Floral

I have finally had time to view and crop my photos of Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island, visited between Edmonton and Salt Spring Island. I needed to view them on the big screen of my desktop computer where the monitor shows colour much better.

I believe this was the first time I have ever seen blue poppies, except in photographs.

These are Oriental Blue Poppies.

They were slightly past their peak, but still beautiful.

This is a type of white poppy. I don't remember the exact name but I found it very stunning. I tend to shy away from white work in my quilts, finding values of white difficult to deal with.

Nevertheless, I did create a white magnolia once, but it had a strong hint of green in it.

This poppy is really white!

It seems the blue flowers (some of my favorites) are in bloom this time of year. Here are delphinium in a deep hue

and a lighter hue. The same flowers, though not as lush, were blooming in my own garden when I arrived home.

Really really loved the field of pink/orange/yellow snapdragons! 

A variety of roses were in bloom.

Irises were near the end of their season.

Dahlias were just coming into their season.

I am really enamoured of this smoke bush! I love the shimmer of the leaves in the sun, with one side of the leaf being an eggplant purple and the other being the complementary colour of orange. Can't stop thinking about them!

Banana plants, back lit. There's that wonderful yellow-green again!

Petunias climbing over a wall.

On my last day I took a drive to downtown Victoria just to photograph the hydrangea. I saw them several years ago outside the Fairmont Empress Hotel. I was thrilled to find them again.

I hope you enjoyed this visit to one of Canada's most beautiful and frequently-visited flower gardens.