Avid gardeners and remarkable record keepers, the family left not only the contents of the house intact, but also their diaries, garden journals, letters, receipts, seed catalogues and photographs.
Together with extant plants and archeological research, this wealth of information has provided a rare opportunity to restore the family's beloved garden to its appearance in its heydey, between 1889-1914. Heritage Properties Branch has been studying this historical gold mine in an attempt to restore the historic garden which reflects the personalities, ideals and tastes of the O'Reilly family.
Like many Late Victorians, the O'Reilly family considered the genteel passtime of gardening physically, morally, and psychologically uplifting.
It is the combined effort of of the Honorable Peter O'Reilly and his daughter Charlotte Kathleen, that is visible in the garden today.
Peter O'Reilly purchased his home in 1868, and first mentions the garden in an 1872 diary entry which records the planting of mountain ash, horse chestnut, and maple trees.
Other non-native (British) plantings, such as holly, ivy, and laurel, formed the backbone of the O'Reilly garden. This was true of most colonial Vancouver Island gardens, as new settlers maintained close ties with Britian, and found growing conditions very similar. In 1876 O'Reilly planted a
