Jennie Butchart, artist, painted with a living palette. Her canvas was once a scar upon the land, a quarry, scraped clean, the foundation removed for construction cement. Her media was the botanical world, trees, flowers and shrubs, all creatively placed in shapes and forms with blending of fragrance and hue. For a hundred years her creation has welcomed the world and visitors flock to her garden. One could get lost, perhaps intentionally, on the meandering paths lined with begonias, salvia, fuchsia and more. Nooks and crannies invite one to sit, to contemplate, to blur the tones into one mass of blues and yellows or pinks and reds and then to sharpen the frame, to look at the details of a water droplet tracing a path along one petal's edge. Water is interwoven into the living tapestry too. Tiny trickles unite into streams. Quiet pools reflect images of red-barked madrone. Strength and power emit from the dancing jets of a fountain, an ever-changing show.
The city itself mirrors the themes of color and water. Lamp standards drip with baskets of flowers. A saltwater highway leads into the heart of the town. Here we docked for our day of exploring the gardens, museums and life at this southernmost tip of Vancouver Island.
