The Van Dusen Botanical Gardens is a magnificent park in the heart of Vancouver. It is one of the most interesting and popular tourist attractions in the city and one of the best botanical gardens in North America. With the exception of the Christmas holidays, the Van Dusen Botanical Garden is open to visitors year-round. The botanical garden covers an area of 22 hectares (55 acres).
The history of the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens goes back to 1970 when the Vancouver organization, the government of the Province of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver signed an agreement to convert part of the old Shaughnessy Golf Course into a community garden. The grand opening took place on August 30, 1975. Its name the botanical garden is named after the famous Vancouver forestry industrialist and philanthropist Whitford Julian Van Dusen, who donated 1 million dollars to its creation.
Today, the Van Dusen Botanical Garden features more than seven thousand plant species, representative of the world’s most diverse ecosystems from the Himalayas to the Mediterranean Sea, from Louisiana to the swamps of the Pacific Northwest. The garden is divided into small themed areas, among which the most interesting are perhaps the Chinese-Himalayan garden, the rock garden, the perennial garden, the rose garden and the rhododendron avenue. Picturesque ponds, large stone sculptures, totem poles, and the famous green maze complete the elaborate landscape. The Van Dusen Botanical Garden is also home to numerous fauna – small mammals, fish, reptiles, insects and birds.
The new Visitor Center, opened in 2011, has a gift store and an excellent library, is equipped with lecture rooms and regularly hosts various specialized exhibitions. In addition to the Visitor Center, the botanical garden also houses the administration building, the Floral Hall pavilion, and the luxurious Shaughnessy restaurant.