The Butchart Gardens, Victoria
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In 1904, when Jennie Butchart came to Tod Inlet on Vancouver Island with her husband Robert, a pioneering cement manufacturer, she knew nothing about gardening. Perhaps it was a friend’s gift of sweet peas and a single rose that fired her imagination, but before long a series of individual gardens began to surround the Butchart’s home.
Rolling lawns flanked by perennial borders stretched to the red-lacquered Torii that still marks the entrance to the Japanese Garden, sloping to a cove in the bay. And when the limestone quarry that fed the cement plant was exhausted, Jennie determined to transform it and the spectacular Sunken Garden was born.
Extraordinary, stunningly beautiful and a year-round spectacle with well over a million plants, the gardens are a National Historic Site of Canada and still in the family ownership. At every turn there are breathtaking vistas of colour. You could easily spend a day here.
Magnificent trees shade traditional plantings, paths meander among pools and fountains. In spring, blossom trees mingle with countless bulbs, while rhododendrons and azaleas bloom in profusion. More summer annuals than you can imagine mass in the island beds of the Sunken Garden, the Rose Garden captivates the senses, begonias dazzle the eye. The Japanese maples come into their own in autumn, and winter, too, has a special beauty in the gardens.
On summer evenings the gardens are beautifully floodlit, and firework displays to synchronised music colour Saturday nights in July and August. Sparkling lights, festive decorations, carollers and brass bands all put old-fashioned magic back into Christmas.
Situated about half way between Victoria and the Vancouver-Victoria ferry terminal at Swartz Bay, the gardens open at 9am daily, closing hours change by the season.
Contact tel: +12506524422, e-mail:
Cost adult ticket: £10 - £20 pp
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The Butchart Gardens, Vancouver
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