VanDusen Garden, Vancouver's top garden, showcases different floral blooms and fragrance and garden bed displays depending on what time of the year you visit. It's always ready for you, winter to spring, summer, and fall. Summer is when the VanDusen truly becomes a botanic garden with types and hydrids of plants claiming their respective places in this 55-acre horticultural wonderland.
Summer is when best to visit the VanDusen Garden. An annual membership fee of $45 allows you to explore the VanDusen Garden the whole year round. Non-members pay $12 to visit the Garden.
VanDusen Garden is mostly level ground, unlike Queen Elizabeth Park which has various levels for look-outs and for displaying the garden beds, borders, and islands.
So while Queen Elizabeth Park is blessed with multi-level vistas, VanDusen Garden relies heavily on massing and cleverly arranging the plantings and the sites of trees and anchor plants.
VanDusen Garden is a botanic garden, so plants are more rigidly, though still very creatively, grouped according to types and varieties and “zones.” Plant labels help you identify unusual plants or varieties of the plants. In its 55 acres, VanDusen has amassed over 7,500 species of plants from all over the world.
The top attraction for children and teenagers is the Elizabethan hedge maze which is made up of over 3,000 pyramidal cedars. The maze may be enjoyable if you’re looking for fun, maybe exasperating if you think it’s easy to find your way through the maze, and maybe too time-consuming if you’re pressed for time. So I first check your disposition before you start entering the maze. If you visit the Garden not to be flustered at all, often skip the maze. From a raised embankment, you can view the maze and admire its intricate pathways.
Another favorite spot for children is the Sunflower Patch beside the Elizabethan Maze. Here the children can walk around on the winding paths and maybe feel like Lilliputians amidst the towering sunflowers with leaves and flowers as large as their little oohing faces.
The adults, ladies more than the gents, would love the Fragrance Garden. The Fragrance Garden puts together sweet peas, Auratum lilies, chocolate cosmos, and many other sweetly scented blooming plants. Here, you may also notice the sweet-smelling roses; a formal Rose Garden is in here, too.
The roses are planted inside triangular boxed beds running parallel to a concrete sundial at the middle axis. So it's a bit challenging trying to smell the roses. At the far ends are stone arches lending formality to this rose garden.
Plants are grown according to the geographical region they are natives of. For example, there's the Canadian Garden next to the Indigenous People's Garden and native Indian sculptures like the Gitksan Totem Poles. There's a wigwam-like tent structure, tree trunks carved into shapes of people, and a collection of basaltic rock slabs, chopped logs, and a mound of brown earth at the center called 'Transformation Plant.'
Take note of the garden labels and markers as you walk through the American Garden, the Australian and New Zealand Garden, Sino-Himalayan Garden, Cascadia Garden, South African Garden, among many others.
There's also a Southern Hemisphere garden where the giant leaves of the Gunnera manicata give substance and bulk to this garden containing small-leaved Fuchsia magellanica and other dainty-leafed plants from South America. Even from afar, you can get a whiff of the scent of Nicotiana sylvestris.
The Mediterranean Garden has silvery-leaved shrubs like santolina and spurges, and many herbs. A few of the tiny plants that you now grow in cracks and crevices in your home garden are often Mediterranean in origin.
Even from afar you can see the blue sea of blooms (mostly) and pink coming from the hydrangea collection -- thanks to the many hydrangeas of various types. The Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Europa’, however, is just changing color sumptuously, as mophead hydrangeas do, morphing from deep blue to lavender, and pink.
Across from the lawn going to the waterfall, you might spot the hexagonal Korean Pavillion, shiny as the sunlight heats up and bounces off its painted posts and beams. In some areas of the posts and the corners of the decorative eaves, the elements (I suppose mainly the sun and the rain) have peeled off the special coats of paint on the pavilion. The chipped parts actually give the structure some age-weathered look.
The pavilion is a gift from the Korean government after the structure graced the Pavilion of South Korea at the 1986 World Expo in Vancouver. The hexagonal structure anchors the Sino-Himalayan Garden.
A strong windstorm in 2021, however, had the Korean Pavilion keeling on its side after being hit by a fallen tree.
Stone lantern given by the City of Yokohama (sister city of Vancouver); a Temple Calling Bell
Aside from geographical divisions of the VanDusen Garden, plants and trees are also grouped according to kinds and types. Hence, you see the Japanese maples grouped separately from the giant redwoods and from conifers. A stand of mountain ashes is placed close to but separate from the ashes, the firs, or the oaks and beeches.
The flowering shrubs are also planted by groups: deciduous azaleas as opposed to evergreen ones. Thus, the menocopsis dell is separate from the fern dell. The tree peonies and the deciduous peonies are planted separately, too.
The Himalayan menocopsis and the Japanese and Chinese astilbes are worth viewing at their blooming peak in July. The delphiniums that peak midsummer are worth seeking out, too.
The "Black Border" is very dramatic with its contrast of very dark (almost black) leaves of the berberis thunbergii, New Zealand flax, chocolate sedums, coral bells, and sambucus nigra contrasting dramatically with chartreuse and golden foliage of companion perennials.
Aside from admiring the plants, also enjoy checking out the art pieces (mostly sculptures) spread all over the Garden. Most art installations are by the main entrance and at the perimeter of sprawling lawns, but a few are hidden among the shrubbery and the flower beds.
Some are temporary pieces (or new installations) but many have been in the Garden for years as permanent artworks. Try to find the stone sculptures by Canadian and foreign artists.
The nearby so-called Perennial Garden carries more varieties of plants. Orange crocosmia, white and pink echinacea, cream and orange helenium, and the red croscosmia 'Lucifer' (what a name!) lift the look of this section with their explosion of blooms. Most of the perennials that you might be able to identify are in this group of plantings.
Make sure to take a few photos of the two fountain ponds. Have a seat by the pond and enjoy the view of the pond, beautiful foliage reflected on the waters, and perhaps watch geese and ducks swim.
Remember, VanDusen is a year-round garden, each season offering visitors different views and attractions. You want to come back during each season of the year.
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