Butchart Gardens, British Columbia

Butchart Gardens, near Victoria, B. C., was my inspiration for these garden walks.  I visited the Gardens for the first time in July 2011,  It was an overcast and often rainy day, but this seemed to make the colors that much more lush and the scent that much more heavenly.  The overcast seemed to make the photos really pop, too.

Until this visit, I had not realized how spectacular it could be to walk through a large garden in full bloom.  Butchart is massive and has many garden "rooms". The quarry garden is particularly impressive, with its meandering walkways and so many different flowering plants.  It is almost completely unrecognizable as a quarry.  In 1906, Robert Butchart's limestone quarry was exhausted and his wife, Jennie, created this beautiful sunken garden out of it by trucking in huge amounts of topsoil.  Using a harness contraption, she even hung hundreds of feet in the air to set plants into the quarry walls.
 

 The fountain, close to the quarry, is truly beautiful with its changing patterns of spray and the sunken setting surrounded by greenery.  There is a wonderful viewing area here and there are benches to sit and enjoy the view, as there seem to be all over the Gardens.

The Italian Garden is brilliantly beautiful and much more minutely designed.  There are ivy and window boxes of trailing flowers covering the front of snack shops along one side of this garden.  Gellato is available in one of them.  Of course, you can get some lunch and shop for gifts in the main building area behind this garden, at the front gate.  Check out the Butchart webside: http://www.butchartgardens.com/

 This is an orchard of lovely trees (not sure what kind) surrounded by colorful impatiens.  The orchard edges a lovely amphitheater area (to the right of these trees) where concerts are often held and concert goers can sit on the grass to enjoy the music.

This is my favorite fountain, of which there are many.  It's a sculpture of entwined, jumping fish, as you can see, with water shooting up from inside.  The surrounding shrubbery, the fountain edging of beautiful plantings, and the surrounding benches make this a really relaxing place to rest after walking for hours.

The Butchart Gardens Rose Garden is huge, so incredibly colorful, and the scent is wonderful. One could spend hours just walking or sitting and enjoying the evening in this setting.

There is, also, a wonderful Japanese Garden that slopes down to the water and a boat dock.  That garden has mostly overarching greenery and many quiet rooms with a variety of water features.