The Butchart Gardens is a floral display garden in Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, Canada, located near Victoria on Vancouver Island. The gardens receive over a million visitors each year. The gardens have been designated a National Historic Site of Canada.
History
thumb|left|Entrance to the Butchart Gardens
alt=Butchart Garden in Canada 2024|thumb|Butchart Garden in Canada 2024
Robert Pim Butchart (1856–1943) began manufacturing Portland cement in 1888 near his birthplace of Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. He and his wife Jennie Butchart (1866–1950) came to the west coast of Canada because of rich limestone deposits necessary for cement production.
thumb|left|The Italian Garden
thumb|left|The Ross Fountain
In 1904, they established their home near his quarry on Tod Inlet at the base of the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island.
In 1907 Isaburo Kishida, a sixty-five-year-old garden designer from Yokohama, Japan, came to Victoria at the request of his son to build a tea garden for Esquimalt Gorge Park. This garden was wildly popular. Several prominent citizens, Jennie Butchart among them, commissioned Kishida to build Japanese gardens for their estates before Kishida returned to Japan in 1912.
In 1909, when the limestone quarry was exhausted, Jennie set about turning it into the Sunken Garden, which was completed in 1921. They named their home "Benvenuto" ("welcome" in Italian), and began to receive visitors to their gardens. In 1926, they replaced their tennis courts with an Italian garden and in 1929 they replaced their kitchen vegetable garden with a large rose garden to the design of Butler Sturtevant of Seattle. Samuel Maclure, who was consultant to the Butchart Gardens, reflected the aesthetic of the Renaissance Era and the English Arts and Crafts Movement.
In 1939, the Butcharts gave the Gardens to their grandson Ian Ross (1918–1997) on his 21st birthday. Ross was involved in the operation and promotion of the gardens until his death 58 years later, at which time his son Christopher assumed those responsibilities.
In 1982 the Butchart Gardens was used as the inspiration for the gardens at the Canadian pavilion opened at Epcot Centre in Orlando Florida.
, the Butchart Gardens employs 50 full-time gardeners to tend to the property and its 26 greenhouses.