Mrjom's Blog

Still being on the theme of spring, and has it sprung, my wife and I visited Abkhazi Gardens on 1964 Fairfield Rd in Victoria BC. It is a very well established, although recovered from its original state, garden with a tea room. The tea room is the original residence which definitely was not build in the conventional style of the time. At 3:15 pm we got in just under the wire for our tea. The garden shows spring’s very early stages in a colorful manner with the promise of a lot of WOW! Actually it is WOW already with no end in sight. The garden is cultivated on rock and by its lay out and vegetation a feeling of space is created on a smallish lot. The property with its original owners has an interesting history. I am drastically compacting the known story. Peggy Carter met Nicholas Abkhazi ( a Russian prince who had escaped from the Bolsheviks) while traveling in the nineteen twenties. Peggy and her adopted mother kept traveling until mother died just before the second world war. During the war Peggy ended up in a Japanese prison camp and Nicholas in a German one. After the war Peggy with travelers cheques she had hidden ended up in Victoria and bought this property in 1946. She received at that time a letter from Nicholas. He was freed from a German labor camp and they met up in New York where they got married. After this they came back to Victoria and began building living space and developing the garden. The two developed and took care of the garden for the next 40 years. The general public was welcome and they hoped for their garden to be maintained into perpetuity. However the property in the nineteen eighties and nineties went through several owners and in 1999 was slated for a townhouse development. This is when The Land Conservancy of BC (TLC) through public donation raised $500,000 bought the $1,600,000 property and restored it. A brilliant job they have made of it. Their mortgage runs at $10,000 per month, something they love to get paid and finished. Nevertheless at $10 entrance fee ($7.50 for seniors), small gift shop and a very nice little menu in the teahouse TLC has kept visiting affordable. We definitely plan to go back there in the next few weeks. Yesterday showed spring has sprung, a few more weeks should show a well developed spring. I can’t wait to see a total rododendron show. Only one of these very well established trees is flowering now.

Here is a little trivia about rhododendrons and azaleas. Azaleas have deciduous as well as evergreen varieties, but are classified as rhododendron. They have 5 stamens. Rhododendrons have 10 stamens which makes this tree a rhodie.

I love the little cyclamen coum that are native to this area.

Lots of crocus this time of the year:

Well established tree varieties are made to confirm to the shape of the landscape.

It’s springing!