Butchart Gardens

Jennie Butchart began Butchart Gardens in 1904 as a way of hiding a mess. Her husband, Robert Pim Butchart, ran a cement works beside Tod Inlet on the Saanich Peninsula, and when the limestone quarry beside their home was exhausted it left behind a pit of bare rock. She had topsoil carted in by horse and wagon, lowered herself down the quarry walls on a bosun's chair to plant ivy on the cliffs, and slowly turned the wound into the Sunken Garden. The result became one of Canada's best-known gardens, and it is still owned and run by the Butchart family.

The garden lies at Brentwood Bay, in Central Saanich, about 20 kilometres north of downtown Victoria in British Columbia, which makes it roughly a half-hour drive. The site covers around 55 acres and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2004. The Sunken Garden is the showpiece and still the first thing most people head for, a bowl of lawns, flower beds and flowering trees seen from a lookout on its rim.

Around it is a sequence of themed gardens. The Japanese Garden, laid out in 1906 with the help of a landscape designer from Yokohama, runs down toward the water through maples and moss. The Italian Garden was made in 1926 on the site of the family tennis court, and the Rose Garden followed in the 1930s, with hundreds of rose varieties flowering along arbours from June into autumn. The Mediterranean Garden fills another corner. The Ross Fountain, added in 1964 to mark the family's 60th year at the property, is a tiered fountain that throws jets in sequence and is lit at night.

Seasons change the experience entirely. Spring brings tulips, rhododendrons and bulbs, summer is rose and bedding season, and in the colder months the gardens put on a lights display around Christmas. In summer, evening illuminations and Saturday-night fireworks are added, and live music is held on the Concert Lawn. Visitors should plan on a couple of hours at least, and more if you want tea in the dining room or lunch on site.

It suits gardeners, families, couples and anyone who has a half-day to spare outside Victoria. Hours and prices change with the season, so confirm them on the official site before you set off.