VanDusen Botanical Garden

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Canada

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VanDusen Botanical Garden is a 55-acre outdoor oasis in Vancouver's Shaughnessy neighborhood, featuring over 7,500 plant species and varieties from six continents, located at 5251 Oak Street near Queen Elizabeth Park and the Bloedel Conservatory.

The garden opened to the public on August 30, 1975, named after local lumberman and philanthropist Whitford Julian VanDusen, and was built on land formerly owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway and leased to a golf club until the mid-twentieth century, with construction overseen by W.C. Livingstone who designed early water features and rock formations.

Organized around large picturesque lawns with meandering paths over undulating grounds, the garden features themed plant collections including a Sino-Himalayan woodland, Japanese Garden, Korean Pavilion, Canadian heritage gardens, a medicine wheel garden, ornamental and ethnobotanical gardens, and a cedar Elizabethan hedge maze, plus wooded glades, Gitxsan totem poles, reflecting pools, stone sculptures, indigenous forests, and lakes in its northern half.

Visitors enjoy the award-winning LEED Platinum-certified Visitor Centre (added in 2011 with minimal environmental footprint), Shaughnessy Restaurant and Garden Café patios, a gift shop, local wildlife spotting, and the annual VanDusen Festival of Lights holiday event with over 1 million lights decorating 15 acres.