June 16, 2025 - Driving from Alaska to Maryland
Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island
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After the British Columbia Aviation Museum, we stopped at this nearby diner for brunch. Great stop! One of the better meals we've had this trip. Then it was on to the top item on Lynnette's bucket list.
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Yes, it's the world famous Butchart Gardens! And what a perfect day for it.
Coming from Ontario in 1904, husband and wife, Robert and Jennie Butchart moved to Vancouver Island to build a cement plant on a rich limestone deposit at Tod Inlet. When around 1912 the cement production had exhausted the limestone deposits, Jennie envisioned a grand garden in its place and began transferring top soil by horse and cart. Little by little, the quarry blossomed into today’s Sunken Garden.
Between 1906 and 1929, the Butcharts expanded The Gardens, designing the Japanese Garden on the seaside, the Italian Garden on their former tennis court and the fragrant, overflowing Rose Garden.
The Gardens are still family run to this day.
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The color on this day would be indescribable.
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| A map of Butchart Gardens. Pay no attention to that "You are here" arrow. |
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| From the start, we were blown away by the amazing color. |
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50 shades of purple.
By the 1920s more than fifty thousand people visited each year.
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Now the gardens receive over a million visitors each year. I can see why.
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Robert Pim Butchart (1856–1943) began manufacturing Portland cement in 1888 near his birthplace of Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. He and his wife Jennie Butchart (1866–1950) came to the west coast of Canada because of rich limestone deposits necessary for cement production. In 1904, they established their home near his quarry on Tod Inlet at the base of the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island.
In 1907 Isaburo Kishida, a sixty-five-year-old garden designer from Yokohama, Japan, came to Victoria at the request of his son to build a tea garden for Esquimalt Gorge Park. This garden was wildly popular. Several prominent citizens, Jennie Butchart among them, commissioned Kishida to build Japanese gardens for their estates before Kishida returned to Japan in 1912.
In 1909, when the limestone quarry was exhausted, Jennie set about turning it into the Sunken Garden, which was completed in 1921. They named their home "Benvenuto" ("welcome" in Italian), and began to receive visitors to their gardens. In 1926, they replaced their tennis courts with an Italian garden and in 1929 they replaced their kitchen vegetable garden with a large rose garden designed by Butler Sturtevant of Seattle.
In 1939, the Butcharts gave the Gardens to their grandson Ian Ross (1918–1997) on his 21st birthday. Ross was involved in the operation and promotion of the gardens until his death 58 years later, at which time his son Christopher assumed those responsibilities.
In 1953, miles of underground wiring were laid to provide night illumination, to mark the 50th anniversary of The Gardens. In 1964, the ever-changing Ross Fountain was installed in the lower reservoir to celebrate the 60th anniversary.
In 2004, two 30-foot totem poles were installed to mark the 100th anniversary
Ownership of The Gardens remains within the Butchart family; the owner and managing director since 2001 is the Butcharts' great-granddaughter Robin-Lee Clarke.
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Looking down at the Sunken Garden.
When I grew up in Sunnyvale, California, in the heart of silicon valley, there was a 9-hole golf course near where we lived named Sunken Gardens. Not quite as nice as this. But it is still there after all these years!
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| Amazing. |
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| Strolling along the Sunken Garden. |
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Looking back at people descending down into the Sunken Garden.
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The aptly named Quarry Lake.
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| Lantana! |
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What Sunken Gardens looked like before Jennie Butchart transformed it.
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At the far end of the Sunken Gardens is Ross Fountain, created and installed in 1964 for the Gardens 60th anniversary by Ian Ross, grandson of the Butcharts. The water rises 70 feet.
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We come to the Children's Pavilion and Rose Carousel.
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| More Lantana with some pink thrown in. |
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| One of the two totem poles that overlook the field where they shoot off fireworks. |
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The "Fireworks Field", filled with beautiful wildflowers of every color.
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| A very unusual pine tree. |
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| The Dragon Fountain. |
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Passing by a stand of big pines.
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| A fake owl surveys the scene. |
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| RRR |
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Lynnette enters the Rose Garden area.
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They say the Rose Garden is at its most beautiful in July and August. We are a little early; it's hard to imagine it could be any more beautiful than what it is now.
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| Roses! |
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Close-up on some red roses.
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| The bronze Sturgeon Fountain cast in Florence, Italy. |
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| Looking across the lawn at the Dining Room and Restaurant. |
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| A baby dragon emerges out of a pond. |
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| Heading into the Japanese Garden. |
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This non-traditional garden began in 1906 with the expert assistance of Japanese landscaper, Isaburo Kishida.
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| Bonzai Tree. |
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Butchart Cove. Visit Buchart Gardens by boat, or better yet, seaplane! Actually, I don't think you can do that. The dock is for private use only.
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| The Star Pond. |
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Lynnette points to a flower she likes. She knows the names of them all. This one is the Angel Trumpet Flower.
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The Italian Garden
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Cross-shaped pond.
Before 1926 this area was the Butchart's concrete-surfaced tennis court.
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"Benvenuto" is Italian for "Welcome."
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| A Florentine bronze statue of Tacca the Boar. |
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| Having some gelato in the Piazza. |
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Looking in on the Show Greenhouse.
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Pretty.
And so ends our visit to the Butchart Gardens. We've been to a few botanical gardens over the year but this one is the best we've seen, hands down.
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