© Janet Davis
In 1884, when 18-year old Jennie Foster
Kennedy of Toronto married Robert Pim Butchart of Owen Sound, they launched a
loving 
partnership that
would produce two daughters, a successful family business and one of the most spectacular display gardens
in the world.
Those early days were boom years in North America and young entrepreneurs were capitalizing on the building needs of an exploding population. Six years after their marriage, R.P., as he was known, left his family’s hardware business and launched the Owen Sound Portland Cement company. With their success in Ontario, the Butcharts travelled to British Columbia to evaluate a rock quarry north of Victoria. In 1904, the Vancouver Portland Cement Company was opened and Jennie and their two daughters joined R.P. in the west. They called their new home Benvenuto -- “welcome” in Italian -- and planted a solitary rose bush and a packet of sweet pea seeds.
As the cement business prospered,
blasting and drilling in the quarry produced ear-splitting noise and clouds of
dust. Jennie retreated to 
the quiet north
slope overlooking Brentwood Cove and went to work with a Japanese landscape
artist creating a serenely beautiful Japanese garden.
In 1909,with the depleted quarry abandoned, Jennie began the gargantuan task of transforming it into a sunken garden. She hired a head gardener and directed men from the cement plant in placing the vast quantities of topsoil needed to cover the rock floor. It was not unusual to see Jennie herself hanging over the quarry’s edge in a bosun’s chair, tucking ivy plants into crevices in the wall’s sheer rock face.
As the years
passed, the original cottage on the property was remodelled and enlarged,
adding a billiard room, saltwater swimming pool, tennis court and
conservatory. Through the years, the
public was welcomed into the garden and by 1915, tea had been served to 18,000
visitors.
In 1939, after ill health forced R.P. to move with Jennie into Victoria, they made a gift of Benvenuto to their grandson Ian Ross. Following a wartime tour of duty, Ian abandoned law school in Toronto and returned to Victoria with his wife and children, intent on turning his grandmother’s garden into a major tourist attraction. In 1964, he marked the garden’s 60th year by installing an elaborate fountain in a small water-filled quarry adjacent to the sunken garden; in the years that followed, firework displays encouraged visitors to stay until dark..
Today, Jennie Butchart’s garden welcomes one million visitors yearly. Many come in spring to see the spectacular displays of spring bulbs. Many more arrive in June and July, when the roses, delphiniums and other perennials are at their best, or in summer, when dahlias and brilliant annuals enliven the scene. Still more visit in autumn, when the Japanese maples and other trees take on their fall hues.
The garden remains a family business. And this April, to honour its founder, a lovely, ruby-red, lily-flowered tulip bloomed for the first time. Petite, sturdy, yet elegant like its namesake, it bears the name ‘Jennie Butchart’.
For more information, visit the website of The Butchart Gardens.
Adapted from a story that appeared in The Trellis, published by the Toronto Botanical Garden