It was with great anticipation that I boarded the ultra-modern double-decker bus in Victoria on Vancouver Island to visit the Butchart Gardens, which are about half an hour’s drive from Victoria. So many people who have visited Canada told me they are a ‘must-see’.
And indeed, they proved to be everything I expected, and more. The gardens are very large, covering more than 22 hectares (55 acres). The gardens were the brainchild of a lady called Jennie Butchart, who once lived on the island and wanted to beautify a disused limestone quarry that had supplied her husband’s cement business with limestone for many years. The gardens are now over 100 years old, and have been designated as a ‘National Historic Site of Canada’. The Butchart family still owns the gardens, and welcomes more than a million visitors every year.
Because of their age, the trees throughout the gardens are very well established - beautiful, tall, stately trees that preside over the gorgeous beds of flowers and shrubs at their feet. The original plants were collected by Jennie and her husband during their extensive world travel. Today it is clear plants are still coming from overseas. The circular rose garden, for example, has varieties of roses from all over the world. In my last post I showed photographs of some of the roses that were in bloom when I was there.
I did not have time to follow every path in the gardens, but the special features I saw were the huge sunken garden, the rose garden and the Japanese garden. Each had its own beauty, but the one that appealed most to me was the Japanese garden. Its design was deceivingly simple, with artistic flowing lines, elegant shapes, the sound of gently running water and tranquil spots around each bend, but I am sure many guiding principles and a lot of understanding of human nature was behind the design. I find that a Japanese garden simply brings peace to the soul. I hope my photos will convey some of that to you.
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| The Sunken Gardens. |
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| Entering the Rose Garden. |
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| The Rose Garden. |
The remaining photos show the Japanese Garden.
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