Italian garden at Hatley Castle

 A recent photo made with bracketing and the hdr merge in photoshop.  This is a long zoom shooting from the front deck through the rose foliage at the thrift.  One of my best rocks is a volcanic rock found in the Clearwater area, sitting behind the thrift.  The Aliums are coming up there thickly.  I should probably thin them out. 

 Another photo from my trip to the butterfly gardens in February.  This is an atlas moth.
Atlas moths are considered the largest moths in the world in terms of total wing surface area [upwards of c. 400 cm2 (62 sq in)]. Their wingspans are also amongst the largest, reaching over 25 cm (10 in). Females are appreciably larger and heavier.
From the Butterfly garden of Victoria:  http://www.butterflygardens.com/butterfly_catalogue.php
Atlas Moth
Attacus atlas

The Atlas Moth is a member of the Saturniidae species and can be found throughout India, Sri Lanka, China, Malaysia and Indonesia. They can stay in their cocoon for up to five years, yet when they emerge, they live for only three to five days. The Atlas Moth is the world's largest in overall size, with a wingspan of 15 to 30 centimetres, and it prefers tropical lowland areas. Being nocturnal, they fly mainly at night and rest during the day. The male and female are similar in appearance, although the antennae of the females are generally thinner. The caterpillar is a pale yellowish green with long fleshy spines that are heavily powdered with a white waxy substance. It can grow up to 4 inches in length and feeds on a wide variety of plants.

This one was within a screening.  You can see the eggs on the screen, so this was probably a female near the end of its life.

 On Sunday we were out at Hatley Castle attending a talk by  Wendy Shearer on Italian Gardens.  We had a tour of the gardens after the talk.  My Japanese garden photos were not terrific.  The sun was out and the contrast in the light and shadows was not good for photography.  This photo in the Italian garden seems to have a flare.  I wish I had noticed it .. I might have been able to place the flare to hit the center of the garden. 

 A photo from on the terrace looking out over the Strait to the USA. 

This is shooting up at the Castle from the parking lot at the bottom of the gardens.  All of the photos from this day were bracketed and processed in photoshop's hdr merge. 

On Saturday I went to the VIRAGS show and sale.  The show was interesting, but I did not find anything really spectacular.  Beaver Creek nursery was not at the sale due to an illness in the family, so there was nothing exceptional to buy.  I got a pleione and a big impatiens plant that is good for the foliage.  I will put it into the woodland garden,

Yesterday, I mowed the grass and then pulled the tops off of bluebells in the woodland.  They are getting everywhere, and will just come up again.  I am thinking of covering the area with cardboard to smother them.  There will be holes in the cardboard (or layers of newspaper) for the trees and any plants I could save, like the columbines and the fawn lilies.  Both of the trilliums seem to be gone.