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What’s happening in Canada this summer?

Gardens in bloom

by Kathy Eccles 6 May 2009
When I smell lilacs, I’m 12 years old again. I’m right there thinking about lemonade, picnics and the whole sunny summer stretching ahead. Lilacs are like a promise: spring’s here and there’s a whole lot more to come. 
 
You can walk among sweet-scented lilacs in profusions of white, pink, blue—and that particular lilac-mauve of Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes—at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton-Burlington, ON. The Lilac Dell is home to the largest collection of lilacs in the world with 800 cultivars and species.
 
Every season has its stars. At the Montréal Botanical Gardens in Montréal, QC, flowering ericaceae (rhododendrons and azaleas) put on a brilliant show of red, yellow and pink in the midst of a conifer woodland at the Leslie-Hancock Garden in May and June.

The Fredericton Botanic Garden sits along the sparkling St. John River in Fredericton, NB. At the Entrance Garden, stop to read the bronze plaques on the park benches, and in the tranquil Memorial Grove, be surrounded by Japanese maples and spring-blooming magnolias.
 
Duck under a golden canopy on the Laburnum Walk at VanDusen Botanical Gardens in Vancouver, BC. Spring means the Rhododendron Walk is in full, fiery blossom, while the delicate faces of white trilliums peek out along the pathways.
 
Seriously, blue poppies are so magical, they’ll almost have you believing in fairies. At The Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC, beds of Tibetan blue poppies are in dazzling bloom by May. You can buy blue poppy seed packets to take home too.
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Usage guidelines

We welcome you to use these story ideas as inspiration for your own stories about Canada. The CTC owns all rights worldwide. (Our images are also royalty-free and available for editorial print, broadcast and electronic use.) If you choose to reproduce these texts for editorial use only, please include the author's byline and "courtesy of the Canadian Tourism Commission." If you cut, edit or modify the text in any way, please include this note: "The text has been modified from the original." Thank you.

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Photo credit : Victoria Island, Northwest Territories © NWTT/Terry Parker - Background Image