Not many weeds, but a beautiful place anyway...

I just got back yesterday morning from taking the girls, seeing my cousins, visiting with old and new friends, and attending a conference in Victoria, BC. We saw a weedy animal - feral rabbits - reducing clover populations at the University of Victoria; I can't tell you how many times in the last few days I've heard "Mommy, can we have a bunny?" We spend many lovely hours at a neighborhood beach, just down the street from a neighborhood grocery and coffee shop, all walking distance from our university housing.

In terms of my life as a gardener, though, the undeniable highlight was Butchart Gardens, two-bus ride away and worth every second of transfer time and curb-sitting we spent getting there and back. I've seen gardens and arboretums (arboretae?) in many places, but never one with green roofs on the snack shacks, green roofs on the trash cans, and flowers which could inspire my children to take 300 photos within a 2 hour span. (The flowers shown are a bed set in the top of a waste receptacle - I can't even bring myself to call it a trash can)

I only had one regret about the place: the lawns were absolutely even, grass-only, and golf-course perfect. Clearly, undeniably, sprayed. The lawns were the only bit of wasted space in the whole place. I've never been anywhere, never even imagined a place, where I'd like the trash cans better than the lawns, but at Butchart Gardens, that's not even an insult.