Gardens of the City of Vancouver

and

Vancouver Island

This photo of the Vancouver skyline on an overcast morning in the middle of August was taken from a cruise ship (I hate cruise ships!) that was approaching the heavily used docks to the left of this picture. That's part of Stanley Park showing on the right.

Vancouver is a city full of flower gardens, both private and public, and this tour will show scenes from several of the public gardens: Stanley Park, VanDusen Botanical Gardens, Queen Elizabeth Park, the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden, the compact Park and Tilford Gardens in North Vancouver, and Butchart Gardens which is near Victoria on Vancouver Island.

Most of the pictures are from the VanDusen Botanical Gardens which has the largest variety of plants and the most interesting perennial beds and borders. We've also visited the University of British Columbia Botanical Gardens, but I haven't yet located the pictures from that visit.

garden view This is a view of Butchart Gardens near Victoria on Vancouver Island. This portion of the gardens is built in a reclaimed quarry so is at the bottom of a steep sided pit. This area is fairly typical of the garden and displays both the strength and weakness of this garden. The garden presents a brilliant cascade of color tastefully arranged against a nicely landscaped background and has strong appeal to the casual tourist, but at the same time the majority of the plants are set out in full bloom and rotated regularly so there is relatively little to interest the serious gardener. There are a few perennial borders and beds scattered about, but they occupy only small parts of the garden. The garden in very popular and draws large crowds daily. Jennifer took this photo in August of 1996.

This is a view of a section of perennial border in Stanley Park which occupies some prime real estate on the northwest shore of the city of Vancouver. Jennifer took the photo in August of 1996. I'm not sure what flowers are blooming, but from looking at an enlargement I think the pink clumps at the far end are Japanese Anemones. They were blooming heavily in the VanDusen gardens during an August trip the previous year.

The 55 acre VanDusen Botanical Garden is also located in the city of Vancouver and must rank at or near the top of North American gardens. This view is looking in from the entrance in a northwesterly direction. The garden has many points of interest and claims over 6500 different kinds of plants. This photo and those that follow were taken in August of 1995.

It was a little late in the season for Delphiniums to be at their best, but several plants were still making a nice display. Purple, blue, and white varieties were scattered around the garden. This white Delphinium graces the edge of a small patio near the entrance. I particularly liked the look of it next to the teak bench.

This interesting shrub was covered with this nice purple bottle brush type flower. It was unlabeled, but I've since been told the image suggests it is a Hebe. Typically, books list most Hebe varieties as only being hardy in zones 8 and above, but that may be overly cautious. I've overwintered variety 'Amy' in zone 7 and am now trying several others.

Here's another nice blue variety with a black bee in the center of each flower. A 315 x 768 pixel image is available.

Several beautiful ponds lurked around every corner...most were spanned by stone or wooden bridges of various kinds providing many interesting and restful views of water and plantings. This image is also available as a 640 x 480 pixel version.

This long semi-circular border backed by a hedge is mostly captured in this picture taken with a 20 mm lens. The soil sloped upward toward the back of the border so that most plants were completely visible and fully exposed to the sun. The two large clumps in the center are grasses. I've made a large 1800 x 550 pixel image available so you can see this border in more detail. It's probably not worth downloading this 190 kB file unless your images show up in windows that have scroll bars.

	There was a large bed of Japanese Anemones near the peak of their bloom. I liked these pink ones, but there were also clumps of single white ones and groups where the two were intermingled. All were standing about four feet tall.
These purple flowers floated on the tips of the branches of a shruby herbaceous plant that stood about four feet tall and at least as wide. The plant was very open with relatively few leaves and made a nice impression. The shrub was unlabeled, but I've since been told it is a Solanum, and one of my books has an image of Solanum rantonnetti "Royal Robe' that seems to match. Unfortunately, this genus is not winter hardy in most places. This image is available in a large 1024 x 768 pixel version.
	A nice drift of oriental lilies was blooming in a bed under under some low trees. All of the flowers were pointing downward so I couldn't get a full face shot even down on my hands and knees. Still they were very pretty.
	The VanDusen gardens has both formal and informal sections with several ponds and other water features. This is the only formal pool I noticed. We got here early in the morning so there were not many people about.
This image is looking down from a high point in Queen Elizabeth Park. We got to this 130 acre public park late in the afternoon and it was a very popular spot on this sunny weekend day. The flowers here are mostly bedding annuals that have been set out to provide masses of semi-formal bloom. The high hill in the park also provides panoramic views of Vancouver.
	The next day we visited the 2.5 acre Park and Tilford Gardens in North Vancouver. It is located at one end of a shopping center, but despite this intimate contact with commerce, its walls, fences, and twisty turny paths provide many secluded and inward looking areas and almost complete isolation. There's a Bread Garden resturant adjacent to the entrance so it's a nice place to take a relaxing lunch.
The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is located a few blocks to the east of downtown Vancouver and while it has only limited planting, it does present a pleasant and secluded oasis behind its exterior walls. We visited this garden several years ago without a camera, but the staff was kind enough to provide these photos taken in late summer. A reflecting pond winds through much of the interior providing many tranquil reflected images such as the one on the right which shows a structure called a Ting. You can't tell it from the photo, which is also available in a 309 x 480 pixel version, but the water is clouded with carefully cultivated algae to give it a jade green color. The smaller picture shows one of many different "leak" windows located in the high walls that separate the garden from the bustle of city life.

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