whatever leaves are left in the front yard will stay there for all the little creatures, although there aren’t very many leaves…
the garden is a different story… currently it is difficult to see the pond as the net is nearly completely covered with leaves… the elm tree next door still has a few leaves to fall so we will likely wait for them to come down before removing the net and putting the leaves in the flowerbed closest to it…
at that point we will probably bring the fish into their winter condo…
spent time a few days ago moving plants and rearranging furniture to make space for those coming in from the garden…
first up was getting the maples into the front window, and then I put a number of small plants into the second basket planter…
ferns came in and the divider was rearranged to make space for the grow lights…
my housemate built a shelf to go under the dining room window… it is just the right height and currently holds three of the bigger plants that have come in…
then I spent time with the orchids… they have been struggling and I have kind of ignored that 😳…
I realized that a few had been planted in moss and clearly they didn’t like it… roots and dead leaves were trimmed, and pots were switched…
all of them have gone onto the shelf in the den and they look much better…
we will see how each plant feels about its new spot in the house🙂…
we took an Uber across Victoria from our hotel to Royal Rhodes University… it also is the location of Hatley Castle…
we weren’t interested in the castle, and had a bit of trouble finding the gardens we were looking for, lol… eventually we found a gardener and they set us on the correct path…
we were headed toward the Japanese Garden and did find it… there was an upper part and a lower part, with big trees, a few buildings, and peaceful vistas…
it had a lovely pond as well as some creeks…
we had fun getting some lovely shots in the garden next to the castle where it looked like you were in a beautiful meadow 🙂…
they had a few canes available and lent me one, as I forgot my monopole, which has worked out well as a bit of stabilization for me…
it is a lovely space and the highlight for me was sitting under a tree with my daughter while a hummingbird visited and sat in the tree above us… my daughter took both of the above pictures…
found a few ponds with turtles and goldfish…
I was also impressed with the methods they used to support the trees…
amazing what a group of volunteers can accomplish…
we saw giant trees, flower beds filled with flowers, roses, numerous ponds and creeks, and lots and lots of ducks…
and, the moss lady… once we found her, I was reminded of the Earth Goddess, which we visited in Atlanta in 2016… at that time I slipped under the fence and got a close up with her…
did the same thing with the moss lady, although I did not touch her…
from the bus we saw the mile zero monument, and the Terry Fox memorial…
clearly, you could spend days wandering through this park😊…
we decided to take the hop on, hop off bus and to do the whole loop to see what we might want to do the next time we took it…
the tour started at the Empress, so while we waited to board we visited the gardens there… we stepped inside the lobby to admire the beautiful arrangements and then wandered the lawns and gardens…
we found lovely flower beds and a few giant old trees…
we decided that the next day we would visit Chinatown and Beacon Hill Park…
after we’d been around once we walked to the Parkside Hotel where we saw the koi and had a snack beside the pond…
we went back to one of the stops and hopped on, and hopped off, just a few blocks from our hotel… very handy…
the next day, after I’d put on just about all the clothes I’d brought because I’d been cold the day before, lol, we caught the bus by our hotel and hopped off at Beacon Hill Park… it is very large…
we hopped on and hopped off again at the Empress and walked up a street to check out the shops… after lunch we walked to see Trounce Alley and Fan Tan Alley, which is only 3 feet wide!!! after buying a few treats, we caught the bus and hopped off at the stop which was close to our hotel;-)…
the hop on, hop off bus was worth every penny as we used it from around 1 pm the first day until around 5 pm on the second day…
