My husband and I spent last week in Canada and my regular readers will already know that we visited several gardens en route to Mont Tremblant to do some skiing. It was incredibly cold, but we could sense spring in the air as the fast-melting snow made way for new bulbs poking their heads out of the ground. We visited the Montreal Botanical Gardens and Toronto, where I waxed lyrical about the Allan Gardens Conservatory. We also went to Niagara Falls, which was a first for my husband .... where we got soaked and soggy!
But thank heavens for the Niagara Parks' Botanical Gardens there, and the wonderful Butterfly Conservatory, where we spent several happy hours watching the brightly-coloured creatures weaving their way through the tropical jungle glasshouse that is their home (above). I've never seen butterflies like this before, so two magnificent displays in a week prompted me to do some research on other facilities like this in the US.
It seems there are several places you can see magnificent butterfly displays, including the Cecil Day Butterfly Centre at Georgia's Calloway Gardens; the Butterfly Rainforest in Gainsville, FL; and at the Western Colorado Botanical Gardens. I haven't had the chance to visit any of these personally, but this link lists all the Butterfly Gardens in the US. With the Easter break coming up, they make wonderful diversions for adults and children alike!
As for the Botanical Gardens at Niagara - I'm sorry to say that they weren't looking their best in the pouring rain, although I could see that they would be wonderful in better weather and a different season. The end of winter is never a good time to visit a garden, when the grass is brown and there is little colour yet in the flower beds. But there were many spring flowers in bloom in the Butterfly Conservatory (below) so I shall return one day, and hope to see the Falls in the sunlight too!
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