Attention gardeners: which botanical garden should we visit?

[Canuker]

I know there are several botanical / horticultural gardens in the Vancouver and Victoria BC areas.

My wife is an avid gardener and we both enjoy visting one garden in the area we are going to.

Which one should we choose, please?

 

[ell52]

If you're just going to one place in Vancouver, I'd recommend Van Dusen Botanical Garden  for both the variety of plants as well as the setting.  It has lots of meandering pathways that lead you to different plant groupings and is beautifully tranquil.

 

If you have time, there's also Bloedel Conservatory nearby that's under a dome and has tropical plants and birds and is situated inside Queen Elizabeth Park with its rock quarry gardens.   

 

Just wanted to add that there are lots of specialty gardens - eg. Nitobe Memorial Japanese Garden, Sun Yat Sen Garden, gardens throughout Stanley Park.  But for a serious "gardener's" garden, it's hard to beat Van Dusen. 

Edited November 6, 2019 by ell52

[martincath]

Restricting yourself to just one garden while over this side will be... challenging! If you seriously want to visit only one, then you'll have to figure out which garden is best for you as they cover a vast array of different styles.

 

I'd have to agree that the Van Dusen/QEP combo is hard to beat in Vancouver between what's there, how convenient they both are to visit together, and even a discounted ticket to do both VD & the Bloedel (not that either is pricey anyway, both of them plus a taxi each way from a downtown hotel will still give you change compared to Butchart!) VD also has one of the very few hedge mazes on the continent - and since QEP is free, aside from the Bloedel, you can also check out their quarry gardens for a flavour of Butchart's stylings and maybe grab lunch at Seasons resto with sweeping views right across the city.

 

Given how compact it is though, and super-easy to visit without even leaving downtown, and virtually unique, and also the single finest Chinese garden anywhere in the world except actually inside China, Dr Sun Yat-Sen really is also a must-do if you are remotely interested in the style. There are guided tours, on the hour almost every hour in summer, included in the entry fee - they last ~45mins and really need to be done to understand the subtleties of what you're looking at.

 

Since it's highly unlikely anyone visiting Vancouver won't be in Stanley park at some point, the Rose Garden within that is also worth seeing unless you hate roses - it's a little bigger than the one down at the Ex in T.O. If you're into rhodies there are also a few dozen completely unique ones within the almost-5,000 total in that garden. Why don't I just link you to the relevant part of the park boards website - you'll also find QEP, VD, Bloedel info there.

 

If you'll be out at UBC for e.g. the Museum of Anthropology, then the Rose Garden there is small but totally free and right on top of the handiest car park for MOA. It also has a fantastic view. Nitobe is also heartily recommended - try to schedule a visit for when there's a Tea Ceremony on.

 

Butchart is deservedly-famous, and if you're going to Victoria without plans to visit anything else it's hard not to recommend it - especially if you can be there on a summer Saturday night when there are fireworks (every other night you're subsidizing the 'free' show...). The real draw here is also that fact that, while pricey, you have multiple different gardens all on the same site - the main quarry garden is the best of them IMO. So if you're absolutely set on a single garden visit logic dictates you'd probably get the most out of Butchart - and you would also lose out on the fewest other opportunities, as Vancouver has a metric buttload more other stuff to do than Victoria does! But I'd still be very inclined to keep at least Sun Yat-Sen and the Stanley park roses or rhodies in your plans even if you settle on Butchart as the main garden visit.

[cruiseryyc]

Really depends on how much time you have.  If you're only Vancouver for a couple of days before catching a cruise, you don't really have time to get over to Victoria.  If one of your cruise stops is Victoria and you have at least six hours, then go to Butcharts.