Beyoootiful flowers

Once upon a time there was a cement magnate called Bob. He brought his lovely wife Jennie from Ontario to the west coast of Canada because he knows how to show a lass a good time and because apparently the limestone deposits in the area were boss.  In 1904 they established their home near his quarry on Vancouver Island.

In 1907. Isaburo Kishida of Yokohama came to Victoria to build a tea garden. Shortly thereafter this was the place to be seen. Jennie would be blowed if her boring neighbours -who didn't even have dusters- were going to snatch up the latest hot thing and so she successfully commissioned a Japanese garden for the estate. Jennie liked the result and Bob encouraged her and her new found passion for gardening: after all if she wasn't leaving the estate, how much damage could she do? Big mistake Bob. Big. Huge. In 1909 Jennie decided to turn the exhausted limestone quarry into a sunken garden which was completed in 1921.

They renamed their home Benvenuto ("welcome" in Italian) because when you have something that everyone wants to see, you can be an insufferable pretentious so-and-so and everyone just has to suck it up.

In 1926 Jennie realised that she was no Suzanne Lenglen (who apparently sipped brandy in the change-overs) and since playing tennis while wearing a skirt below the knees and a headband wasn't much fun, she demolished the tennis court and replaced it with an Italian garden.
In 1929, Jennie did not have the foresight to realise that the world was on the brink of depression and decided to replace the very useful kitchen vegetable garden with the not so useful rose garden

Useful

In 1939 Jennie and Bob gave the garden to their son Ian as a 21st Birthday present. While no doubt expecting a non-stop conveyor of hookers and blow (as is the due of any heir to a cement dynasty), he instead ended up growing flowers and charging Asian tourists $10 for ice cream.  Sometimes the thug life chooses you.

Some context: G and I went to Butchart Gardens.  It was pleasant.