Butchart Garden - another season

 I'd been hearing raves about the tulip display at Butchart Gardens and finally made it out there for the tail end of the show.  It was a sunny, warm Sunday and, unlike normal times, there were few visitors.  No tour buses bringing hoards off the cruise ships and only locals for the most part.  Quite a treat.  Though the tulips were no longer at their peak, it was still pretty spectacular.

This is a common wall lizard and is an invasive species.  Here on the island, they originated at Rudy's Pet Park in Saanich near Butchart Garden.  They eat bees and bumble bees are are therefore a serious problem.

 

 I'd been hearing raves about the tulip display at Butchart Gardens and finally made it out there for the tail end of the show.  It was a sunny, warm Sunday and, unlike normal times, there were few visitors.  No tour buses bringing hoards off the cruise ships and only locals for the most part.  Quite a treat.  Though the tulips were no longer at their peak, it was still pretty spectacular.

Spring Continues

 After a week of unseasonably warm and windless days in April that lulled us into a false sense of impending summer, reality reasserted itself and the typical cool, windy and ever-changing spring weather is here.  Nevertheless, everywhere you go, everything is blooming. 

Some new members of the pepper plantation family

The aji lemon continues to flower

And produce fruit

Meanwhile, the red habañero is starting to fruit

And the orange habañero is fruiting as well

An elaborately decorated stick found at the beach