Camosun Bog, Pacific Spirit Regional Park

This huge, diverse, park is located on a peninsula on Vancouver’s west side. It supports pine forests as well as birch, alder, and cottonwood trees. Extensive trails lead across the peninsula from Point Grey to the Fraser River. The park’s terrain includes beaches, bluffs overlooking the expansive Spanish Banks, and the ancient Camosun Bog (For further details see Pacific Spirit Regional Park).

With a large expanse of open green space, the slightly rolling Yaletown park has private corners for sitting and relaxing, and a lovely decorative pool. The park’s Asian influence is expressed in its floral plantings. Children’s play area.

This lovely park in central Vancouver was once a stone quarry. The Quarry Garden is now its centerpiece. A small rose garden is planted with hardy varieties that blossom year-round. Rolling treed slopes are perfect for summer picnics (For further details see Queen Elizabeth Park).

Cedar, hemlock, and fir are rainforest favorites in the park. Old-fashioned roses and lush hybrid rhododendrons share the park with cherry, magnolia, and dogwood trees, and a multitude of others. Park staff plant 350,000 annual flowers for year-round beauty (For further details see Stanley Park).

Macaw parrots, Bloedel Floral Conservatory

Visitors to Canada’s first geodesic conservatory are enveloped by steamy air as they step into this dome filled with desert and tropical plants. The calls of free-flying birds add to the ambience.

With the longest expanse of sandy beach in Vancouver, the park is shared by walkers, cyclists, picnickers, and families splashing in the tidal waters.

This gem of a park in Chinatown reflects the serenity of a Ming Dynasty garden (For further details see Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden).

Starting in 1904, Mrs. Jenny Butchart created five spectacular gardens to beautify her husband’s excavated limestone quarry on the outskirts of Victoria. Her first creation was the Japanese Garden. Next came the lush Sunken Garden. Some one million bedding plants blossom yearly, showcasing 700 plant varieties (For further details see Butchart Gardens).

The array of flowers, shrubs, and trees are unrivaled in Vancouver. Over 7,500 varieties of plants from six continents take advantage of the city’s four distinct seasons. Rolling lawns, peaceful lakes, artistic rockwork, and forested pockets (For further details see VanDusen Botanical Garden).

English Bay is the backdrop for this expansive park near Granville Island. Largely treeless, the 37-acre (15-ha) area was named after Georges P. Vanier, governor general of Canada from 1959 to 1967. Kite-flyers delight in the open vista, their colorful kites dancing in the wind (For further details see Vanier Park).