Sunken Garden at Butchart Gardens

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:59:59 -800

Wednesday, Jason and I drove out of Victoria to the Butchart Gardens. About
eighty years ago, the Butchart family owned a rock quarry in Brentwood Bay on
Vancouver Island. As the company dug rock out of the ground for Portland
cement production, Mrs. Butchart started building gardens on the unused parts
of the property. The first garden to be built was the Japanese garden, but
when the quarry was exhausted in 1909, she began transforming the big hole in
the ground into something pretty. The result is the Sunken Garden.
According to the official garden history, the Italian and Rose sub-gardens were
constructed after the sunken garden. The Butchart Gardens are a very colorful
place to visit.