What strikes me when I come to Victoria is the vegetation. It is lush and dense and green even after an unusually hot, dry summer. It makes me feel like I’m in a very different place, it’s outside my image of Canada.

Flowers bloom most of the year. The annual Greater Victoria Flower Count happens in early March while most of the rest of Canada is still shovelling snow. From early spring and through the summer and fall there are flowering plants everywhere. Cherry blossoms in the spring along with magnolia, iris and rhododendron. Later, bright fuchsia bushes as big as trees, multi-hued hydrangea, lobelia, colourful snapdragon, showy angel’s trumpet and so many more.

And then there is The Butchart Gardens, which I visited for the first time. The feature flowers at this time of year were dahlias. I had no idea they came in so many varieties.

Ken and I spent a whole day wandering about. If you’re ever in Victoria, go see these gardens. I will go back for sure.

In a year when Covid has deprived us of foreign travel, it’s delightful to find this quasi-tropical abundance on our Canadian soil.