Abkhazi Garden

I spent Saturday morning enjoying the Oak Bay Tea Party Parade then I rode over to the tranquility of the Abkhazi Garden for lunch and a stroll. It's a lush garden that currently is hosting a number of wooden sculptures by Michael Dennis from a collection called "The Muses". One of these striking sculptures is pictured on the left.

Do You Think This is My Best Side?

Western Painted Turtle posing poolside at the Abkhazi Garden.

Water Lilies - Abkhazi Garden

My brother and my daughter and I have a ritual annual luncheon every spring at the Abkhazi Garden here in Victoria. The Abkhazi Garden is small but exquisite and well worth an hour's stroll around before lunch at the former residence of Georgian Prince Nicholas Abkhazi and his wife, Peggy Pemberton Carter, whose labour of love the garden was. For me it has most of the beauty of the Butchart Gardens without the Disneyland atmosphere and crowds. The menu is limited to a few choice items but they are invariably beautifully prepared and served.

Cuteness

Yesterday's duckling shares his little pond with this pair of Painted Turtles. Looking at yesterday's duckling and today's turtles raises the old question of the nature of beauty or, perhaps in this case, the nature of cuteness. Why is the duckling cute and the turtles are decidedly not cute? These are all just animals looking like they are supposed to look after all but why is the duckling so appealing in comparison with the turtles? It's not just age - baby turtles are only slightly cuter than adults. But I suspect that age has a lot to do with it in many cases. Who can resist a kitten? Or a puppy? But the question remains as to why a kitten or puppy is so attractive and a young centipede is not.

Duckling

A couple of small pools in the Abkhazi Garden are home to this little fellow and about eight brothers and sisters, all looking equally chipper. Mom and Dad Mallard were in attendance too as their brood took to the water.

Abkhazi Garden

Earlier this week we went for lunch to the Abkhazi Garden. The garden was formerly the home of a couple with a romantic history. He was a prince. There was a love affair in Paris. They were separated by war and imprisoned, but ultimately re-united. They settled in Victoria and devoted their final years to creating beauty in the garden around their house. That beauty is now wonderfully maintained by a corps of volunteers. After a stroll in the garden we enjoyed a superb lunch in the dining room of the house. The photo above was taken in the garden and is one of those mysterious photos that happens from time to time. There is something wrong with this photo but there is also something that is very satisfying for me.

Autumn Blossoms

Yes, autumn's definitely here but here's another shot from my recent trip to the Abkhazi Garden where the blooms will continue until the first frost is on the ground.

Purple

I went to the Abkhazi Garden the other day because I needed some bright pure color. Here's a couple of purples from that visit.

Summer Lingers

While autumn colors are beginning to tint the landscape, some days this week have been warmer than many summer days and a trip to Abkhazi Garden yesterday showed many flowers still in bloom and many bees taking advantage of this.

Dubble Bubble

This flower in the Abkhazi Garden reminds me of candy - particularly some kind of juicy pink confection like those lovely slabs of Dubble Bubble I used to enjoy when I was at the bubble gum chewing age. Dubble Bubble was the best (at two cents a chunk) and it was a multimedia experience since one could read the adventures of Pud, a micro-comic that was wrapped around each piece of gum, while enjoying that juicy sugary chew.

Blue

Filmed on Location

I am pleased to introduce you to Arion rufus, commonly known as the Giant (or European) Red Slug. Though it is now common here it is an introduced species not native to this area. In the video below you may notice it appears to be dragging something from its tail. This not an accident. This is the site of its caudal mucous pit, a cunning anatomical structure that re-absorbs the slime that the slug secretes to make its passage smoother.

Rhododendrons

There are about a thousand species of Rhododendron and I'm not about to try to identify which one this is. It's one of many I photographed at the Abkhazi Garden on Monday. They grow well in our climate and at this time of year it is worth a trip to this garden if only to see the wonderful collection they have. The flowers range through the spectrum from the palest whitey-yellow to deep magenta and a purplish blue.

Unique

Victoria Daily Photo rarely has the opportunity to share something that is both unique and splendid such as the peony pictured above. It is unique because it is the sole plant produced from the hybridization of two other varieties of peony in the Abkhazi Garden. Both the parent plants can also be seen in this wonderful little hideaway here in Victoria and neither look like their offspring. We were visiting to catch the rhododendrons in bloom since the garden has a famous collection of these in a multitude of colors. In the midst of the riot of these blossoms I was attracted to this peony and while I was photographing it, its creator, a plant geneticist, came by and kindly told me about its history and how he came to produce this plant for the Abkhazis. You may not be lucky enough to have quite such an informative guide if you visit this garden but I guarantee you will have an interesting experience and enjoy yourself. Plan to stay for lunch - the food is as wonderful as the garden.

September

A cold rainy gray day yesterday reminded me that summer's nearly over. Labor Day weekend is fast approaching and everyone is shopping for back-to-school supplies. Summer's flowers like those above seem to burn with an extra brilliance now that the season is turning. Our summer's not been as hot as I like although we've had some nice hot days. But I'm thankful that we've also been spared the extremes of weather experienced by so many this year resulting in floods and hurricanes and droughts. I hope your summer has been a good one.

Gourmet Garden

I've posted about the Abkhazi Garden and its romantic past before but I revisited it the other day for a wonderful surprise. Not only is it a spectacular garden with hundreds of rare and beautiful plants, but it offers outstanding food. After wandering in the garden for an hour or so we decided to try the lunch menu. It's hard to find superlatives adequate to describe how good their food is. That's tomato soup on the right there, but what a soup! Garnished with spicy little (chive?) flowers, fresh goat cheese and a drizzle of basil oil...splendid is an understatement. The pasta was also superb.

Visit this place - for the flowers and other plants and for the magnificent garden in which they grow, but make sure you arrive in time for lunch. It's beyond delicious. You can read a little about the Abkhazi Garden on The Land Conservancy website, by clicking here. Other information is available here.

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The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed the bottled sparkling water above with the cute name "O de Vie." I had originally ordered Perrier but decided to try this since it was local. It's drawn from an aquifer in Vic West. Great water! Yay Vic West!

Abkhazi Garden 2

I'm being a little self-indulgent here just because I like these Calla Lilies too much. This group is also in the Abkhazi Garden, subject of an earlier post. However, the most stunning group of plants in the garden has to be the Rhododendrons and the photo below hints at the amazing range of colors - pale pink on the left and orange and magenta in the background. You'll have to imagine the yellows and the reds and even one blue.

Abkhazi Garden

"The story of the garden really begins in 1920s Paris when the young Marjorie (Peggy) Pemberton-Carter met the exiled Georgian Prince Nicholas Abkhazi...." (excerpt from The Land Conservancy's information pamphlet about the garden.) After turbulent lives, including internments in prison camps during World War II (Germany for him and Shanghai for her), the couple eventually re-united, settled in Victoria and spent much of the remainder of their lives developing the beautiful garden now known as the Abkhazi Garden. I photographed the Calla or Arum Lilies there on a recent visit. It is a spectacular garden and I will be posting more photos of it in days to come.