Butchart Gardens - Victoria#
The Butchart Gardens Butchard Gardens, BC is a group of floral display gardens in Brentwood Bay, located near Victoria on Vancouver Island. The gardens receive close to a million visitors each year. The gardens are a National Historic Site of Canada.
The history of the garden starts with cement production (!):
Robert Pim Butchart and his wife Jennie came to the west coast of Canada because of rich limestone deposits necessary for cement production.
They established their home near a quarry on Tod Inlet at the base of the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island.
Jennie Butchart commissioned Japanese gardens for their estates popular in early 1900 in this area. In 1909, when the limestone quarry was exhausted, Jennie turned it into the Sunken Garden, which was completed in 1921. In 1926, they replaced their tennis courts with an Italian garden and in 1929 they replaced their kitchen vegetable garden with a large rose garden reflecting the aesthetic of the English Arts and Crafts Movement.