Springtime at Butchart Gardens

My friend Colleen and I enjoyed (delicious) lunch and a wander through Butchart Gardens yesterday.  It was a truly lovely way to spend the day. The gardens are in full flower, dressed in their spring best.  

Here are some photos, shared here in the order we saw the sights yesterday.  Click on the first one to be taken to a larger view, then scroll through the images as a slide show.

Enjoy!  :)

Good Morning

The blossoms are fading on the apple and plum trees, tender green leaves taking their place. The ladies of orchard are putting aside their party dresses and donning work-a-day clothes. Soon they will fade into their surroundings, occupied with the business of making fruit, but there are glories still to come.  Japonica is blushing in the garden and the first red tulips are opening to the sun.  The pear trees have not yet blossomed, nor have the May trees tipped their fingers with tiny, perfectly formed rosettes. The double flowering cherries have yet to shake their flounces to the breeze.  

Along the edge of the water this morning, patches of naturalized forsythia brought bright sunshine to the undergrowth and salmon berry flowers, deep pink with yellow centres waved from twig ends dancing as a breath of wind passed by.  A family of tiny brown rabbits breakfasted on new green grass, shooting back into the shrubbery at the first sign of movement.  Wary creatures:  they know that eagles are circling above, looking for food for their own offspring.

In a farm orchard along the road, a fawn - spotted and still wobbly-legged - stood by its mother in the dappled shade.  So well was it camouflaged that I didn't see it at all until I was right beside it.  In the field opposite, several black lambs chased each other in the morning sunshine, calmly watched over from a distance by their breakfasting mothers and by one enormously pregnant goat, so round that I was amazed her legs could support her weight.

What a precious time of year this is!  So much life poised on the threshold; a tangible, constantly changing reminder of renewal.