The Tailor and I just got back from a week on Vancouver Island. It was my second trip there, and I couldn’t wait to show him the Butchart Gardens on a sunny day.
Most stunning of all is the spectacular Sunken Garden, which feels like an English garden crossed with something out of Lewis Carroll’s imagination. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Queen of Hearts might step out from behind a topiary, flamingo in hand.
The Sunken Garden is a landscaping masterpiece, a labor of love by Jennie Butchart, the wife of an early-20th-century industrial magnate. Jennie spent many years rehabilitating a spent limestone quarry, carting in topsoil and coaxing it into a living jewel. The garden is set up so that something is blooming in every season, but summer is really the time to see it in all its glory.
If you go, be ready for hordes of tourists—and despite that, for the overwhelming urge to move in and stay forever.
Ghost domes 
Twists and turns 
The Loneliest Road
I’ve been to this visual fable, and you’ve really captured its quiet dedication to tranquility. Also had “high tea” there, another way to eat the place up, clotted cream and all.
Really love your greens here. Your colours remind me of 1930s illustrations- my grandmother had jigsaw puzzles with similar colours. Really fabulous.
Oh these are so beautiful–I am so glad I have discovered your blog! I am not a sketchbook user, as I tend to sketch randomly on single sheets of 8-1/2 x 11. But your sketchbook pages are truly inspiring, and make me realize why keeping a book is so important.
Your sketchbook is wonderful. I am inspired…