Last September I stumbled across a fragrant surprise
behind the British Columbia Parliament Buildings:
The Premier's Rose Garden.
The Premier's Rose Garden
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
September 10, 2017
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
I've visited this lovely spot
a number of times,
and I rarely see anyone in it.
It's quiet, peaceful, and beautiful,
and I enjoy wandering around
seeing and smelling all the gorgeous roses.
Kosmos Fairy Tale White Floribunda Roses
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Livin' Easy Orange Floribunda Roses
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Buxom Beauty Pink Hybrid Tea Roses
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Julia Child Yellow Floribunda Roses
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Henry Whittaker, Chief Architect for the British Columbia Department of Public Works,
designed the rectangular-shaped garden with its boxwood hedges and central sundial.
Paved paths in the shape of a cross divide the rose garden into four quadrants
featuring different rugosa, tea, floribunda, and grandiflora roses.
Central Sundial
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Central Sundial
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Satellite Imagery of the Premier's Rose Garden
Behind the West Annex of the British Columbia Parliament Buildings
Imagery: Google
Map Data: Google 2017
The Premier's Rose Garden was constructed
as a relief project in 1935-36 during the Great Depression.
It sits on the former site of one of the original
parliament buildings known as the "Bird Cages."
The garden was dedicated to British Columbia's Premier Bill Bennett
in 1986 and renamed "The Premier's Rose Garden."
The old parliament buildings ("bird cages") and land office
Source: City of Vancouver Archives
Reference Code: AM54-S4-: Out P1027
Copyright Status Public Domain
Anywhere you walk among the colorful roses,
you can smell their beautiful fragrances
and hear the sound of honeybees buzzing among the blooms.
Apricot/Pink Floribunda Roses
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Easy Going Yellow Floribunda Roses
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Buxom Beauty Pink Hybrid Tea Roses
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Living' Easy Orange Floribunda Roses
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Pink/White Hybrid Tea Roses
The Premier's Rose Garden
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
When you sit on one of the quiet benches in a shady spot in the garden,
it's hard to imagine that Victoria's bustling Inner Harbour is only a few hundred yards away.
If you let your imagination drift, it's easy to imagine that you've
stumbled across Briar Rose's enchanted castle.
The Premier's Rose Garden
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
but this is my favorite.
Information Source: leg.bc.ca
And you got some amazing photos. That's a rare find.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Alex! I have a lot of fun playing with my camera and photos. It's also fun to share my photos with others. Have a good one!
DeleteIt's gorgeous! Thanks for all the beautiful photos!
ReplyDeleteHappy Monday, Debra! I know that you enjoy visiting beautiful Victoria too. The Robert Bateman Center is having a free day on Saturday, and I'm planning to go there then. I love our hotel location kitty-corner to the entrance of Beacon Hill Park and kitty-corner to the Royal BC Museum ~ It's the perfect jumping off point to explore the city. Have a great week, my friend!
DeleteSure great shots indeed. Looks like you found a great spot to stroll through and stop and smell the roses haha
ReplyDeleteHaha! You were responsible for me staying up way too late last night as I began reading "Delivered." The book is off to a great start ~ Love the warm, loving family feel to the beginning. Well, not Marvin. I'm already hoping that he meets a bad demise. Have a good one, my friend!
Deletehaha I don't mind taking responsibility for that.
Delete:)
Deletelovely flowers
ReplyDeleteAren't they lovely! Victoria has the most beautiful flowers of any city I can think of, and its roses are the loveliest of all. It's easy to see so much of the old city and parks within walking distance of our hotel. I think you would enjoy it here, because there is history everywhere you turn. I hope that you and Daisy have a great week.
DeleteHow gorgeous, Louise!!! I thoroughly enjoyed your beautiful photos, thank you so much for sharing, dear friend.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Linda! If gives me such pleasure to be able to share my photos. My husband thinks I'm nuts to spend time blogging ~ But he doesn't get it. But that's okay! All he has to do is accept it! Have a great day, my special Montreal friend! XOXOX
DeleteBeautiful roses. I'm glad you took pleasure from this endeavour. Nice to have some 'time out'. The building looks magnificent as well, a nice back drop to admire. Take good care.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Love love, Andrew. Bye.
Thanks, Andrew! Victoria is an amazing city to explore with a camera. I just have a little point and shoot Canon, but I have a lot of fun with it. I'd go for a bigger, more sophisticated camera, but I'm too impatient and don't like lugging a lot of things. Have a great day!
DeleteI don't like lugging things around. I wear a bum-bag for my travelling possessions. Take good care. Have a great week.
DeleteThank you. Love love, Andrew. Bye.
Traveling light is the way to go!
DeleteI'm surprised more visitors aren't wandering the gardens. They are so lovely, I can't imagine living close by and not strolling through frequently. You took some very pretty photos of the roses, I can see why the gardens enchant you.
ReplyDeleteHi, Teresa! I think the garden is often overlooked, since the main parliamentary grounds are on the other side of the buildings. The other side is also where Victoria's busy Inner Harbour is, along with the famous Empress Hotel and all sorts of tourist attractions. I wouldn't have known about the garden myself, if I hadn't cut across the grounds one day looking for a shorter route to my hotel. There is very little about the Premier's Rose Garden on line, and you'd have to know of the garden to search for it. It's a shame because the garden is beautiful, and the roses are fragrant. I'll take roses with beautiful scents over showy roses with little smell any day. But because the garden is less well known, I get to enjoy it in peace in quiet ~ Not such a bad thing! Have a good one!
DeleteI envy you dear Louise for visiting such beautiful garden as roses are my most favorite flowers since always!
ReplyDeleteyou took amazing photos of colorful heavenly place.
i am so glad that you took me with you through your lovely pics though i have strong deep imagination and finding myself beside you on desk under shady tree while inhaling the fragrance of these enchanting beauties :)
Thank you so much for giving the satellite view it gives perfect view of this quite old garden.
sundial looks interesting though i don't know about it's function my friend
Roses are one of my most favorite flowers too, Baili, along with lilacs and apple blossoms. All three flowers have enchanting scents. I smell my way through a garden, let me tell you. A wonderful imagination is a true gift, and I am happy that you are blessed with one! I was delighted to find the satellite image of the garden to show its layout. A sundial is an old-fashioned device used to tell time. It has a pointer that casts a shadow onto a clock. The shadow moves as the sun crosses the sky, and the shadow gives a rough estimate of the time. It was about two pm when I took the photo. Of course the sundial only works on sunny days and definitely not at night. Have a good one!
DeleteOh the roses are so BEAUTIFUL...that's one thing I want in my future garden is a rose garden. I think they're lovely and I love the symbolism behind each colour. I have a book on "the language of flowers", it's very interesting! The sundial is awesome too. You don't see that kind of thing very often! :)
ReplyDeleteHi, Rain! I love roses, and I can't resist taking photos of them, even when I have a lot already. I keep thinking, "But I don't have this rose!" LOL There is another sundial relatively nearby the one in the Premier's Rose Garden. It's down near the entrance to the Ogden Point Breakwater. It's huge and is actually on the ground. You stand on it to cast your shadow to tell the time. It's even adjusted for the months of the year. Sadly, many people walk right by it, and even across it, without realizing it's right there. Have a great day!
DeleteOh I would love to walk through that rose garden. The smell of roses just takes me away as if under a magical spell. Thanks for sharing your photos.
ReplyDeleteThe fragrance of the roses was wonderful, Truedessa! I'm sure you would enjoy walking there! Take care!
DeleteTruly gorgeous! Thank you for sharing such beautiful pictures!! Maybe I have to take a trip! Big Hugs!
ReplyDeleteBig hugs back at you, Stacy! I think you're here with me in spirit, because I am running into crows frequently! LOL Have a good one!
DeleteHello Dear Louise,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your latest comments on my post, your sense of observation really stunned me... I hadn't seen how the eye ring has an hexagonal shape... There you truly amazed me!!! I was so mesmerised by its dance that I saw nothing else, LOL!!!
That garden seems very beautiful, although too tame for me - !!!!!!!- and I was wondering how you knew about the names of the roses.... Do they give an explanatory flyer at the entrance ?
You must come out of there very light-headed with all these fabulous fragrances and the roses are magnificent.
But what strikes me most is the sundial... I don't know why but they fascinate me!
After the technology loss of the great civilisations that preceded ours, a simple instrument such as a sundial is extraordinary, simple and precise.
Many thanks again for your sweet visits, you are definitively at the top of my favourite blog readers' list ;-))))
Warm hugs and enjoy what ever you're doing!!
Good morning, my dear friend Noushka! Thanks for your kind words. I think I noticed the eye ring on the stone curlew because my students and I would hunt for geometric shapes in the world. It struck me as so unusual to see that on a bird.
DeleteThere was no flyer for the Premier's rose Garden, just a two sentence blurb I found online. But the roses were all identified with plaques in the garden. I always like to know the names of things, so I usually photograph the names of things and/or information about them whenever I'm taking pictures and there is information available ~ A quick way to take notes. I learned early in life that I quickly forget details, and if I take a photograph, I want to know years later what and where it was.
Have a wonderful end of the week! Sending you hugs and love!