Our major stop in Victoria was Butchart Gardens. Jenny Butchart had these gardens built when she was bored while her husband was off making money from his quarry. Don’t blame here. Anyhow, she kinda went crazy and just kept making more and more gardens.
They are impressive. She eventually turned the quarry itself into the Sunken Garden after all the limestone had been pulled from it.
An interesting fact that we learned about the gardens is that at any given week you can go to the gardens and see something different. They grow everything off site in greenhouses. When it’s just about perfect, they transplant it to the gardens. Then when it’s on it’s way out, they swap it for something else. What a lot of work! No wonder my gardens don’t look as good 🙂
We also tried to figure out how much it costs to maintain these gardens. Given there are 1 million visitors a year and that a ticket costs $25 it must cost about $25 million a year. See–if I had that kind of money, my gardens would be awesome!
They had these weird alien looking flowers all over the place. One of my favorites.
Dying but pretty colors. This one was probably next on the list to be transplanted.
This flower was so cool because it was actually blue. I forget what it is. Dad?
They also had an amazing rose garden with every kind of color rose imaginable. I had to resist taking pictures of all of them because, really, who wants to look at 50 pictures of roses? No, roses are best enjoyed in person. But these are just a sampling to give you an idea.
More of my favorite. They came in all different colors, too.
This one was cool looking.
Loved the muted tones of these flowers. Like an old photograph.
And some redwoods reminding me of Cali.
Himalayan blue poppy, possibly Meconopsis betonicifolia or one of it’s cousins in the same genus.