by Paula Kully –
Butchart Gardens is a jewel in the crown of the Saanich Peninsula, attracting over one million visitors a year from all over the world. People see the 55 acres of spectacular blossoms, the famous Sunken Garden and Rose Garden rampant with colour, but what they don’t see are the 130 acres of operations, 28 greenhouses staffed by 16 year-round employees, and thousands of hours that go into bringing Butchart to life.
The Gardens are open year-round, with each season bringing a new incarnation. Even in the winter, you will find the annual historic displays, Spring Prelude indoor garden and Taste of Spring High Tea. The historical displays are designed and set up by Archivist Rob Churchill, who has been working at Butchart for 28 years and is an authority on its history. He first presented the idea to the Butchart family in 2000 after recognizing how many people were interested in the Gardens’ origins.
Rob begins planning in September for the January setup, which takes five days and occupies four rooms of the Butchart family’s former residence. The exhibit includes photos, letters, documents and artifacts that tell the story of Robert Butchart’s lucrative limestone quarry and cement plant’s transformation into Jennie Butchart’s magical Gardens. Most of the pieces of furniture and fixtures throughout the rooms are original to the house, such as Mr. Butchart’s desk, the wicker furniture in the breakfast sunroom, and the pool table imported from England.
The material Rob has to work with is abundant as “the Butcharts kept everything.” The archives contain tens of thousands of items ranging from letters, postage stamps from the Tod Inlet Post Office of 1905, photos, personal possessions and more. The Archives Department has begun the daunting task of digitizing and cataloguing all of it – they have recently completed the correspondence which has totalled 7,000 items.
I was lucky enough to steal a glimpse at the 2017 Spring Prelude indoor garden just before it opened to the public this year. Intended to provide an escape from winter, the moment you walk in you are met with life, colour and heavenly fragrances. To make this happen, the Blue Poppy Restaurant is completely cleared out, leaving nothing but a large, empty room that is miraculously transformed into a summer oasis in just one week. The garden is complete with goldfish ponds, fountains, paths winding from one “garden room” to another and a wooden foot bridge.
Rick Los, Director of Horticulture; and Master Designer and Planner, Ross McKay, who have both worked at Butchart for over 30 years, design the garden. Rick insists that the power behind the display is Ross, who is dedicated to integrating the history of the Gardens into the displays with features such as fence posts and arbors made from cement but designed to look like wood. Artifacts that have been found in the forest around the property, including an ore cart, are incorporated into the displays. Numerous truckloads of bark mulch are brought in for the plants. Ponds are created with pool liners, and a temporary irrigation system is installed.
The Butchart Gardens are a self-contained community, employing 200 people year-round and 550 at the peak of the season. All the trades are represented: carpenters, electricians, mechanics, chefs, and the list goes on. A surprising number of people have worked at the Gardens for several decades: people like Maria Pancel, Greenhouse Consultant, who has been an employee for 50 years; or Tony Furtado, Supervisor of the Japanese Gardens, who has worked at Butchart for 55 years.
“Working here is like being part of a family,” explains Rick. “Once people start, they don’t want to leave.”
The final component of a winter visit to Butchart is a relaxing High Tea in the Dining Room Restaurant. Sitting there, with soft classical music playing in the background, nibbling on delicate finger sandwiches, and looking out over the Italian garden, you can imagine the wonderful world of Mr. and Mrs. Butchart who opened their home and gardens to everyone, from local neighbours, to movie stars and royalty. They cultivated flowers, but they also cultivated friendship and a sense of family which is still very much alive and well today.
