This past weekend we visited the Jardin Botanique Montreal. Because there was plenty of beauty hiding beyond the unique and colorful flowers, I broke the trip into two parts. To highlight some aspects of the garden not requiring color the first is a black and white-ish interpretation of what we saw that day. Tomorrow I will post the bright greenhouse photos, which would lack luster unless in full color.
The Montreal Botanical Garden is known as one of the most extensive plant collections in the world and covers 190 acres. It would take several all day trips to see every exhibit on the grounds. Since our stay only lasted a few hours we weren’t able to see as much as I wanted to. Much of our time was spent in the glass houses in line for the annual Butterflies Go Free. The exhibit is split into two separate houses, one where the moths were sleeping, and the other where the butterflies were fluttering about. In order to see both it was necessary to wait in a line, lucky for us that line wound through large trees covered in bromeliads, blooming orchids, an entire house of begonias, and educational displays attempting to teach the quick-moving passersby botany. My personal favorite of these displays was the metal sculpture of different pollen grains.
The plants weren’t as active as I thought they would be; the season was further behind the Syracuse schedule than I was expecting, and the grounds still felt wintry. Once outdoors we spent most of our time in the Chinese garden. Since this is the largest Chinese garden outside of China, I’m afraid I won’t be able to top this gem unless I travel around the world.
In the summertime the gardens are free to the public after 6 pm, and would be a lovely place to take a stroll. If I were to move to Montreal I know where I would spend my evenings.
Pingback: The Montreal Botanical Garden « iheartplants