Beautiful Butchart gardens

A planting at the entrance to the Butchart Gardens

Blue and purple flower combinations

History of The Butchart Gardens

The year is 1904. Mr. Robert Pim Butchart, the original owner, has been mining the limestone quarry for his Portland cement business. His wife, Jennie Butchart, who obviously knows a thing or two about design, has the brilliant idea of turning the quarry into a garden. He obviously shares her vision and so begins the transformation of the quarry into one of Canada’s premier tourist attractions and a National Historic Site – though that didn’t happen until 2004.

Jennie Butchart was a gifted garden designer. She used the rock outcropping to great advantage. Then the bones – the permanent and structural components of the garden – like the trees, shrubs and walkways were so well thought out that they have survived to the present day. The photo below illustrates how the garden looked early on and the one below that shows how it looks today. These gardens are the world famous Sunken Gardens – and in my opinion the highlight of the Butchart Gardens.

Over the years The Gardens have been expanded to include the Rose, Italian, Japanese and Mediterranean Gardens. Plants from their travels – both rare and exotic, have been added over time. Then throw in thousands of bulbs, annuals, perennials and roses and voila – the stunning garden you see today.

By the 1920′s, 50,000 people visited each year. Today that number is closer to one million people per year.

The Sunken Garden - before the transformation

The Sunken Garden

Limestone hill in the Sunken Garden

Ponds in the Sunken Garden

At ground level in the Sunken Garden