A Walk Through Sendall Botanical Gardens

Begonia flowers provide a colorful border to the paths along Muckle Creek on an early fall day at Sendall Botanical Gardens in Langley, British Columbia, Canada.

Begonias blooming in the flower beds at Sendall Botanical Gardens (Purchase)

I have a long list of smaller, lesser known parks to visit and photograph, and earlier this fall I visited Sendall Botanical Gardens in Langley City. I’d heard of these gardens many times, and I may have even visited as a kid, but I had no memory of the place. What I found was a very nice, albeit small garden centric park with a nice tropical greenhouse as well. Sendall Botanical Gardens are named after Ernest Edward Sendall who was the first Mayor of Langley City 1955 until his death in 1959. In 1974 the property was purchased and named “Sendall Gardens”.

Path near the entrance to Sendall Botanical Gardens (Purchase)

Sendall Botanical Gardens features 3.67 acres of gardens, paths, and a small stream called Muckle Creek. While the City of Langley’s website indicates there are two duck ponds here, those have been filled and now are home to a picnic table area and garden beds. My first photograph here shows some Begonia plants in full bloom and the paths with benches along side Muckle Creek in the lower part of the gardens. I believe the flower bed just beyond the park benches in my first photo is where one of the duck ponds used to be. The second photo here shows some early fall leaves falling from trees overhanging the path near the parking lot for the gardens.

Begonias and other plants along the path through Sendall Botanical Gardens (Purchase)

I liked this scene both for the Japanese Maple (Acer japonica) trees and the stone stairs’ railing made out of branches from local fallen trees. Again, Begonias make up most of the flowering plants in the foreground along with a large leaved plant I believe is called “Elephants Ears”.

Japanese Maples overhang the path through Sendall Botanical Gardens (Purchase)

Sendall Gardens Greenhouse

Water Drops on Leaves in the Greenhouse at Sendall Botanical Gardens (Purchase)

The gardens are the main attraction on the grounds of Sendall Gardens, but there is also a greenhouse with a variety of colourful tropical plants. The tropical greenhouse is open from April 1 to October 1. I returned to Sendall Gardens just a few days ago and it looks like the greenhouse is the winter storage area for many of the plants in the gardens that wouldn’t be able to overwinter on their own. The aforementioned Elephant Ears plant is one of those plants. The greenhouse isn’t very large, but despite that I did photograph in it for over an hour. The only thing I wish for the greenhouse would be more labels for the variety of plants growing there. I was able to identify some of them, but many remain a mystery. Among these mysteries are the unknown plant above with some water drops on its leaves.

Various Leaves and tree trunks at the greenhouse at Sendall Botanical Garden (Purchase)

One of the plants I was able to identify after photographing it was this Urn Plant (Aechmea fasciata). The flowers are quite distinctive and an ID app I use was able to identify it for me from this photograph. The Urn Plant is also known as the Silver Vase Plant and is in the Bromliacae family.

Flowering Urn Plant (Aechmea fasciata) Sendall Botanical Gardens (Purchase)

This last photograph isn’t quite a macro, but kind of looks like one. This is another large leaved plant in the greenhouse with some beads of water on it. I made several photos of this and put them together so more of it was in focus at once (focus stacking).

Water drops on an unknown (and large) leaf in the Sendall Gardens Greenhouse (Purchase)

You can view more of my photographs from Langley in my Langley Township & Langley City Gallery.