Butchart Gardens

At 9am, I caught the number 75 bus from downtown Victoria to Butchart Gardens. On board, I wondered where I should get off and which stop was nearest to the gardens. I need not have worried, because the bus goes into the gardens and stops outside the ticket window. Make sure to check the return times of the bus, because when I visited the earliest bus back to Victoria from the gardens was not until 3pm.

The cost for an individual entrance ticket was $36 Canadian dollars in September 2020. Butchart is a big operation. The gardens cover fifty-five acres looked after by fifty full-time gardeners, with twenty-six greenhouses and nine hundred varieties of plant. Even the car park is extensive. I gauged the garden’s popularity from the markers where people should queue up to gain entry, which at less busy times looks like a jogging circuit in a park. Once through the turnstiles a cafe, gift shop, and restaurant await the visitor. 

The history of the garden is epic. 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. In 1912, as cement production exhausted the limestone deposits, Jennie envisioned a grand garden in its place and began transferring topsoil by horse and cart. Little by little, the quarry blossomed into today’s Sunken Garden. By 1929, the Butcharts had designed the Japanese Garden on the seaside, the Italian Garden on their former tennis court and the fragrant, overflowing Rose Garden. Presented with the Gardens on his 21st birthday in 1939, grandson Ian Ross transformed them into the attraction we know today, adding outdoor concerts and night lighting in the summers, and the Magic of Christmas in the winters.

The start of a visit to the garden begins on the left-hand side of the entrance area called Waterwheel Square. This is the Laurel Walk, which curves gently to the left, passing the dining room on the right-hand side. Turning further to the left, I soon saw the vista of The Sunken Garden with a small hill in its midst. This is the most impressive area in the entire garden. A beautiful pond mirrors the surrounding trees and foliage and at the far end is the Ross Fountain, named after the Butchart’s grandson. The lawns are immaculate, and the 151 beds stuffed with flowers create colourful patterns in two and three dimensions. The Sunken Garden is five acres in size and the gardeners plant 65,000 bulbs for spring, an immense operation by any standards. On the way out of the Sunken Garden, see the Bog Garden, a complete contrast to what you have just seen, but no less impressive in its own way.

On December 1, 2009, the Children’s Pavilion and Rose Carousel opened to the public. The Rose Carousel is the only carousel on Vancouver Island. People ride on thirty animals carved from basswood ranging from bears, to horses, to ostriches, to zebras, to cats. Two chariots accommodate disabled persons. The designs were hand-picked by Robin Clarke, the great-granddaughter of Jennie Butchart, who now owns the garden. They housed the carousel within the 7,500 sq. ft Children’s Pavilion, which has a glass facade, and a roof planted with native plant species. 

Nearby are two Totem Poles, carved in classic Coast Salish style by Master Carvers Charles Elliot of the Tsartlip Nation and Doug La Fortune of the Tsawout Band. The latter pole had an eagle with salmon, an orca, and a bear with salmon. They dedicated the poles on 9th September 2004, both to celebrate the 100th anniversary of The Butchart Gardens and in recognition of the rich cultural heritage provided by Indigenous People.

The next sight is the Organ Pavilion and the dahlia border, with hundreds of the flowers swaying gently in the breeze. The colours are dazzling and captivating. This border is close to the bronze dragon fountain, which has been in residence since 2015. The 2-metre high by 3-metre-long bronze and granite sculpture, weighing over 2700 kg, was a gift from the People’s Republic of China and in particular the City of Suzhou to coincide with the 35th anniversary of its sister-city relationship with Victoria. 

Next is the Rose Garden with 2,500 rose plants, 280 varieties of rose, and thirty rose arches. The gardeners have added the name of the rose to each bush, which helps if you are taking pictures of them. I was pleased to see many insects here. After happily wandering around the various walkways in this garden, I headed towards the peaceful Japanese garden, through the Torii gate. There are five hundred rhododendrons and azaleas here, seventy-four Japanese Maples plus bridges over a flowing stream, raked gravel, stepping stones, a small pavilion, and a heron pond. 

I walked past the Star Pond and arrived at the Italian Garden, built on the former tennis court. Eighteen flower beds and eighty-five plant varieties surround a small cross-shaped water feature.