VanDusen Botanical Garden
One of the Top Rated Destinations in Vancouver
VanDusen is a multiple-city block garden in the heart of
Vancouver. Because it's so close to were I live, it's always
been a go to place for a short walk on a nice day. This page
is a collection of images from many different nice days.
Flowers at VanDusen
The garden is broken into areas
representing different parts of the world - a Japanese garden, a
Himalaya's area, South American section and so on. Areas not
representing other parts of the world still have dramatic features
like ponds and large grassy lawns.
The garden has a wide variety of structures
- bridges, shelters, pools - to keep you interested in walking
around. My favorite features are actually quite close to the
entrance - the bridges over shallow ponds where you can see all
sorts of aquatic life.
The garden tries to have attractions for all
seasons. Spring and summer are easy (flowers) but the fall
can be very dramatic as well. Most of the west coast is
quite boring in fall - evergreen trees staying green and leafy
trees that just go brown.
The garden has a corner with a number of
mature Japanese Maples. We had a line up of photographers
wanting to take advantage of this particular tree.
Animals in VanDusen
One of the
things that impressed my was the wildlife in the garden.
There is a large colony of Great Blue Heron's in Stanley Park and
they fan out over the city every day looking for something to
ear. When Heron's fish - they stand very still may not seem
care as we approached fairly close.
The turtles in VanDusen are aquarium
escapees - invasive species. I've always wondered why
VanDusen doesn't try to include native Turtles, but if Native
turtles were present in the pond they would probably limit what
the garden can do for gardening.
Bird life
at VanDusen is reasonably rich. It is an urban garden so you
often run into the expected urban birds. Sometimes you get
lucky and stumbled into an owl. We almost missed it - a
woman said there was an owl ahead but wasn't very specific about
where. We actually walked past it before giving up and
checking our tracks. Glad we found it.
The insect life at VanDusen is pretty rich
as well. In the summer there are lots of opportunities to see
dragonflies and in the fall orb weavers are very common.
Festival of Lights
Probably the biggest crowds at VanDusen are
for the Christmas themed Festival of Lights in December and early
January. They decorate a limited section of garden with a
dense mat of lights and then sprinkle in vendors selling
traditional food.
Snow in Vancouver is rare and when it does
come, it is often in January or February - a white Christmas is
very rare.
It was the last day of the light show (a few days after New Years)
so the crowds were pretty thin.
The only downside was that lots of lights weren't on. I
suspect that with the connections buried in snow for so long, there
were electrical issues and they couldn't find the connections to fix
it.
Pond Dipping
Last year Nara and I stumbled into a class
of kids doing pond dipping on the zigzag bridge at VanDusen.
The class was full and most of the kids were well past five - the
minimum age. I asked if Nara could participate but there
just wasn't enough equipment. We signed up Nara this year
for the afternoon session during Claira's nap. Turns out
they had attendance issues this year - the afternoon class was
canceled and the morning class was only half full. The
teachers were quite accommodating and it turns out the average age
was about 4 years of age.
Claira didn't last the whole hour and a half - we needed to go for a
walk to see the turtles and just generally jump around. One of
the two naturalists managed to grab a turtle that was sunning itself
on the rocks (not a very bright escaped pet) so the kids got a "not
to close!" look at a turtle. A duck and it's babies swam by -
the kids had a good time.
Tags: VanDusen(32), lights(12), snow(9), garden(4), insect(3), night(3)
People: Nara(2), Claira(2)
From: John Harvey Photo > VanDusen Botanical Garden
From: John Harvey Photo > Photos of Vancouver > VanDusen Botanical Garden
Last Modified Saturday, January 21st, 2023 at 23:53:24 Edit
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