The rain had stopped and there was a crack of blue in the sky so I knew it was a good day to visit Abkhazi Garden in Victoria BC. I put on my walking shoes and set out, taking a meandering route from my downtown hotel. Every garden of every house was crammed with early spring colour and the trees on some of the boulevards were putting forth tiny, pink blossoms. I think they were some type of Prunus. Eventually, after walking past it twice, I found the garden. It's in an urban area, close to Oak Bay. The house, garden shop and equipment sheds are built on top of a rocky outcrop, built in paths, rocky staircases, ponds, and waterfalls lead down to a strip of green lawn. Garden beds overflowing with shrubs, trees, mosses, bulbs and flowers intersect the lawn, run along next to the paths and fill in the spaces between the rocks and scree slopes.
Many of the plants I didn’t know but I recognized Rhododendron, Primula, Helleborus, various conifers, and Crocus.I was standing in front of the pond taking photos when I smelled fish. A man was coming down the stairs, carrying something pinky orange, wrapped in white paper. I thought it was that sticky stuff used to hang posters on the wall. He walked past me calling, Sweetie Sweetie. All at once I realized the stuff he was carrying was smoked salmon. He said he was feeding it to the turtles that lived in the pond. They were just coming out of hibernation and deserved a treat.
For more photos visit my Abkhazi Garden set on flickr.
How cute that the man was feeding the turtles. Did you see any? That is just so sweet.
ReplyDeleteHe called the turtles sweetie :) What a great story and how lucky you happened to be there at that moment. Did you get to see him feed them?
ReplyDeleteTina and Marguerite. I saw both turtles. He dropped bits of the salmon into the water, the turtles swam over to get it. The way he fed them reminded me of the way I used to feed fish in my fish tank, although I never called their names :)
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