“Make your vision so clear that your fears become irrelevant.” – Anonymous
“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” – Joel A. Barker
Last Summer, I took a trip with my family to Vancouver Island, British Columbia and we paid a visit to The Butchart Gardens. As stated on their website: “The Butchart Gardens is a must-see oasis over 100 years in the making”. And what a privilege it was to take in the beauty of this place that stands as a testament to what is possible when one has a grand vision. The story of The Butchart Gardens has some hidden life lessons and it is also one of the most interesting family business success stories rarely told…
It all began with a vision and passion
In 1904, husband and wife, Robert and Jennie Butchart moved from Ontario to Vancouver Island in pursuit of riches through the mining of limestone deposits. With a quarry for their backyard, they built a cement plant at Tod Inlet, and Robert soon built a successful cement business. At the time, the West Coast was exploding with development, and cement was in constant demand from San Francisco to Seattle. The first sacks of cement sailed out of Vancouver Island aboard the “Alexander” in 1905.
Jennie Butchart busied herself around the estate by planting flowers and shrubbery in an area between the house and Butchart cove. As time passed, Jennie’s efforts increased, and her husband often supplied workmen from the factory to assist in the ever-growing project of gardening. By 1908 the limestone ran out, leaving a gigantic pit near the house.
In an attempt to hide this hideous excavation, Jennie decided to expand her garden. The concept of a sunken garden formed, and Jennie had massive amounts of topsoil imported by horse cart to form the garden bed. The rubble on the floor of the pit was pushed into tall mounds of rock on which terraced flowers were planted. Mrs. Butchart dangled over the sides of the bare quarry wall in a boson’s chair and carefully tucked ivy into any discernible pocket or crevice in the rock to hide away all the gray.
In 1929, the project was completed. It had become a garden of immense interest to the surrounding community. Tales of Mr. and Mrs. Butchart’s fabulous gardens spread as fast as the gardens themselves. From the beginning, friends, acquaintances, and even complete strangers were welcomed, as they came to marvel at the horticultural masterpiece. At one point, Mrs. Butchart found herself serving 18 000 cups of tea per year – or so the story goes…
When life gives you lemons…
According to Wikipedia, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” is a proverbial phrase used to encourage optimism and a positive can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Lemons represent sourness or difficulty in life and making lemonade implies turning the difficult things in your life into something worthwhile – i.e. life lessons learned, a business opportunity, something to be proud of. The story of The Butchart Gardens represents a life lesson in the same vein – i.e. “When life gives you a used-up mining quarry, turn it into a garden”.
However, there are even deeper lessons here. Turning your mining quarry into a garden will require a vision and consistent hard work. It won’t be easy. The vision you need to have to turn your quarry into a garden, must be an authentic vision that aligns with what gives you purpose, since it must keep you motivated, even when there is no tangible evidence of your efforts bearing any fruit yet.
The Butchart Gardens started with one woman’s vision and passion. She could visualise the garden before it was a reality. She relied on her own strengths and she wasn’t afraid to put in the hard work to make it happen – even hanging from the walls of the quarry from a boson’s chair to create the garden bit by bit.
Where there is a deep and clear want – not merely a dream or wish – you will find a way. My clients often tell me that they would like to do something, but they don’t know how. However, as Steve Chandler so eloquently puts it, when there is a clear and determined want, the how becomes clear as you push forward. Saying you don’t know how, is simply making excuses for your uncertainty about what you actually want, because if you know what you want, nothing will get in the way of you creating it; very much like Jenny Butchart did not let anything stand in her way. She continued to craft her vision one day at a time. She may not have had a clear idea of what the final garden would look like, but she let her authentic vision and her desire to create beauty around her spur her forward until finally what was inside of her starting taking shape outside of her in the form of The Butchart Gardens.
Articulating an inspiring and life-giving vision or life purpose, and spending some time exploring your own unique strengths and capabilities, allow you to put these to work in your own life to create your authentic legacy. You too, can bring what is hidden inside of you into this world. You can leave your authentic mark on this world. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Any seasoned gardener will tell you that gardening requires patience and planning. Change doesn’t happen overnight. It requires consistent little efforts in the right direction and the persistence and perseverance to keep going; with the resolve that the want you are working on is important enough to keep trying, even if you fail at reaching the goal. Some dreams are important enough to risk failure. Not trying then becomes the bigger failure.
However, there is also a reminder to enjoy the journey and to not get too fixated on the end destination. Jennie enjoyed her garden and was happy to share it with others – never thinking about how she could turn it into a business, but simply wanting a way to express herself and turn her surroundings into something beautiful. This “mission” resonated with her authentic self and she kept going. She ignored what others were doing and saying, because it was of no consequence to her. She held on to her dream and to what she was called to create.
Jennie started her garden project in 1908 and the gardens were finally completed in 1929. It took her 21 years to build her vision into a reality. The lesson here, is that building a legacy requires long-term commitment – in some instances a lifetime of commitment and perseverance. It’s not just about reaching the end destination and being done with it. It’s about living your purpose every day and finding the best ways to express it through your work and in your relationships. It’s really about enjoying the journey of being authentically you, sharing your gifts with the world, and finding joy in the many small milestones along the way.
Pivoting from existing strengths
In 1939, Mr. and Mrs. Butchart gifted the gardens to their grandson Ian Ross on his 21st birthday. Ian Ross transformed them into the world-renowned attraction we know today, adding outdoor concerts and night lighting in the summers, and the Magic of Christmas in the winters.
The gardens were then handed down to their great-grandson Christopher in 1997. Christopher began producing a choreographed firework show in the garden every year. Unfortunately, Christopher suddenly died in 2000 and the gardens landed in the hands of his sister Robin-Lee Clarke (63), who is the current owner of the gardens. In 2009 Robin-Lee added the Children’s Pavilion and Menagerie Carousel to the gardens.
The Butchart name has remained prominent in Victoria for over 10 decades and the gardens have been handed down from one generation to the next. The next in line to inherit the gardens, is Barnabas Butchart Clarke (34), the only child of Robin-Lee and David Clarke, and great-great-grandson of the founders. He currently lives in Victoria and produces dance shows.
Today, The Butchart Gardens is a National Historic Site of Canada. You can still find remnants of the original cement plant and over a million bedding plants in over 900 varieties awaiting you as you wander The Butchart Gardens.
The story of the Butchart family is also a brilliant example of continuous self-reinvention and innovation. This family business has managed to survive for over 100 years. They kept reinventing themselves by pivoting from their existing strengths. Every time the gardens were handed down to the next descendent, he/she also took it upon themselves to add something to the existing gardens that not only enhanced the visitor experience, but also served as a unique expression of their own personalities and strengths.
The lesson is that it is not what you do, but how you do it that matters. Every descendent who oversaw The Butchart Gardens had their own unique style. Although they continued to build the family legacy, they did not feel the need to change who they were as people to make it work. They allowed their own self-expression to add value in unique and wonderful ways.
There is no-one like you. No other person with your personality, your unique strengths, your history and background, your dreams and desires. That, my dear friend, makes you truly unique in this universe, and that is why Caroline McHugh encourages you to really strive to take up the space the universe intended for you. So few people truly take up the space the universe intended for them; shying away, thinking that what they have to offer doesn’t matter. However, when you discover what makes you tick, you know that there is space for you to live your most authentic life, right here, right now at this specific point in history.
Building a legacy
Creating an authentic life does not require a full overhaul or reinvention by throwing away every aspect of your past self. Rather, it is about understanding your own story and how every experience in your life has contributed to the person you are now, and how it actively shapes who you want to become. Appreciate the importance of having a powerful story. This is part of what makes The Butchart Gardens so amazing; the 100-year story of the garden.
I want to encourage you to try to discover the parts of your story that have inspired your journey in the first place. Hold on to the parts of your story that describe your authentic self to the world, and that you can leverage to become the person you know in your heart you want to be. You are already sitting on a mountain of value. Your story matters. Your journey matters. Share it. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Allow yourself to be guided by your inspired vision to create what you want to create. There is a reason why you are driven to create what you feel inspired to create. It’s part of your spiritual curriculum here on earth.
Walking through these gardens got me thinking about life in general. Often, we find ourselves in situations that are less desirable or sometimes even downright frustrating. And we can choose to sit and cry amid the chaos. We could even get angry at the dust and decay underneath our feet. Or we can decide that we want to build a garden instead, and create a more desirable future.
We possess the power to either fall into dismay along with the chaos around us or to choose to create something beautiful out of it. Growing gardens, just like building legacies, are hard work. They require effort and patience, but the pay-off is tremendous. You stand back in awe at the beauty and at what you were able to accomplish. You can choose to build a legacy that can inspire others. Be generous with your gifts. Share it with others. The universe will reward you in ways you can’t imagine yet. And through your focus and effort, you might just inspire others, much like the gardens have inspired people for over 100 years…
References:
- Butchart Gardens. (2018). Our Story. Available online from: https://www.butchartgardens.com/our-story/
- Birds of a Feather. (n.d.). Butchart Family History – Robert and Jennie. Available online from: https://www.birdsofafeather.ca/butchart-family-history