Gardens of British Columbia

Pleasance Crawford is a Canadian landscape and garden-history researcher
and writer and the co-author of Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian
Garden Writing.

Pat Kramer is a photographer, part-time tour director, and author of
several special-interest tour guides and related Web pages. This
Altitude SuperGuide to British Columbia’s “public show gardens”
includes botanical gardens and arboreta, municipal and regional parks,
heritage and native plant gardens, wildflower reserves, even a
landscaped cemetery and an undersea garden. The sections on the famous
and not-so-famous gardens of Greater Victoria, Vancouver Island, and
Greater Vancouver—30 in all—easily fill three-quarters of the book,
but nine sites in the Fraser, Okanagan, and Similkameen valleys and one
at Summerland also receive their due. A map of the province shows the
approximate location of each garden.

Because its layout involves numerous one- or two-page articles
interspersed with sidebars, charts, lists, quotes, and photographs, this
small-format guidebook is cluttered in appearance but densely packed
with information. Included are descriptions of each garden and its
location, comments about cost and wheelchair accessibility, and a phone
number for those seeking further information. Particularly helpful are
canny tips such as those on avoiding long lineups and taking well-lit
photographs at the Butchart Gardens. Missing, unfortunately, are any
landscape plans.

There are essays on the history of gardening worldwide and the
influences on garden styles in western Canada, on past horticultural
practices and current environmental concerns, and much more. The author
has something to say about almost anything a garden visitor might ask
when planning a trip, arriving at a destination, or pausing for a cup of
tea.

Much of the material is only marginally related to gardens or British
Columbia, and all of it deserves better editing. Still, this guidebook
would be an interesting and useful travel companion.