In case you haven’t heard of Butchart Gardens, it is located on Vancouver Island just a few miles north of the city of Victoria in British Columbia, the westernmost province of Canada. Simply, Butchart is one of the world’s most spectacular botanical gardens, displaying more than 900 varieties of plant life … you’ll get a good idea from the photos we have for you here; yet, there’s nothing like seeing it all in person.
First of all, let’s sort out the “V’s” for you. People often confuse Vancouver Island with the City of Vancouver, which is the Province’s largest city, yet it lies across a wide body of water to the east. Whereas, Victoria is the provincial capital of British Columbia and sits on the southern coast of Vancouver Island on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which is the boundary between the United States and Canada at this very western edge of the continent and from which it’s an easy ferry ride to or from Seattle.
Now that we’ve got you situated geographically, let’s turn our attention to Butchart Gardens … which is the total focus of this photo essay.
The scene, or should I say “the history” behind this magnificent place has its origins in 1904 when Robert and Jennie Butchart moved to Vancouver Island to build a cement plant, to take advantage of the rich limestone deposits which were there. Yet, less than a decade later, Robert’s cement production had exhausted the limestone deposits. Then, it was wife Jennie’s turn … she envisioned the cement plant being replaced by a grand garden! Beginning in 1912, she began moving topsoil in and created the first garden, known as the Sunken Garden.
Over the next two decades, the Butchart’s continually expanded, adding multiple garden settings to the original — in 1939 they gifted the Gardens to their grandson Ian Ross on his 21st birthday. Ian promptly set about transforming the Gardens into the world-renown attraction it has become, drawing more than a million visitors each year to the place of superb “natural beauty.”
Spanning more than 55 acres, Butchart Gardens features five main gardens along with stunning fountains, a variety of sculptures plus trickling streams. Confirming its significance, the Gardens have been declared — even though still privately owned by the Butchart family — a National Historic Site of Canada.
All of these pictures are our own photos, taken during a multi-day visit to Victoria and Butchart in the middle of September 2003. We had flown into Seattle, where we were met by my former Bonneville Broadcast Consultants associate Walter Powers and his wife Leslie … they drove us north and spent a day giving us a tour of the city of Vancouver. Alicia and I stayed overnight there, the next day taking a bus and ferry across to Victoria, a delightful place in its own right.
What I just realized in reviewing the dates on these photos … this trip came less than three months prior to our trip to visit the Foxes in Surrey, England, the story of which I shared on this page in mid-December 2021. We were playing catch-up, as all of us in the programming department of XM Radio had been working an insane amount of hours over the previous two-plus years building and refining our channels. In my case, I had barely gotten my original channel, the Savoy Express/40s Channel, up to where I was satisfied with its sound when, in the summer of 2002, it was announced that XM would be launching a Beautiful Music/Easy Listening channel out of subscriber demand. Due to circumstances which I explain in my memoir, I felt an obligation for the benefit of both the Company and the subscribers to take control of the new channel. By a year later, it was time to get some “R & R” and get out of town and begin doing some of the traveling that both Alicia and I were yearning for.
For more on the history, timeline, and what-all to be found at Butchart Gardens, visit Wikipedia.
During this Musings I’ve shared what I will call “beauty which calls out Love … the next Musings will be posted at the time in the year when the world makes an effort at celebrating Love, something which should be a year-round endeavor and action!
Dear Marlin, I SO enjoyed this musing from your visit to Butchart Gardens with your dearest Alicia! Wonderful photos of each of you as well as the magnificent gardens! I took my mother on a coastal vacation from San Francisco to Seattle, then to Victoria BC & Butchart Gardens with the fondness of memories as well.
I loved your inclusion of the individual “Love” songs knowing Valentine’s Day is close at hand. I hope you’re doing well, I’ve managed to get over being scammed but not without a lot of headaches to resolve.
do stay well & safe.
Fondly,
John Wicoff
In 2019, I spent several days in Vancouver and then took the ferry to Victoria to spend the last day there. Victoria is a really attractive little city, and Butchart Gardens are stunningly beautiful as you noted.