Butchart Gardens Oct 14

Ray's been itching to go down to Victoria to the Butchart Gardens for some fall colour pictures, especially since we bought season passes. After looking at the weather forecast, Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days before the rains come again. We made the last minute decision to go on Tuesday, since we're having company on Wednesday for wine tasting.

We're starting to get great colour here at the lake.

It's a cold morning to start, with fog on the water and ice/frost on our sundeck. We headed out about 9:45 to Victoria. Traffic's light and roads were dry. A beautiful day to drive.

We arrived at Butchart 15 minutes before the Dining Room opened. Perfect. They're featuring an afternoon tea as the only item on the menu.

They have a beautiful dining room with lots of little rooms set up for guests.

Our table with a view of the Italian Garden

Dessert first and I had a flight of wines.

Ok, we're all fuelled up and it's warmed up some to start touring the gardens. It's 2C (35F) this morning at home with frost, first one of the season.

We decided to go to the Japanese Garden first, hoping that the maples have all changed colour. There's some colour, but not like this picture, which we were hoping for.

Butchart Gardens Fall Picture

This picture below, was one Ray took 2 years ago, not fall but still more colour than today's picture.

Ray's picture of same area.

It's still really pretty though.

Now off to the rest of the gardens.

They've planted fall mums everywhere in every colour imaginable!

Who knew begonias could grow so tall.

Off to the sunken garden.

Then came the dahlia gardens. Wow!

Currently they are planting hundreds of thousands of flower bulbs in preparation for the Spring bloom. They are also planting thousands of english daisy's for greenery in the empty looking beds. These will winter well apparently and offer some colour first in the spring.

 We also saw several workers working on the Christmas Light Display. Fall is a busy time at Butchart.

"In preparation for the spring season, there are hundreds of thousands of flower bulbs being planted throughout The Gardens, and along with that comes the sound of trowels piercing through the nutrient rich soil. Gardening staff are well underway digging up summer annuals, rototilling flower beds, and planting up a storm. This is one of the most physically challenging times of the year for horticulturalists, yet they handle this job with ease. To make this task even more challenging, autumn often brings with it intense storms, and those weather events can require an all-hands-on deck approach to cleanup. Navigating around storms during planting requires a well thought out approach that our staff do so well. Returning in the spring will allow you to see the results of everyone’s hard work that is underway in The Gardens right now."

We had a great day and arrived back home at 4 pm. The drive back was pleasant and we seemed to have missed most of the traffic. Bonus!