The Blooms of Butchart Gardens

The Butchart Gardens is inarguably the gem of Vancouver Island. Everyone who goes to Victoria also has Butchart Gardens on the top of the list of “must-sees.” The garden complex is located at Brentwood Bay, not far from Victoria.

When I first mentioned it to my husband, he could not understand why I had to take him to this garden. He thought that this tour was more suitable for garden enthusiasts and landscapers, not rock and volcano enthusiasts like himself. He will choose rocks over flowers anytime. But I explained to him that this is no ordinary garden.

The Butchart Gardens is a 55-acre paradise that showcases five meticulously manicured gardens, plus extra attractions. I had seen other gardens before, but in my opinion, nothing can rival the size, variety, colours, and fragrances that Butchart Gardens has to offer. A trip there is always a magical experience and there is something for everyone – greenhouse tours, guided walks, Afternoon Tea, fine dining, music festivals, boat rides, light illuminations, evening entertainment, and fireworks. It’s definitely not just for the gardeners.

Though I had gone there several times, each visit is unique. The gardens assume different personalities with the change of seasons.

In the spring, it bursts into a symphony of colours as the tulips, daffodils, magnolias, peonies, and rhododendrons emerge from their winter sleep. The roses and hydrangeas are pruned, and the greenhouses are spruced up to prepare for the summer gardens.

In the summer, the gardens are in full bloom, with the first few months welcoming the delphiniums that soon give way to the roses. Over 900 varieties of plants are grown for the summer spectacle, with an emphasis on beauty and colour from hydrangeas, begonias, lilies, and fuchsias.

The autumn season highlights their collection of Japanese Maples that display their foliage in vibrant fall colours – the reds, and oranges, and yellows, and the rich, warm hues of dahlias, chrysanthemums, beauty berries, coneflowers, and glory bowers.

In the winter, the gardens turn peaceful as they let the daphnes, crocuses, heathers, primroses, witch hazels, and hellebores take centre stage. And then they move out the thousands of poinsettias for their Christmas showcase.

So, for those who ask about the best season to see the gardens, the answer really boils down to personal taste.

To entice my husband even more, I told him that there was a fireworks show scheduled for that night. And since it was the Canada Day long weekend, it would be extra spectacular.

I also mentioned the lovely upscale restaurant within the property, built in the original Butchart family home. It is known for their innovative plates reinvented every season and centered around local ingredients from their own backyards. Diners can savour their meals while taking in the picturesque views of the Italian Garden and the owner’s private garden.

The restaurant also hosts elaborate Afternoon Teas. What could be a more perfect setting for an English-inspired tradition than this garden?

Aside from fine food, it also offers an extensive wine list, including a selection of Vancouver Island vintages. On summer Saturdays, such as the day we were going there, they serve gourmet picnics in the Italian Garden right before the fireworks displays.

My husband finally said he’s sold on the idea. I am pretty sure that it was the food, and not the garden, nor the fireworks that convinced him.

The tour bus ride took only thirty minutes from the Victoria Harbour, so we had practically the whole late afternoon, evening, and most of the night to spend in the gardens. The bus would pick us up right after the fireworks and take us back to downtown Victoria.

Before I describe the gardens, I would like to give a little background on how it started. Its story is as colourful as the flowers they celebrate all around the property.

The Butchart Gardens is privately owned, but has been opened to visitors since 1904, and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2004.

Robert Pim Butchart, a pioneer in the thriving American cement industry in those days, moved from Owen Sound, Ontario to the Saanichton Peninsula of Vancouver Island, enticed by its rich limestone deposits. He developed a quarry and built a cement plant there. His wife, Jennie, became the company’s chemist.

Close to the quarry, the couple established their home. As Mr. Butchart exhausted the quarry, his enterprising wife turned the gigantic pit into what is now the Sunken Garden. Then, she created a Japanese Garden on the seaside, an Italian Garden on their former tennis court, and a beautiful Rose Garden nearby. Her supportive husband collected ornamental birds from all over the world and made them part of this paradise. He kept ducks in the Star Pond and peacocks in the front lawn, and he built many elaborate bird houses throughout the gardens. Through successive generations of the Butchart family, the site has retained much of its original design, and continues the Victorian tradition of seasonally changing the outstanding floral displays.

We were given a map of the property as we got in. Already, the promise of a truly dazzling walk around the garden paths tantalized us at the first sighting of floral bushes bursting with every colour of the rainbow. I kid you not, if one is an avid photographer, this is one place to visit. Or if one is keen on staging Instagram-perfect shots amidst a floral background, one could have a collection of fantastic photos for the whole year.

We started off at the Sunken Garden. Looking at the green carpet enveloping the whole site cradling beds of flowers, trees, and shrubs, it was hard to imagine that the site was once a limestone quarry. Mrs. Butchart truly outdid herself in transforming something dull and ugly into a garden of massive dimensions and aesthetic qualities.

It is accessed by a switchback staircase that leads 15 meters down to the undulating garden floor that contains beds of annuals interspersed amongst flowering trees and shrubs planted on the base of the towering quarry walls.  The garden is crowned by mature Douglas firs, cedars, and Lombardy poplars. Protruding from its centre is a rock mound that offers a lookout point, while its walking path winds past the graceful Ross Fountain and the peaceful Bog Garden.

My husband simply said, “Wow!” I guess as early as that point, he was more than convinced that this garden indeed, was worth visiting. But that was only the beginning.

The gardens were intelligently laid out as a series of clearly defined spaces, each with its own character and style, typical of Edwardian landscape design, but the transitions were smooth.

The Rose Garden features beds of hybrid tea roses, boxwood hedges, and rose arches laden with floribundas, ramblers, and climbers. The Japanese Garden (my favourite), built with the help of a Japanese landscaper, features an inviting grand torii gate, a complex network of interconnected ponds crisscrossed by paths and bridges, moss-covered ground surfaces, bamboo shoots, maple and beech trees, Himalayan blue poppy blossoms, and meticulously pruned bonsais and shrubs. The Italian Garden, a formal sunken garden, is defined by a rectangular concrete terrace that encloses a cross-shaped fountain and ornamented with a bronze-cast statue. The Star Pond is a formal water feature in the shape of a twelve-pointed star interspersed with beds of annual flowers. It has a frog fountain as its centerpiece. Tucked by the parking lot, there is also the small, quaint Mediterranean Garden growing with lush, exotic plants from around the globe.

Throughout our stroll, I had to stop my husband from trying to take too many pictures of me standing beside different flowers. I guess he had become a flower-convert.

Aside from the gardens, there were other interesting attractions. The domed pavilion and the Menagerie Carousel are favourites for kids. The Menagerie Carousel was named after its 30 old-fashioned, hand-carved wooden animals and chariots that were brought to life by the owner’s great-granddaughter and current owner. There is The Wharf, which is the official boater’s entrance to the gardens for those who prefer to go to the peninsula via water. It also offers electric boat tours that explore the waters surrounding the gardens and is a good way to spot wildlife, such as seals, eagles, and otters. It has tie-ups for dinghies and paddle-powered watercraft, as well as five buoys. Then, there are the stately Totem Poles, carved in classic Coast Salish-style by master carvers of the Salish Nation, and installed in recognition of the rich cultural heritage provided by Indigenous Peoples.

After our garden walk, we headed back to the Italian Garden because beside it is the Gelateria Benvenuto that sold homemade sorbet and gelato in many tempting flavours. We cooled off for a bit with our frozen treats (I got a mixed berry gelato and my husband found a lemon gelato that he could eat).

Then we headed to the Seed and Gift Store that sold not only seeds and gardening items, but also local artisanal products and Victoria souvenirs. We bought small items for my husband’s family in Montreal (my local BC family did not need any) – cologne for my mother-in-law, soap for my father-in-law, garden tools for my sis-in-law and her husband, and lip moisturizers for our nieces that were all floral-motiffed.

At The Dining Room, we had a wonderful meal of wild BC salmon served with a salad of wild rice, feta, corn, cherry tomatoes, edamame, and cucumber tossed in a citrus-yogurt dressing (no salad for my husband, so I ate his portion). We shared a vanilla-bean creme brûlée for dessert (and again, I took the pistachio-cardamom biscotti that came with it that he could not have), then lingered over coffee and waited for the skies to get a little darker to see the light illuminations.

At this point, the gardens, with the artistically-positioned lighting to accentuate particular features, assumed a different look and provided another kind of ambiance. We walked around for the second time just to see how different the gardens appeared at night. It was magical! The atmosphere was a combination of peaceful, inspirational, dramatic, and romantic. Just wow!

To cap the night off, we found a strategic place near the Rose Garden, sat on the grass, and watched the Canada Day fireworks. As promised, it was spectacular. It was the perfect end to a night of enchantment.