Open Spaces in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. How does your garden grow?

Last week I blogged about Catherine's garden in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. This week I want to showcase all the open space, garden centres and Botanical Gardens in her local area.

Having lived in South Africa for 4 years, despite there being more open space than you can ever imagine, there are very few places you can actually get out of the car, go for a walk, picnic or just sit and take in the view. Despite most of the animals being in reserves, there are still snakes and the chance of escaped animals.

There are of course Botanical Gardens in South Africa, but most involve a considerable drive and with outdoor space being limited, are often over crowded and double up as venues for events are often closed early or are used for private functions.

Of course living in Dubai, everything is very beige, there are splashes of colour but the flowers need an awful lot of water and it is certainly worth a visit or two to Miracle Gardens.

The variety of plants here and the style of gardens remind me a lot of the gardens back in the UK. Open plan at the front, with a driveway and path to the front door and fenced at the back. Hanging baskets, troughs, borders etc. There are a few differences though, not many houses in the UK have veranda's though and the Canadians call their gardens 'yards' which has a totally different meaning to the UK.

I noticed an abundance of flowers and open green spaces in and around Hamilton. I was also surprised to see as much Nature in the City of Toronto which features in another post.

Sam Lawrence Park

Royal Botanical Gardens

Garden Centres

Coots Paradise, Princess Point, Lake Ontario

Niagara Falls

The Waterfront, Hamilton

View from Bruce Trail

Steps at Bruce Trail

 Immigration Square, Hamilton

Gore Park, Hamilton

Wildlife in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Animal Tales

There is plenty of wildlife in Canada and I've only seen a very small part of it so far.

I'm visiting Ontario, staying in the suburbs of the City of Hamilton. There are numerous parks, gardens and of course miles and miles of waters edge.

I haven't seen a bear (yet) actually hoping I don't see one, well not up close anyway. I would like to see a moose and I'd love to see a Mountie on horse back, but so far I've only seen the police in a car or on a bicycle. I'm not sure a blue one counts.

The squirrels here are black, not grey or red like I'm used to seeing and they are very active and not at all frightened by humans or traffic.

There is a wide variety of birds including Turkey Buzzards but I've not really focused much on taking bird pictures. I saw this Robin at Cootes Paradise and there were some Red Cardinals in the gardens, but moved too quickly for photo's.

I did get several shots of the Canadian Geese, which usually I ignore as I saw them frequently in South Africa and even out on the lakes in the desert in Dubai, but seeing them in Canada makes them seem a little more interesting.

I've spent most of my time trying to catch a picture of a chipmunk, I've had more failures than successes.

tah dah...got one

I've seen plenty of Butterfly's and of course dragonflies with all this water.

At the Royal Botanical Gardens they provided nets and fact sheets and challenges for children to complete and there was a Malaise trap for collecting flying insects with minimum impact of the environment

There were numerous bug boxes with instructions 'DO NOT TOUCH' and it was nice to see an interactive bug box with larva present, with opening doors and head phones so you could listen to different insect nosies.

The family I'm staying with have two dogs and just before my arrival they changed their dog food. Both dogs were moulting excessively for a week. A google search showed thousands of complaints, so the food was changed back and the dogs stopped shedding within 3 days. Apart from the hair loss there were no other changes in behaviour and they don't seem to be bothered by the change of diet again.