Tag Archives: Butchart gardens

Even The Trashcans are Elegant

I have posted a few things about Butchart Gardens but this is a slightly silly one.  Like any public place, they need to have trash cans around the place for the visitors to deposit their detritus.  In their case, they can’t just have a normal trash can.  That would be far too out of keeping with the rest of the venue.  They need to have something more in keeping.  How about these for the best looking trash cans you have come across.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

I posted previously about the Christmas lights at Butchart Gardens but I separately kept the theme of the Twelve Days of Christmas for its own post.  There is a route that you follow through the gardens to see the illuminations and along that route are a series of scenes for the twelve days.  The first one you come to is clearly the partridge in a pear tree and you go from there.

I share each of the shots in turn to illustrate what they have.  Some are pretty straightforward.  Six geese a’laying is not obscure.  The Four Calling Birds had a few people puzzle until they realized that they had cellphones.  I found the French Hens pretty amusing.  The leaping lords were frogs behind a wall and they came up in a varying pattern.  Getting a shot with most of them in required some patience.  The pipers were just a bit creepy for me.

When you finish walking around the gardens, you think something is wrong.  You are back at the start and you haven’t seen twelve drummers drumming.  The reason for that is that they are on the arches over the road that exits the gardens from the parking lot.  If you aren’t paying attention, you could easily miss them.  We had seen this previously but I had forgotten and it was a little while before I remembered and looked off from the area near the gift shop and saw them.  The arms of the drummers do move but the photos won’t tell that tale.

Butchart Gardens Christmas Lights 2021

Our visit to Victoria over the Thanksgiving holiday coincided with the first nights of the Christmas lights at Butchart Gardens.  Pre-booking a time was necessary with COVID precautions in effect but we had planned ahead so that was taken care of.  We actually got there earlier in the afternoon to have a wander around while there was still some light before taking a full walk around again when the lights were at their most effective.

There will be a separate post on the Christmas theme to the lights.  For this post, I am going to share some shots of the general lighting of the gardens.  We were there two years ago and they don’t change much between each year.  I think there is a small change each year and that is fine with me because it really looks fantastic.  Conveying the impression of the lighting in photos is tricky because the way the eye sees things in the dark is different to the camera with the darks being too dark or the lights blowing out.

However, I hope these shots give some idea of the way it looked.  On our previous visit, I had been blown away by the use of green lasers to illuminate the undersides of the trees creating a star-like effect under the foliage.  That was there again and looked just as good.  I did think to look backwards as we walked around – it is easy to get fixated on what is ahead of you – and that area looked great from a distance too.  This time there was an area with some red lasers and, while on a smaller scale, it looked very effective too.

Butchart Gardens is worth a visit at any time of year but, if you get to go for the Christmas lights, do take the opportunity.  It is a lovely display and it is very tastefully done.  There are plenty of gaudy light displays and, while this one is not understated, it certainly is still tasteful.

Japanese Garden at Butchart

Our visit to Butchart Gardens was focused on the lights but we got their before the sun went down and explored the Japanese garden.  It was closed for the lights event so this was the only time to check it out.  The gardens as a whole were quite quiet so it was peaceful wandering around the plants, across the bridges and around the water features.

There was a device for scaring wild boar.  It was a water clock which would gradually fill with running water at which point it would overbalance, tip out the water and then fall back making a noise designed to startle any passing wild boar.  I was particularly interested in some branches for one of the plants that were twisted into some bizarre patterns.  I couldn’t make out whether this was natural or not but, if it is, I do wonder what the purpose would be.

Butchart Gardens Christmas Lights

While we got to Butchart Gardens before the sun set as seen in this post, the purpose of the visit was to see the illuminations.  I had been there before during the day and knew it was a pretty garden but I didn’t know what to expect with the illuminations.  I thought it might be pretty but was not expecting it to be so dramatic.  The first are had some lovely lights within the trees with animated icicles.  We then followed a route around the gardens to cover all of the areas.  These areas also included displays themed around the twelve days of Christmas.

One area that really blew me away was a section under tree cover where they had lasers mounted on the tree trunks that scattered their light into the canopy above.  The effect was magical and I spent a long time looking up at it as well as trying to get a decent shot of it.  On one, the lens wasn’t originally zoomed out and so it drifted a little in zoom.  The result was rather good but not what was needed.  I like it but it will stay out of public sight.

Walking down in to the valley below the main house, the lighting was absolutely amazing.  The density of light installations and the use of color was really impressive.  The use of trees and plants to catch the light was great as was the use of some of the surrounding rock.  They also had some streams of blue lights to give the effect of flowing water.

We had arrived at the gardens before the sun went down and we got in very quickly.  There was no traffic.  As a result, we had seen the whole display after dark relatively early in the evening.  We were able to head back to town and, as we started to drive out, the traffic coming in was awful.  We were sailing out but the cars were backed up the hill.  I imagine it would take a long time to get in.  I think our timing worked well.

Butchart Cove

Just before Christmas we made a trip to Vancouver Island to see Butchart Gardens at night with their illuminations.  We got there before the sun went down and took a stroll through the Japanese Garden, a section that is closed for the night event.  At the bottom of the garden, you come to Butchart Cove.  There was a hole in the trees that provided a very predictable but worthwhile frame for the view into the cove.  I decided to go for HDR for the shot given the extreme range of light between the shady trees and the exposed cove.