Plants

Exploring the University of Alberta Botanic Garden

/ edebock / 2 Comments

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As part of his 50th year university grad celebration, hubby received complementary tickets to the University of Alberta Botanic Garden (formerly called the Devonian Gardens) just outside Edmonton. It was a beautiful fall day; perfect for a peaceful stroll through the 80 acres of themed gardens and winding nature trails.

While the garden wasn’t the riot of colour that it might have been earlier in the season, there were still many beautiful flowers to be seen.

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With its geometric granite and limestone terraces, still reflective pools, and the soothing sound of moving water, the expansive Aga Khan Garden, a contemporary interpretation of Islamic landscape architecture, was a very peaceful place to stroll. The central focus is a waterfall tumbling over textured stone.

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IMG_7285 Recently renovated, Connie’s Secret Garden at the north end of the Alpine Garden is home to a more natural looking waterfall.

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Indoor showhouses feature plants from three very diverse climatic zones… tropical, temperate, and arid. Everywhere we went, we were surrounded by an abundance of plants of every description. Some of the most unique ones were the cacti in the Arid Showhouse. Just look at that amazing flower.

During the year that we lived in Japan, I fell in love with the beautiful strolling gardens, so we purposely saved the Kurimoto Japanese Garden for last today knowing that it would be my favourite part. With it’s lanterns, arched bridge, and pagoda, the design is authentically Japanese, but the garden utilizes plants that are hardy enough to survive our northern climate.

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This is really just a sampling of what the Botanic Garden has to offer. We walked every pathway, some of them twice, covering a total of 6.21 km (3.86 miles) leaving me less than 10 km to go to complete my 300 km in 150 days goal!

Hoodoos and buffalo beans

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The last time we hiked the Meeting Creek Coulee near the village of Donalda was late in the fall. The trees were bare and the landscape was shades of gold and brown. Today’s hike through the same area was entirely different! 

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Everything was so green and there were wildflowers everywhere, especially the bright yellow buffalo beans that bloom across the southern half of Alberta and Saskatchewan at this time of year. 

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I’ve always wondered why they were called buffalo beans, so when we got home today I consulted Google and learned that the flowers appear around the same time as the Indigenous people of the prairie used to conduct their spring buffalo hunt. Apparently the plant produces bean-like seed pods later in the season, but they shouldn’t be eaten as the entire plant contains poisonous alkaloids.

We started today’s hike on the woodland trail that follows the rim of the massive coulee, the northernmost part of the Canadian Badlands, but we soon dropped down into the valley. As we wandered up, down, and around the bluffs that form its walls I spotted an impressive looking hoodoo emerging from the bushes on the hillside above us. Of course, we had to climb up and take a closer look.

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 We decided to sit and eat our lunch on the hillside where Richard is standing in this photo.

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As I looked at our backpack perched on the hoodoo’s capstone, I thought of all the places it’s been with us over the years. It’s even been to the top of Mt Fuji, the highest and most famous mountain in Japan! 

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The view from our lunch spot included a perfect mound protruding from the flat valley floor. I decided that when we finished eating, we should hike down and walk around it which we did. We considered climbing it, but it would have been a challenge and since we still had to climb back up out of the valley, we quickly rejected that idea. 

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Eventually, after wandering for awhile longer, we made our way back up the hillside and rejoined the woodland trail that took us back to our vehicle. After a long cold winter, it’s so good to be able to get out on the trails again! I wonder where else our feet will take us this summer.