Century Gardens
Century Gardens, within the northern border of Deer Lake Park, near the neighborhoods of Buckingham Heights and Middlegate, was a originally a Mixed Style Victorian garden made for the mock Tudor-style Fairacres Mansion (now Burnaby Art Gallery).
Check out “Burnaby Art Gallery,” “Fairacres Mansion” and “Deer Lake Park”
The single best place in the city to admire and celebrate Burnaby’s official flower (adopted as the official emblem in August 1966), this circular garden, with a path system, has over 2,000 rhododendrons that burst into bloom in spring (March to July).
One of two developed rhododendron gardens (the other are plantings on Burnaby Mountain along Centennial Way) dedicated on June 18, 1967, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation, it features the developments of some of the Pacific Northwest’s accomplished rhododendron growers.
A garden within displays each of the winning plants, as well as samples of all the competition entries, of the May 1992 Burnaby Rhododendron Festival (the festival was first held in 1989). The winner was John Lofthouse (his plant developments are extremely well known) and honorable mention went to Gene Round (an accomplished grower).
Water feature
The winning entry was the R. Burnaby Centennial, a “Leona” x “Etta Burrows” cross. The compact truss consists of 14 to 16, five-lobed flowers which are raspberry red in color centered with a lighter red stamen, style and black anthers. Foliage is pointed, medium in size and shiny, dark green in color.
Camperdown Elm (Ulmus glabra camperdownii)
A new entrance to the garden features Hak Chu/Pak Chu, supersized concrete replicas of white Pak Chu and black Hak Chu, public art created by Vancouver born and raised Nathan Lee in 2000. It is based on fan-tan (translated as “repeated spreading out”), a game, long played in China, based on pure luck and randomness.
Fairacres Mansion (now Burnaby Art Gallery) in the background
It involves using hak-chu and pak-chu as counters (where white pieces are worth one-fifth the value of the black pieces). In the 1990s, a single white pak chu was discovered under the Fairacres Cottage, indicating an early Chinese community on this site.
Hak Chu/Pak Chu (Nathan Lee, 2000)
Century Gardens is also lined with numerous varieties of colorful flowers, including an extensive rose garden. This flower paradise can be viewed from the wooden boardwalk that encircles Deer Lake Park. The annual Burnably Rhododendron Festival includes guided rhododendron and perennial walks in Century Gardens.
Century Gardens: 6344 Deer Lake Ave., Burnaby V5G 213, British Columbia, Canada.
How to Get There: Bus 144 Metrotown runs from the Burnaby Lake SkyTrain Station to the gardens. By car, take Sprott St. Exit, drive straight through Canada Way, past Burnaby City Hall and Central High School, turn left into Deer Lake Ave. The Fairacres Mansion is at the top of the hill on your right. Beside it is the garden.