The Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton

Today we planned to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens at Burlington near Hamilton as well as going to a few of Hamilton's over 100 waterfalls. Too ambitious a project as we hadn't taken into account the scale of the gardens. So the waterfalls will have to wait till another day.The gardens span Bayview Junction, a major railway junction, and host several popular locations for railfanning (trainspotting). They are divided into several themed gardens, the first one being Hendrie Park which has a rose garden, herb garden, vegetable gardens, scent garden and medicinal garden. It was quite nice but nothing like the most wonderful gardens of all - the Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island.

I thought this had  white and green leaves but the white is actually a blossom. It's called Flowering Dogwood.

The water plants were very pretty.

The water lilies are yellow but it does not come out very well in the photo.

These water lilies are actually blue.

Some more water plants.

Most of the roses that were out were past their best but these were nice.









We then drove to the Rock Garden which was built in 1930/1931 on the site of an abandoned gravel pit. Before its transformation, the surrounding area was littered with billboards and old shacks. As part of a make-work beautification project during the Depression, tons of weathered limestone rocks were brought in from nearby quarries to create the garden’s structure and its charming, irregular network of staircases, linked ponds, bridges, and waterfalls. Decades later, the rocks look as though they’ve been in place forever. This is a very beautiful garden, tranquil and mysterious.

On one of the lawns we noticed three traps set up with bait (vegetation) to catch some sort of wild critter. Jim didn't rest until he had found a gardener to explain what they were trying to catch. They told us they were trying to catch groundhogs but were emphatic that they didn't harm them but let them out somewhere else where they were no longer a threat to the gardens.

On our way to the Rock Gardens we had to pass under a road bridge where there were honey bee nests.

When we got to the third garden, the Laking Gardens, the attendant informed us that she was closing the garden because there was a thunderstorm alert so we had to return to our car and await the thunder and rain before being able to see the garden. I think they are called the Laking Gardens because there is a lake nearby.

 When we first made our way to the Laking Gardens, a group of about 7 men were also on the path. They stopped at the barrier here looking out to the lake. They were still there when we came back from our second trip and strangely enough were all ensconced in folding chairs. We thought it was very strange but Jim asked one of the men what was of interest here. It turns out that they are members of a railfan club and every 2nd Tuesday in June they come to this location to spot trains! There wasn't a train to be sighted but he assured us that in an hour's time there would be plenty of activity. We left them to their obsession!

Railfanning!

In Laking Gardens, visitors are warned to watch their step as turtles are likely to be nesting in the fertile soil of the lower terrace. We didn't see any turtles but we did see a chipmunk - the first we've seen in Canada. Jim was happy as a chipmunk!

 And we saw a snake - a garden (grass?) snake. Virtually harmless according to one of the railfanners.

How do you like that, Fearghal!

Tomorrow Niagara Falls - but without Oli!