Spring Tour of the Montréal Botanical Garden

Like many plant lovers, I love going to the Montreal Botanical Garden. I find everything charming: the plants, the shrubs, the trees, the plants, the landscaping and also the variety of plants to be found there (I’m someone with, as you can see, a wide range of interests).

It’s really in midsummer that the Botanic Garden shows off its best side, with unprecedented biodiversity, as all its gardens and exhibition spaces are completed, colorful and in bloom. Right now, at the beginning of May, it’s very different: many of the trees don’t yet have leaves, most of the themed gardens are lazily waking up from winter, the water spaces aren’t yet full, and many areas aren’t accessible to the public due to ongoing works.

But every year, I make plans to go anyway. So why go at this time of year? The reason is quite simple, and I’ll explain it to you with a lot of photos, which unfortunately don’t do justice to the beauty of this spring visit to the Montreal Botanical Garden.

Reception Garden

Spring means spring-flowering bulbs, and the team at Space for Life (who look after the Botanical Garden) have understood this concept well: the reception garden, which can be visited free of charge at the edge of the paid private area, is absolutely bursting with red and yellow tulips and daffodils.

Well, personally, I think it could be more varied: crocuses, hyacinths, anemones… there’s no shortage of choice! But lovers of tulips or the Netherlands will certainly find what they’re looking for.

Roseraie

Directly after the ticket office is the Rose Garden, a magnificent summer exhibit that’s particularly boring at this time of year… Not that you can blame them: not only do hardy roses take time to wake up in spring and eventually bloom all summer long, but a large proportion of the roses on display at the Botanical Garden, such as tea hybrids or floribundas, aren’t really hardy in Quebec: they’ve probably been pruned in late autumn and covered all winter long, to protect them from the cold. We’ll have to go back and see them later in the year!

Jardin aquatique

As the water garden was drained, there wasn’t much aquatic about it. I didn’t even take a photo.

Chinese Garden

Things are starting to get interesting! The Chinese Garden is one of the Montreal Botanical Garden’s largest exhibition spaces, and is often the site of the most grandiose projects, from late autumn light projections to water sculptures. On my visit, there was almost nothing going on, but it was still very pretty: the whole garden is organized around a promenade along the water’s edge, littered with various red structures that usually host exhibitions such as the bonsai display (currently closed).

Jardin japonais

I don’t know much about “garden” styles, so I can’t say whether this is really the Japanese effect of this garden, but it’s probably one of the most relaxing landscapes there is! Where the Chinese garden seems very organized with its vivid structures, the Japanese garden blends plant, wood and stone for the pleasure of the eyes and peace of the soul. It’s another walk around an expanse of water, dotted with narrow paths.

First Nations Garden

I hope the First Nations can forgive me, but I didn’t visit them this time! In my defense, I was wearing new rain boots, and they were hurting my feet. That’s one of the dreads of spring: the trails are pretty muddy.

Alpine Garden

Of all the main gardens, this is probably my favorite! The layout is simply sublime, with its rock formations and semi-desert setting of sun-bleached wood. The chaotic paths wind their way through these false mountains, and it’s with a little fear in my stomach that I’ve missed one of the hundreds of little mountain plants hiding between the crevices of the alpine garden that I wander tirelessly.

Lilacs

I’m planning to return to the Botanical Gardens in a few weeks. Am I mad? Yes, but in this case, I have a very specific reason. Between the alpine garden and the flowering brook (the perfect place to bask in the sun, with its peonies of every color!) is a collection of lilacs. In a few weeks’ time, their intoxicating fragrance will invade this entire pathway, and I’ll be delighted to smell and observe the different flower shapes and colors offered by the Syringa genus.

Jardin d’ombre

We’re already moving away from the more “central” gardens with one of the least-visited exhibition areas, it seems to me, since I was almost alone there… What a funny idea! Yet it’s in spring that the shade garden is at its prettiest.

The reason is quite simple: many shade plants are summer shade plants, but receive loads of spring sun. In fact, they grow at the foot of tall trees whose branches are still bare, while they are already in bloom! This is how you can see hellebores, bleeding hearts or Siberian squill (my favorite spring bulb) coloring the shade garden, only to be more discreet when their beautiful sky is covered by the foliage of the trees.

The shade garden is made up of paths that run alongside a small, straight river. It’s a very dense garden. When I went to see it, it was overgrown with certain plants that were far too enterprising (what a funny idea to plant lily of the valley without a barrier to prevent it from spreading). I wonder how often the Space for Life team has to weed its various gardens… what a job!

Jardin des Arbustes

Another reason to return is that in a few weeks’ time, the shrubbery garden will allow us to identify its flowering crabapples from afar: they’ll be entirely covered in candy-pink, red or white blossoms. As I walk along the paths, I’m always careful to look at the weigelas, one of my favorite shrubs, as they too are usually completely covered. No choice: we have to come back soon!

Leslie-Hancock Garden

This brings us to the main reason for my visit in early May. The Leslie-Hancock Garden, the exhibition space deeper in the park, is my favorite. It’s not a short walk to get there, but this garden is well worth the detour. It’s lined with conifers whose thorns, when they fall, help to acidify the soil, an essential growing condition for the several hundred rhododendrons and azaleas that grow in the heart of the garden.

Anyone who grows a rhododendron, or even a small azalea in their living room, knows that the spectacle of its bloom is breathtaking, even if it is a little brief. The shrub is covered with lightly tubular flowers in dazzling colors, from white to purple-purple, and of course bright pink and even rarer shades of yellow and red.

What an incredible sight! It’s hard, of course, to know exactly when the rhododendrons will be in bloom – for example, there were no orange blooms when I visited. But when they are in bloom, wow, they’re impossible to miss. It’s simple: it’s like something out of a fairy tale!

I feel a little bad revealing this jewel of a remote, little-visited garden, because part of its charm is that it’s not so much visited, being so far from the entrance, and its title is not very evocative, but it would be selfish to keep it to myself: I recommend you go and have a look… especially during the month of May.

Serres d’exposition

I’ll end by mentioning that the exhibition greenhouses, which I love as a houseplant “specialist” (hahaha!), were unfortunately closed. And even though I absolutely love going inside, I don’t regret my visit at all.

I’ll no doubt be back in a few weeks to see the lilacs and crabapples, but in the meantime, the magnolias and cherry trees that punctuated my visit completely charmed me. The highlight, of course, was the Leslie-Hancock garden, with its absolutely sensational rhododendrons. So, even though the season is only just beginning, and most of the areas are still undeveloped, under construction or closed, a spring visit to the Montreal Botanical Garden is definitely worthwhile… if you know where to look!