The Butchart Gardens (Guest post by B-Twin)

A couple of years ago I visited Vancouver Island with friends. I didn’t really need a reason to visit The Butchart Gardens – it is, after all, a National Historic Site of Canada – but when my friend mentioned roses it may have taken wild horses to stop me…

We were visiting in the summer and the day we were there it was quite warm and very sunny. Unfortunately, I discovered a few deficiencies in my camera’s abilities (some of which were my fault due to it being new and unfamiliar) but hopefully you will still enjoy this little selection of photos.

This lovely sculpture was one of the first things I fell in love with in the garden.

Not far along the first walk was a covered area with dozens of fuchsia in hanging baskets. I couldn’t get the photo that truly conveyed how overwhelmingly large the display was. So I had to settle for individual shots.

Fuchsia. *love love love*

More fuchsias. *dreamy sigh*

The Gardens were started over 100 years ago. The vision required to “see” this result when confronted with a quarry is amazing.

The Sunken Garden. This started out as a quarry.

Those familiar with the Pacific North West will know how easily moss grows…. Take some notes – it can be used to great advantage in the garden!

The Bear Family. In moss.

Animals like these were dotted all over the gardens. My favourite was the squirrel but the photo came out too blurry to use. :(

The rose gardens were lovely. Most of my photos don’t do them justice. (I’ll have to go back again…!) We’d missed the spring flush of blooms but there were still quite a few in bloom.

One of the many climbers.

‘Tamango’, Hybrid Tea from France.

This arbour was very inspiring. Want.

A rose arbour I wanted to lift out and take home!

The rose gardens didn’t just contain roses. This was some heliotrope and geraniums.

Within the gardens there are various theme gardens. So, besides the rose garden and sunken garden there was also the Italian garden and the Japanese garden.

A view through part of the Japanese Garden.

In the Japanese Garden

The summer flowers were in and there were begonias everywhere in the garden beds.  I’ve always been a little ho-hum about begonias. This experience changed my mind!

Some of the MANY begonias on show.

And finally, the Gardens have the only carousel on Vancouver Island:

The Rose Carousel.

If you ever get the opportunity to get to Vancouver Island then visit the Gardens. In summer they have fireworks in the evenings too (check their website for times though). And they have a lovely giftshop… ;)