Wild art blooms in one of the continent's northernmost botanical gardens

On a scenic highway midway between Quebec City and the tip of the Gaspésie Peninsula, the Reford Gardens are a botanical paradise. With more than 3,000 plant varieties for the public to explore, this landmark is home to a wealth of floral life, history, artistic attractions and epic vistas overlooking the St. Lawrence River.

The English-style gardens located in Grand-Métis, Que., sit on an 18-hectare property between the territories of the Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik peoples. It is one of the northernmost botanical gardens in North America. Started in 1926 by Canadian horticulture pioneer Elsie Reford when she converted her uncle's fishing camp into gardens, the site has been open to the public since 1962. Thanks to the microclimate generated by the confluence of the St. Lawrence and the Mitis rivers, numerous plants that grow at the Reford Gardens cannot be found elsewhere in Canada.

A living archive in many ways, the gardens continue to bear the fingerprints of Reford herself, who began transforming the spruce forest nearly a century ago by building stone walls and pathways. Winding through the different gardens, visitors will encounter the rejuvenating sea air, the intoxicating smell of colourful flowers in bloom and the sights and sounds of birds, bees and other pollinators that inhabit the land.

One of the many aspects that distinguishes the Reford Gardens from other similar attractions is its longstanding dedication to public art and architecture. It is not only a unique place to contemplate the aesthetics of the northern flora but also a site of many human-made wonders.

For Alexander Reford — who is the great grandson of Elsie and has served as the garden's director since 1995 — bringing in new designers, artists and other creatives to animate and reimagine parts of the site has been key to its growth and success. "The great thing about a garden is that it is completely open to every type of artistic intervention," he says. "It's not a white-walled space; it's kind of a de-walled space. Because of that, we can integrate any artist with very few exceptions, and it all seems to work."

Now in its 25th edition, the International Garden Festival is a juried competition hosted at Reford Gardens that invites architects, landscape architects and designers to experiment creatively with the concept of gardens and how they are built. This year's theme is "The Ecology of Possibility," a subject that considers how ideologies and practices surrounding the environment have evolved since the turn of the 21st century. Highlighting the social responsibility of garden culture, this year's installations sit side-by-side with previous projects, offering a wealth of multi-sensory experiences that are both stunning to behold and fun to interact with.

Take, for instance, Humà Design's aqua-coloured steel structure resembling a funky jungle gym, which children are quick to climb all over. It was made to replicate the Percé Rock, an iconic natural wonder in nearby Gaspésie that is normally viewed from afar since it's a protected site that sits in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The playful installation bridges the gap between the beautiful landscapes we may simply contemplate from a distance and those we can scale ourselves.

Maison029's intricate tree-protecting latticework similarly implicates visitors in the project of conservation. Referencing the kind of tree wrapping you might find in your local park, which shields plants from damage by vehicles or nearby construction, the installation's ornate armature resembles a carefully crafted suit of armour made to fend off the logging industry or other agents of deforestation. In many of these projects, gardening and its architecture is positioned in a political light, responding to climate change, the exploitation of natural resources and other human-made threats to our various ecosystems.

Another example of the festival's offerings comes from the Italian architecture group mat-on. The installation Superstrata explores how maps artificially divide the land, creating arbitrary boundaries in nature with a gridded system. The arrangement of monumental cross-shaped columns confronts the audience with what it might feel like to walk through a three-dimensional rendering of a map. 

Previous exhibitors include legends like Atelier Pierre Thibault, a Quebec firm known for its environmentally conscious architecture, as well as the late Claude Cormier, who was best known for his playful landscape and outdoor space design. One of the great strengths of the International Garden Festival is how it gives new opportunities to emerging talents while also honouring the legacies of those who have helped shape the fields of landscape architecture.

"Contemporary landscape designers don't have a lot of places in which to play," Alexander Reford remarks about the origins of the festival. "We thought that we could promote their importance, exhibit their work, allow them to experiment, pay them something and be their best client possible. And that's expanded to all kinds of other artistic fields."

Anchoring the gardens as a central pavilion, Villa Estevan is an impressive one-and-a-half-storey wood construction from 1987, built in the Regency style as a fishing lodge. This is where visitors can find permanent exhibitions that provide a deeper understanding of the estate and its features, including Elsie Reford's own stunning darkroom where she developed photographs.

Another highlight is the Museum of Tools, where visitors can explore a collection of garden tools acquired by the Reford Gardens in 2013. For those with a green thumb or those who simply appreciate the craftsmanship of a handmade object, the shears, trowels, spades and other implements found here are as inspiring as they are beautiful. The freshly cut and drying flowers suspended from the rafters add an authentic touch. This is a working botanical garden after all!

Beyond Grand-Métis and the Lower St. Lawrence region, the Reford Gardens' cultural legacy can be felt throughout the province. This is the case for actress and playwright Alice Pascual who is set to premiere a play on Elsie Reford at the Centaur Theatre in Montreal during its 2026-2027 season. For Pascual, as well as other artists and visitors who have immersed themselves in this unique landscape, the Reford Gardens offer so much to discover and build from.

Upcoming contemporary art projects include Faux-plis par hypothèses, a group exhibition at the gardens opening this fall that merges art and science. Co-curated by Louise Déry and Marie-Hélène Leblanc, it brings together a number of Quebec's most well recognized visual artists, like 2023 Sobey nominee Anahita Norouzi and the Pekuakami-based (Lac-Saint-Jean) artist Eruoma Awashish.

In addition to its horticultural and historical importance, these bold initiatives make the Reford Gardens a contemporary cultural destination year-round. Merging botanical gardens with the arts has allowed this space to become an accessible, creative and ever-changing entryway into pressing issues facing our ecological environments — from the intimacy of our backyards to the vastness of the great outdoors.

The International Garden Festival at the Reford Gardens in Grand-Métis, Que., is on through Oct. 6.