Butchart Gardens, a Lesson in Problem Solving.
A problem in Jennie Butchart’s backyard.
We all have problems, some big, some small, some seemingly insoluble. Jennie Butchart had a huge problem: a big hideous hole in her backyard.
Admittedly the hole was off to one side and the property was large. On the other hand, the hole was actually a pit, a gigantic scar on the earth left behind when her husband’s company extracted tons of limestone from the quarry.
So what would you do? Jennie’s first attempt to mitigate the problem was to plant poplars and Persian plums between the pit and the house. Good. Problem solved. Right? I might have added a fence so no one would fall into the abandoned quarry. But it was 1908. People weren’t so concerned about safety in those days.
A bold solution.
In the face of a problem as colossal as a limestone quarry in the back yard, you and I might have thrown up our hands in despair or taken half measures and left it at that.
Not Jennie Butchart. She conceived a bold plan for a sunken garden. She’d have the rubble at the bottom of the pit pushed into piles to make the basic structure of terraces and hills. Then she’d have massive amounts of topsoil brought in by horse cart.
a hill inside the quarry
As things got underway, she realized the gray quarry walls looked grim, so she dangled over the side in a boson’s chair and planted ivy in crevices in the rock.
Her husband, Robert, had spent six years (1902-1908) digging out the limestone and making a fortune selling bags of cement up and down the West Coast. It took Jennie until 1921 to complete her sunken garden.
From famous and free to a commercial venture.
The gardens were famous even before they were finished. In 1915, 18,000 people showed up to view the fantastic gardens. The Butcharts, who had named their home Benvenuto, didn’t turn anyone away or charge them a penny. In fact, they welcomed visitors in and served them a cup of tea.
the star pool, part of the Italian Garden
Jennie’s unflagging generosity continued into the 1930s and ‘40s. Eventually the couple moved to Victoria. Before Mr. Butchart’s death, they gave the gardens to their grandson, Ian Ross, for his twenty-first birthday. Quite a birthday gift, eh? Ian ran Butchart Gardens for the next fifty years, transforming it into a commercial venture and an internationally famous destination. Today his daughter is in charge of the gardens that her great-grandmother brought into existence.
The dahlias were in full bloom when my sister and I visited on October 13, 2015.
Fall color and a sunny day in October … Victoria, BC, receives 308 sunny days a year and only 26 inches of rain thanks to being in the rain shadow of Washington State’s Olympic Mountains.
This grouping is on its last leg, but I liked the contrast of colors and textures.
Butchart Gardens has 50 full-time gardeners, 70 during the summer. This gardener is watering forget-me-nots that will bloom in the spring. Tomorrow, if the bulbs from Holland arrive on time, he’s going to plant 5000 daffodil and tulip bulbs in this one flowerbed. Then, after one season, the bulbs will be pulled up and thrown in the compost heap. After that, new ones will be planted.
According to the gardener, these begonias were going to be pulled out two days after I took the photo.
I liked the romance of these arches.
Next week’s post will be about the Japanese Garden which is also part of Butchart Gardens. It has quite a different look from what I’ve shown here.
