BC Day in Tod Inlet

Ever delightful parade of blossoms in Butchard Gardens

Bees are too busy drinking sweet nectar to bother with nosy photographers.

A fountain of vibrant colours inside a lily

'Ground coverage' inmpossible to achieve in my little garden at home

Musical Fountain in the old gravel pit

Dew touched Begonia, as large as dinner plates

Creative art in hybrid vigor

Mossy bug clinging to the wall of the Rose Carousel

A throne for a Queen Bee

Football sized Dahlia

And another fuzzy head...

Pink Hydrangea blossoms

A perfect Zinnia

Whirligig Daisy

Grass snake curled around a fallen rose petal

Roses of any stripe abound

Garden visitor contemplating global warming

Each one is worth 1.04 cents US

Taking a shot at Jenny Butchard's Private Retreat

Live Garden Ornament

Ice Cream Queen

Back in Tod Inlet rowing my rubber raft into the far shallows....

Butchard Garden - a perennial favourite for millions of Visitors from around the Globe.
Summer flowers are in full bloom, and offering photo ops only limited by the imagination of photographers and the capacity of digital memory cards in their cameras.
The Rose Carousel in the Garden - new last year - is fully functional, albeit not too many children seem to take advantage of the $2 ride on one of the phantasmagorical animals offering magical rides. Visitors are certainly herded in a discreet but unmistakable manner towards the latest attraction, as diverging garden paths are blocked in a strategic way as to shepherd everyone past the Carousel's ticket counter and old-fashioned popcorn cart to entice unruly youngsters into bullying their parents into buying a ride or at least a bag of popcorn.
All the ice cream and snack concessions throughout the park are doing a reasonably brisk business, however, the plant identification centre (complimentary and depending on sales of tiny satchels of seeds) is closed - probably no longer a viable profit centre.
Tables outside the Garden Cafe no longer have large shade spending umbrellas, which used to invite to leisurely lounging around over a cup of coffee or a large cone of delicious ice cream. Now shadeless, the unrelenting heat of the sun (now that there finally has appeared some sunshine) drives everyone back into the cool gardens before frying to a crisp, thus freeing the tables quicker for the next lot of customers.
It is still an unequalled people watching venue, offering a free show of a broad section of humanity. Broad is the operative word, as the biomass of individual humans making up the thousands of daily visitors, seems to increase and broaden from one year to the next.
If one sits here long enough, everyone one has ever known, will pass by - sooner or later.
The art gallery has altered its offerings from works of 'art' to arts and crafts items, somewhat more affordable than the appealing bronze statues of earlier seasons.
The fashions in the gift store are quite attractive and wearable - and for the die hard slogan wearers and stylistically challenged, there are the obligatory commemorative t-shirts, baseball caps, hoodies and sweats. Something for every one's taste.
The main attraction remains unaltered and unquestionably a luxurious feast for the eyes. The myriad of colours, hues, shades, shapes, sizes and scents of never ending beds of blossoms, flowering bushes and artistically composed trees in various shades of green are wondrous and beautiful. Bees, dragon flies, bumble bees enjoy the nectar of the blooms. A lone grass snake curls up in a shady spot amongst cool rose petals.
On summer Saturday Nights, just after dusk, splendid fireworks light up the sky, and sounds like a whole artillery firing mortars echo from the mountains of Gowland Tod Park - frightening many a timid dog in the process.
Visitors inside the gardens are treated to magnificent sparkling sprays of brilliant light at a lower levels - just below tree top line - with firework bugs, flowers and animals tracing fiery lines into the dark night. Boaters outside the Gardens, especially those not anchored in the prime viewing spots, are still are able to enjoy the three highlights of sky high bursts, which outreach every tree in the park and can be seen and heard throughout the Inlet. The 'lower fireworks' are invisible from a boat, though.
Not too large a crowd of boats had anchored in the Inlet for firework night.
The relative quiet of BC Anchorages and Marinas seems to be a common theme in many popular marine destinations so far. In previous years, during July and August being school vacations, the waters were almost too crowded to be enjoyable. Competition over anchoring spots, tie up buoyes and dock space at Marinas seems to have disappeared into never-neverland of slow economy, high Loonie and low US Dollar exchange rate, and high gas and diesel prices.