When snow starts to pile up and you can’t step outside without wrapping yourself in three layers of clothing, what’s a northern gardener to do? Head south, you say? But that requires a lot of cash and free time. I have a better, cheaper solution: why not visit the nearest greenhouse?
Allan Gardens Conservatory
I first started doing this when I was a student at the University of Toronto. It’s within walking distance of Allan Gardens, Toronto’s grand Victorian greenhouse, but I’d only ever been there as a child. Then one day particularly blustery winter day, when I just had to take my mind off my studies and get outdoors, but couldn’t bear the thought of trudging endlessly through Toronto’s grey slush, an image suddenly popped into my head. That beautiful palm house, with its giant tropical plants: I wonder if it’s open in the winter?
Of course it was (it’s open 7 days a week all year and admission is free, which certainly met my student budget!) and in a few minutes, I was standing in a tropical paradise. You could see ice crystals on the curving glass panels and the park outside was white with snow, but so what? Inside it was warm and humid and smelled just like a forest after a rain. I wandered about, soaking up the heat and atmosphere, admiring the gorgeous blooms on the cactus and orchids. I really felt like I had physically absorbed part of it, as if some of that exotic beauty was now part of me. Then I went back to my studies, totally reinvigorated.
For as long as I remained in Toronto, that was my winter energizer.
Montreal Botanical Gardens
Where I live, in Quebec City, there is no public greenhouse nearby. There is, of course, the extraordinary greenhouse complex at the Montreal Botanical Gardens – by far the largest in North America! – but that’s a 5 hour drive there and back. I do manage to get there once or twice a winter, but most of the time, I steal that much-needed tropical ambiance… from a local garden center.
Local Garden Center
The larger ones near here have fairly vast greenhouses where I can get just the shot of tropical warmth and humidity I need to carry me through the endless months of snow. A trip a month or so and I’m really feeling good. Plus I usually need something from the garden center anyway: potting soil, seeds, etc.
So, bye-bye winter time blues, hello greenery, warmth and exotic scents. You too can charge up your winter batteries with glorious tropical sunshine today: just visit a greenhouse today!
This text was first published on this blog on December 27, 2014. It has been revised and the layout updated.
Great counsel both then and today. Regards, Larry If you’d like, we can play pico park . The greatest game ever is this one.
Oh, it sort of makes me laugh. Winter is a very busy season here because it is so brief. There is not much time for all the dormant pruning. When it finishes, I go to Washington to prune apple trees before winter ends there also. It takes a while longer. I enjoy the later winter because we do not get much of it here, especially if I got to the Los Angeles region for a few days in January. (I should be there for January 18, but will go after winter this year.)
Great advice then & now. Thanks Larry!
Westmount has a small Victorian greenhouse adjacent to their library on Sherbrooke Street West. It is tiny, but also a welcome respite from the rigors of winter. The library is worth a visit, (the oldest municipal library in Quebec), as is Victoria Hall (next door) when its having used book sales, with an interesting selection of gardening and landscape books.
We received our first blast of genuine winter this weekend with first a brief temperature plunge and a snowfall followed by a quick warming and blustery winds and rainfall leaving us with a frozen crust over everything and temperatures colder than anything that we have had to date in mid January. Spoiled – I am ready for spring in southern Ontario, 2024!