Garden Design History in Quebec

Southern Quebec is blessed with more historic gardens than anywhere else in Canada. The ornamental gardening tradition in the province can be traced back to the beginning of colonization. After French explorer Samuel de Champlain established a settlement at Québec in 1608, the inhabitants planted a rose garden even as they struggled to stay alive in the sometimes-hostile environment of New France.

 
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During the ensuing years of the French Regime, numerous gardens appeared in the city of Montréal and Québec.  Period maps and other documents indicate that religious orders frequently developed extensive plots.  The Ursulines, for instance, planted a flower garden in Québec City in 1642, while the Sulpicians constructed a walled garden at their seminary in Montréal around 1650.  High-ranking officials, such as the governor and the intendant of Quebec, also supervised the creation 
of impressive gardens.
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Plants and botanical information were exchanged regularly between Quebec and France.  Indeed, a royal ordinance of 1726 obliged the captains of ships traveling to the colonies to bring back seeds and plants for the royal garden that had been inaugurated in Paris a century before.

 
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After the British conquest in 1760, decorative gardening continued to flourish in Quebec, reaching unparalleled popularity in the second half of the nineteenth century.  Some garden owners called on the services of landscape architects or designers; most did the planning themselves.

  In Montréal, Sherbrooke, the Eastern Townships, and Québec City, leading citizens kept plants indoors as well as outdoors.  Fascinated by horticulture, Montreal’s industrial barons founded the Montreal Horticultural Society.

In 1937 landscape architect Louis Perron laid out the stunning Joan of Arc Garden in Quebec City, which surrounds a statue of the French heroine and harmonizes French and English garden styles.  Visitors have an opportunity to admire over 150 species of bulbs, annuals, bulbs and especially, perennials.  During summertime, hundreds of varieties ornate the flowerbeds, beneath the branches of the majestic elms.  During Fall season, visitors can appreciate the warm colors of seasonal perennials and annuals.  All October-long, Halloween decors await visitors, in the daytime or in the evening.
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Reford Gardens is the Most Famous in the “Belle Province”
Ten-thousands of visitors will stroll through the enchanting 17-hectare grounds in Grand-Métis on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.  

It was in the summer of 1926 that Mrs. Reford took up gardening at the age of 54.  A wealthy Montrealer, she was convalescing after surgery at “Estevan,” a fishing lodge on a peninsula at the confluence of the Métis and St. Lawrence Rivers that she had inherited from an uncle and adopted as a country home.

As a pastime, she decided to create a garden alongside the lodge.  She ordered a plot to be cleared, soil to be produced from peat, sand, and gravel from nearby farms and beaches, and compost to be rendered from the leaves of local deciduous trees.

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Self-Taught Horticulturalist
Mrs. Reford had no formal education in horticulture.  She could have afforded to hire a landscape architect, but she simply preferred to lay out the garden on her own.  

Over the next 30 years, she became more and more passionate about gardening.  She continued to experiment and learn from her mistakes.  She read voraciously, toured gardens in England, and exchanged tips with more experienced gardeners.  She kept a detailed written record of her garden’s evolution, while her husband, Robert Wilson Reford, kept a comprehensive photographic record.

  Mrs. Reford’s original garden gradually expanded into six garden areas interspersed with sheltering woodlands. 

Assisted by local employees, she built steps and terraces with stones from neighboring fields.  She planted a dazzling diversity of indigenous and exotic plants, including gentians, lilies, meconopsis, peonies, primula, and roses.  

She designed a formal herbaceous border along the sides of a flagstone pathway known as the “Long Walk.” Otherwise, she incorporated wild-looking plantings, many of them on the banks of a stream meandering through the property.

In 1954 Mrs. Reford gave the estate to her son, Bruce.  Seven years later, unable to meet the rising costs of upkeep, he sold it to the Quebec government.  The province opened the gardens to the public but eventually put the site up for sale.  Since 1995 it has been owned and run by Les Amis des Jardins de Métis, a non-profit corporation, and managed — with remarkable success — by Alexander Reford, Elsie Reford’s great-grandson.

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Les Quatre Vents
During the 1930s, an American family by the name of Cabot took up gardening in Cap à l’Aigle, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River.  Their gardens, “Les Quatre Vents,” ultimately covered more than eight hectares.  

On occasion, owners themselves have ensured the conservation of their gardens.  Prime Minister Mackenzie King bequeathed his Gatineau estate, which features picturesque gardens and reconstructed ruins, to the government of Canada.  The park is named Kingsmere.


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Recognizing Heritage Gardens

The federal Department of Canadian Heritage and the provincial Ministère de la culture now consider historic gardens eligible for funding.  Parks Canada has plans to restore the gardens at the Manoir Papineau National Historic Site in Montebello.



“For centuries,” Alexander Reford concludes “gardens constituted a vital element of Quebec’s heritage. They deserve to remain that way.”

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Read more:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/his-quebec-garden-called-canadas-best-kept-secret/article4179930/

https://www.gardenvisit.com/gardens/in/canada/quebec

https://www.gardenvisit.com/gardens/montreal_botanic_garden

https://www.refordgardens.com/

https://garden.org/learn/articles/view/1124/

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/historic-gardens

https://hudson.quebec/en/location/the-history-garden/

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Why Are My Daffodils or Tulips Not Blooming?

A Checklist of Causes:

Are you feeding with high-nitrogen fertilizer? The first number in the N-P-K ratio should be low; high N=no flowers, so bulb fertilizers aren’t high N?  Use instead one, low in nitrogen with these numbers:  3-6-6 or: 5-10-10.

Did you neglect to feed for more than a year or two? Feed bulbs when they begin active growth - when the green shoots are emerging.  Use an all-natural organic fertilizer intended for bulbs.  Apply according to label directions.

Did you cut foliage back too soon last year?  At least 6 weeks of “ripening” time is needed, with their foliage growing and intact.  In order to hide these yellow leaves, plant the bulbs behind large perennials or shrubs.  They will grow up or bloom at a time after the Daffodils are finished blooming.

Is the area very dry?  Bulbs need ample moisture when they are growing actively. On the other hand, a soggy area is harmful to them.

Is the area filled with tree roots, or with other competing plants who grab all the nutrients and moisture? Areas under evergreens can be inhospitable, for instance (ad well as too shady).

Dividing may be called for - or transplanting to another, better-suited area.

Were the bulbs recently planted or recently transplanted? Both can set back the bulbs for a time.

With daffodils - and bulbs in general - there are some additional triggers of diminished bloom, says the American Daffodil Society.  Read their full list of possible causes:
https://daffodilusa.org/growing-daffodils/non-blooming-daffodils/


What About Tulips?
They need similar care: In the spring, when leaves emerge, feed your tulips the same bulb food or bone meal which is low in nitrogen, the same you use for Daffodils: 5-10-10. Water well. Deadhead tulips as soon as they go by, but do not remove the leaves! Allow the leaves to remain on the plants for about 6 weeks after flowering.

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Historic Public & Residential Gardens in Canada

Canada's historic gardens reflect aspects of the history, the climate and most important the geography of the country.

Public parks, such as The Public Gardens of Halifax, Nova Scotia or the Dow's Lake park in Ottawa, are usually ornamented spaces with lawns, flower beds, and huge trees. Built to offer resting-places, paths and sometimes play areas. Today the Public Gardens of Halifax consist of winding paths, flower beds in geometric form surrounded by grass, borders of both perennials and annuals, statues, fountains, and a bandstand, the latter attesting to the Victorian taste for open-air musical performances.

The Royal Botanical Gardens of Hamilton consists of vast landscaped gardens including a notable collection of irises, a rock garden, a rose garden, an arboretum (including a lilac garden), a children's garden, a garden with medicinal plants, natural areas for explaining ecosystems, as well as a program of courses and research.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, gardens were laid out next to schools so that the children could learn the rudiments of gardening. These gardens had a pedagogical function. In the same period, almost everywhere in the country, gardens were laid out next to small railway stations. They served to beautify the sites and, particularly in the West, to promote the development of new regions.

Residential gardens
They have a much more private, intimate character, whether they are pleasure gardens, vegetable or kitchen gardens or even small plots of aromatic herbs, laid out next to private or official residences. Maplelawn in Ottawa, built from 1831 to 1834 by William Thomson, a farmer, had an adjoining walled garden. In its early stages, it was probably a kitchen garden for the domestic use of the household.

Garden Styles
Style is the expression of an aesthetic ideal, a trend, a particular taste or a form peculiar to an era or a cultural group. In Canada, styles popular in France, England and the US have been relied on as models. However, the unique social, ecological, climatic or geographic conditions prevailing in Canada, as well as the limitations and possibilities inherent in the plant stock, have influenced Canadian versions of European and American styles.
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In some regions, particularly BC and the western provinces, the influence of Japanese and Chinese styles has been important. The influence of ethno-cultural traditions is traceable in some gardens. And, of course, gardens can encompass more than one style or present a modern interpretation of a style from the past.

French-style gardens are those laid out during the age of New France in connection with political institutions or religious communities. With its geometric plan, flower beds, walkways, floral clumps and fruit trees, the garden of the Vieux-Séminaire des Sulpiciens on Notre-Dame Ouest in Montréal, dating from the late 17th century, is the best-preserved of the convent gardens in that city.

After the British conquest in 1759, British and Loyalist settlers introduced a new approach: vis-à-vis nature and landscape. In contrast to French formalism, the aesthetic theory featured natural and picturesque landscapes and was expressed in the choice of spectacular sites, and irregular contours. With their borders, lawns, winding paths and exotic trees, the grounds surrounding the Governor's House in St John's, Newfoundland illustrate this English fashion with its emphasis on picturesque effects.

Laid out in the 1870s, most likely following designs prepared by Frederick Law Olmsted, the Beechcroft estate at Roches Point in Ontario illustrates this natural approach with its vast green spaces, careful groupings of trees and judiciously chosen viewpoints.

Gardens described as gardenesque contain a great variety of flower borders and groves, fountains, urns and statues that give them an ornate character. With its statues, urns and flower borders, Lakehurst at Roches Point in Ontario illustrates this popular garden style as implemented during the second half of the 19th century in Canada.

Gardens designed and built at the beginning of the 20th century under the influence of the writings of Gertrude Jekyll emphasize perennial borders, rockeries and alpine plants. The rock-garden which Mary Stewart laid out at the Cataraqui estate in Sillery in the 1930s was inspired by this approach. On a different principle, many gardens created at this time mark a nostalgic return to the past by imitating concepts developed in Italy and France in the 18th and 19th centuries.
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West Coast influences on the style of gardens emanate from California and the Orient, at the same time making use of the climatic and geographic conditions prevailing in this region of the country. It combines, for example, modern ideas about handling landscape with Japanese influence, at the same time creating a close relationship between the house and its garden.

The many Chinese and Japanese gardens on the West Coast are one indication of the contribution these cultures have made to BC. The Nitobe Memorial Garden at the University of British Columbia is an example of such a Japanese garden and the Japanese garden in the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC. Even the Botanical Garden of Montréal includes a Chinese garden, the Jardin du Lac de Rêve. 

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Historic gardens are much more than a pleasant ornamental and recreational décor. They bear witness to the aesthetic, social, cultural and environmental tastes and pre-occupations of a past - sometimes distant, sometimes relatively recent. They form an important part of our heritage, a rich heritage that should be preserved for future generations.

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