Royal Botanical Gardens

The RBG covers around one thousand one hundred hectares, which makes it the largest botanical garden in Canada, but only a small fraction is cultivated: most is nature sanctuary protecting Cootes Paradise, a large marsh at the western end of Lake Ontario, with about twenty-seven kilometres of trails through it. The cultivated areas include the Rock Garden, built in the 1930s in a disused gravel pit, and the Katie Osborne Lilac Collection, one of the largest lilac collections in the world with over seven hundred and fifty varieties. A fishway at the marsh mouth screens out invasive carp to let native fish through.

What you actually see

• The lilac collection - over 750 varieties, blooming in May.
• The Rock Garden - a 1930s garden built inside an old gravel pit.
• Cootes Paradise - a large marsh sanctuary with trails and boardwalks.
• The carp fishway - a barrier separating invasive fish from native species.

When to go

May for lilacs, which is the signature bloom; April to October for the gardens generally, with the Rock Garden good through the season. Marsh trails are open year-round.

Honest expectations

The cultivated gardens are in several separate locations kilometres apart, needing a car between them. Lilac bloom is about two weeks. Much of the acreage is trails, not display gardens.

Nearby

Dundurn Castle lies southeast in Hamilton; Webster Falls is west.