Butchart Gardens

The Butchart Gardens are located in Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, a municipality which is part of Greater Victoria on Vancouver Island. They were created by Jennie Butchart.

In 1904 Jennie Butchart's husband, Robert Butchart, had abandoned a worked-out quarry site left behind from his pioneer work with Portland cement. Jennie then began to beautify the exhausted limestone quarry by committing herself to the gradual horticultural development of what is now internationally known as the Butchart Gardens.

By 2004, a series of replantings are done yearly throughout the Gardens. A full-time staff of fifty gardeners uses over one million bedding plants in some seven-hundred different varieties to ensure uninterrupted blooming from March through October.

For over a century, people from all places of the world visiting Vancouver Island in British Columbia, have been delighted to walk among the gardens planted by the enterprising Mrs. Butchart.

History

Robert Pim Butchart first began manufacturing Portland cement near his birthplace of Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. At the end of the nineteenth century, he had become a highly successful pioneer in this burgeoning North American industry. Robert first came to the West Coast of Canada because of his interest in the rich limestone deposits vital for cement production.

Robert's wife, Jennie Butchart, first began working on the gardens in 1904, the same year he built a new factory and their house at Tod Inlet on Vancouver Island. The plant stopped manufacturing cement in 1916, but continued to make tiles and flower pots as late as 1950. Once the quarry became depleted of resources, Jennie conceived a plan for refurbishing the quarry pit. She requisitioned tons of top soil from a nearby farmland, had it brought over to Tod Inlet by horse and cart and used it to line the floor of the abandoned quarry. Under her personal supervision, the empty quarry bloomed as the Sunken Garden. The only surviving portion of Mr. Butchart's Tod Inlet cement factory today is the tall chimney of a long-vanished kiln. The chimney can be seen from The Sunken Garden Lookout.

Robert had been a hobbyist of sorts and had collected ornamental birds from all over the world. Figuring the birds would add to the pride he already felt in his wife's gardens, Robert kept a parrot in the main house, ducks in the Star Pond and peacocks on the front lawn. Additionally, Robert built several elaborate bird houses throughout the gardens and trained pigeons at the site of the present day Begonia Bower.

Reflecting on their world travels, the Butcharts began to develop a Japanese Garden on the sea side of their home with the help of a Japanese landscape designer. Begun in 1905, the tranquil Japanese Garden is one of the oldest surviving areas of the estate with many of the original plantings still thriving, including Japanese maples, variegated dogwoods and Tibetan blue poppies.

By 1929, the Butcharts had created an Italian Garden on the site of their old tennis court and a Rose Garden in lieu of the couple's large kitchen vegetable patch.

Mrs. Butchart's garden quickly gained fame. By the 1920s, more than fifty thousand people came each year to see her creations. In a gesture toward all their visitors, the Butcharts christened their estate "Benvenuto," the Italian word for "Welcome". Their manse became a luxurious showplace with a bowling alley, an indoor salt-water swimming pool, a paneled billiard room and a self-playing Aeolian pipe organ, a wonder in its day. Today, the residence contains a restaurant in the Dining Room; offices and rooms are still used for personal family entertaining.

Nowadays, The Butchart Gardens is still a family business and has grown to become a premier West Coast display garden, while maintaining the traditions of its past. Butchart Gardens have established an international reputation for their year-round display of flowering plants. Over one million people visit each year, enjoying not only the flora but the entertainment and lighting displays presented each summer and Christmas.

External link

• Official website (http://www.butchartgardens.com/)