Glog
Spring Ahead (March 12, 2009)
The longer days and bright sunshine means that Spring is around the corner. Meteorologists, astronomers and anthropologists may not agree on the day that Spring arrives, but gardeners know that the season coincides with the appearance of the first buds on the trees and shrubs and the reappearance of songbirds in our midst.
Our garden, one of the furthest North (48.51 latitude) on the eastern half of North America, enjoys Spring much later than almost any other garden on the continent. It arrives later and lasts barely a few weeks. Snow generally stays on the ground in our gardens until May 1, by which time the lilacs, cherry or apple trees have already begun to bloom elsewhere. After a long and cold winter, the frozen ground begins its steady thaw, but our gardeners cannot do any planting until the first weeks of June.
Spring for us also means that we take the gardens and the International Garden Festival on the road. We are returning to Canada Blooms in Toronto from March 18 to 22 to present one of the feature gardens from the last edition of the International Garden Festival – the amusing and lyrical garden created by Montreal designers Rita (Stéphane Halmai-Voisard and Karine Corbeil) – Come Play in our Garden – a garden featuring 50 “little trees” that visitors can plant as they see it. Like the gardens we have presented at past editions of the Festival, Rita’s garden will almost certainly be one of the hits of the show.
I will be on hand to present Rita’s garden and also to promote Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens to visitors in the Via Rail Garden Route section along with Melanie Gauthier and our chef, Pierre-Olivier Ferry. Come by our booth – or better yet –come play in our garden!
