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Thank you for a wonderful tour season in 2012!
Do contact us to book your tour in 2013.

Click here to see why even gardening professionals recommend our tour.

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Emily Carr Tours

Victoria as seen through the eyes of Canada's leading painter and writer  Emily Carr  (1875-1945)

Experience the magic of the old growth forest and seaside vistas that inspired the enigmatic art of
Emily Carr. Continue on through the heritage community in which she grew up and explore the Art
Gallery of Greater Victoria. Here you will be provided with an interpretive viewing of Emily's paintings.

Throughout the day you will hear colourful stories about this unique woman and the independent path
through life that she chose.

*Emily Carr tours can be adapted from a half day format to a multi-day format
**Emily Carr tours can be designed to accommodate different levels of mobility

Year-round Garden Tours - Seasons of Color
Spring!

Private Mediteranian "Gravel" Garden (drought-tolerant)

rock walls outline a two level terraced area that has been backfilled with topsoil, landscape cloth and eight inches of gravel
Rock walls outline a two level terraced area that has been backfilled with topsoil, landscape cloth and eight inches of gravel.
The spacious deck looks over this wonderful garden towards the ocean
The spacious deck looks over this wonderful garden towards the ocean.

This unique terraced garden, overlooking the ocean, has been designed to cope with a southern exposure and strong winds. Fragrant textured layering of sedums, succulents, grasses, and a myriad of other drought tolerant perennials and shrubs. With the terra cotta accents, antique wine press, soft gray foliage and the drifting fragrance of lavenders, rosemary, thyme, pineapple broom (cytisus battandieri) and rugosa roses you will feel that this is the Mediterranean not the Pacific Ocean.

Three clumps of the grass Calamagrostis acutflora Karl Foerster are used to provide movement, texture and a screen while at the same time being drought tolerant
Plinth surrounded by mixed plantings full of fragrance, texture, colour and movement painted in the soft colours and grey foliage of the Mediterranean. There are grasses, herbs (including sage, decorative forms of oregano and a prostrate low growing form of rosemary), artemesias, Diascia, Potentilla, Helianthemum, and sedums as well as the verbascum with its tall yellow spires and large felty gray leaves. The plinth and a large blue planted container add interest through the winter.
 Sitting at the table on the lower terrace, protected from the wind by the tall grasses and other plantings above you, you can see the small objects placed on the rock wall, on the table is a brightly coloured geranium, while growing under this glass table are brightly coloured self seeded oriental poppies
Three clumps of the grass Calamagrostis acutflora Karl Foerster are used to provide movement, texture and a screen while at the same time being drought tolerant. Hidden by these tall rustling grasses overlooking the ocean is a bench surrounded by the soft grey foliage of artemesias and santolinas, with the diarama’s (angel’s fishing rod) arching stems of pale pink tubular flowers gently waiving in the breeze Out of view behind the bench is Atriplex, the grey translucent leafed salt bush (which is evergreen).
 The Meditteranean feel of this garden is contributed to by a combination of drought tolerant shrubs and perennials including grasses
The Meditteranean feel of this garden is contributed to by a combination of drought tolerant shrubs and perennials including grasses. The wonderful jade blue-green foliage of the donkey- tail euphorbia (euphorbia mysinites) contrasts with the red-edged, yellow centered flat blooms of the Yarrow - Paprika Achillea millefolium and the yellow button blooms of the silver leafed santolina. The apricot leaves of the phormium Maori Sunset provides additional year round interest and joins other Southern Hemisphere plants including many herbes.
 In front of the Mediterranean Gravel garden there is down the gravel boulevard colourful plants including Eschscholzia species, penstomen and euphorbias that have self-seeded in the gravel, thus integrating the garden further into its setting
In front of the Mediterranean Gravel garden there is down the gravel boulevard colourful plants including Eschscholzia species, penstomen and euphorbias that have self-seeded in the gravel, thus integrating the garden further into its setting. You catch the fragrance of the English, French and Spanish lavenders.
In building the deck this glacial rock was exposed and became a natural transition between the house and the Mediterranean gravel garden
In building the deck this glacial rock was exposed and became a natural transition between the house and the Mediterranean gravel garden.
 Plinth surrounded by mixed plantings full of fragrance, texture, colour and movement painted in the soft colours and grey foliage of the Mediterranean
Mediterranean theme containers.

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Sitting at the table on the lower terrace, protected from the wind by the tall grasses and other plantings above you, you can see the small objects placed on the rock wall, on the table is a brightly coloured geranium, while growing under this glass table are brightly coloured self seeded oriental poppies.

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2 - 145 Niagara Street
Victoria, BC, CANADA
V8V 1G1

Phone: (250) 380-2797     Fax: (250) 383-2846
E-mail: joan@victoriangardentours.com

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