusual situation that had some kind of Georgia O'Keefish results.

And now for the part of the gardens that is most often photographed: the Sunken Gardens.

This part of the Butchart Gardens has the most fascinating history. Originally this land was not a garden, but a limestone quarry. The Butcharts lived adjacent to the quarry, as did many of the workers. They also had a cement factory to process the limestone from the quarry.  As the quarry became worked-out, Jennie Butchart conceived the idea to beautify the remaining limestone pits. In these pictures you can see the underlying structure of the old quarry's pits and cliffs. Now they are covered with ivy and other plantings and the bottom is dense with flower beds, shrubs and trees.  Eventually the Butchart family opened the Gardens to the public and began charging an entrance fee to support their ongoing development.

 If only all the quarries and mines (and landfills for that matter) could be transformed into places this beautiful!

A waterfall runs down the side of one of the old quarry walls.

Here's the same view as the first picture (above) but later in the day with the sun casting bold shadows.

A walk through the Sunken Gardens leads to serene nooks and open spaces, as well as ponds and fountains.

The Butchart family still owns and operates the Gardens, and has expanded their offerings to include concerts, children's activities, ice skating the winter and fireworks in the summer.  The evening we were there the Victoria Symphony was playing, so we stuck around. More about that in Part III.

Butchart Gardens: Part I

Our last day in Canada was spent visiting one of the best loved gardens in North America. Because Butchart Gardens was so close to where we were staying, Oceanside RV Park, in Sidney, BC we made the visit in two parts.  That way we could go back for lunch and take care of Kona in the RV before an evening visit. Well it turns out that Butchart allows dogs (bow wow!) so we took her back with us when we returned.

It was such an extended and full visit, that I've divided it up into three posts. I'll roughly present our visit chronologically, but because we revisited many of the gardens several times, I'm going to use some creative license to avoid too much repetition. The changing light throughout the day totally changed our photographs, so that some pictures of the same view looked very different. Needless to say we took more pictures than we'd ever use in twenty blog posts.

The garden is comprised of 55 landscaped acres, and is divided up into four major gardens and several smaller ones. Everyplace you look is landscaped and planted with flowers, even the garbage cans.

The Gardens are bordered on three sides by water and right away we decided to take the little boat ride around Butchart Cove and the nearby waterways.  We opted for one of the earliest rides of the day, so we needed to head pretty much straight across the gardens toward the boat launch. Along the way we passed through the Rose Garden and the Japanese Garden and took a few pictures as we went.

Not all the flowers along the way were roses. There were masses of perennials and beds of annuals, all arranged in geometric patterns. This part of the gardens somewhat formal but in places it is loosely arranged like an English country garden might be.

Looks like a straight shot, right? Well even though we had a map, the gardens are laid out in such a way that it is actually not so easy to travel from one side to the other and we had to back track a few times and get their via kind of a convoluted route. Of course it was all beautiful along the way.

The roses and the blue delphiniums they used for contrasting punctuation were gorgeous. I've been to a few rose gardens, and this is by far the best. As I've mentioned before, flowers really seem to love this climate.

This is just a small fraction of the roses that were in full bloom.

We finally found our way to the Japanese Garden and through this classic gate. 

The paths led through various viewpoints, up and down little hills, over ponds and streams, and through groupings and glades. In places it was very cool and dark.

 The Japanese Gardens is one of the oldest in the park, having been started by Jennie Butchart in 1906 with the assistance of Isaburo Kishida. Its maturity is evident in the depth and size of its plantings.

Finally we reached Butchart Cove and our little boat.

Along the way we passed this sailing boat tricked out like a pirate ship. 

After that relaxing boat ride we headed back through the Japanese Gardens and on to the Italian Garden. A look back provided one last view of the Cove.

The Star Pond behind the lawn.

Between the Italian Garden and the Rose Garden there are two large expanses of lawns that provide soothing relief for the overstimulated eye. You probably need it too by now.

The main focal point for the Italian Garden is the Star Pond, filled with lily pads 

and surrounded by a short geometrically carved hedge.

Dividing the pond from a classic courtyard is a wall created by another 8-10' perfectly shaped hedge with two arched doorways.

Once inside the courtyard, the feeling and the colors are bold, hot and steamy, in contrast to the cool wetness of the Japanese Garden and the bubbling Star Pond.

The plant combinations throughout the Gardens are wonderful, and especially dramatic in the Italian Gardens.

From the one side of the Italian Garden you can look up the terraces toward the delicate pastels of the Rose Garden.

 More dynamic plant pairings...

From the Italian Gardens we took some time to go home for lunch and rest our feet and eyes. 

Part II coming soon.