No six last week due to some technical issues, and to me being away travelling. I still am. I’m lucky enough to be in Canada for a few weeks. My posts may include some of my home garden (with my partner busy keeping the place tidy, sweeping endless winter leaves, etc), and some of my environs here. Last week I visited Vancouver Island and went to the ‘world famous’ Butchart gardens. And WOW, they are certainly in the top 3 gardens I have ever seen, still full of summer colour, with autumn leaves on top. So here are the highlights for this week’s #SixOnSaturday.

This is the classic view of their most iconic garden: the sunken garden is built inside a former quarry. The planting and colours are fabulous, the lawns are immaculate. Really WOW!

Another favourite area was the Japanese Garden. A much shadier, informal place. There was lots of wonderful autumn colour, here with the Japanese Bridge brining out acer colours.

And here a view through the foliage of bronze-leaved acer.

Everywhere, there were varieties of maple in full colour. This wonderful specimen is even redder than the Canadian flag.

I wasn’t as keen on the Italian Garden, perhaps because, although the design was Italian, I don’t things the blooms on display would make it through a summer in Italy. They have done wonderfully in the temperature pacific north-west maritime climate.

And finally, my favourite thing in the whole garden was this delicate flower. This is Abutilon Tiger Eye. shrub that is sometimes also know as the Parlour Maple. It had the most perfect flowers, I’ve never seen anything like it.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s exotic Six. I’m travelling for a while, so there will be more to come. Thanks to those leaving comments on the blog. Join in with our #SixOnSaturday thoughts and images. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot