Reimagining the garden

Next week, close to 100 horticultural professionals from botanical gardens and conservatories across Canada and the U.S. will be in Winnipeg for the American Public Gardens Association’s 2025 Horticulture, Greenhouse, & Facilities Symposium, which will be hosted by Assiniboine Park Conservancy at The Leaf.

From Sept. 23 to 25, participants will explore innovative approaches to designing and operating conservatories and greenhouses and exchange ideas about reimagining public garden spaces.

Gerald Dieleman, senior director of horticulture at Assiniboine Park Conservancy, says it’s an opportunity to showcase The Leaf, one of the most significant horticultural projects in North America in the past 20 years.

One of the key conversations, he says, will be about how to enhance the garden landscape and elevate the horticultural experience for visitors.

Among those attending the event are representatives from Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, which has just completed its most ambitious expansion — including a 2,972 square metre conservatory; the Atlanta Botanical Garden, which is undertaking a $150-million project this fall; and Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens of Columbus Ohio, which is being restored.

I’m especially intrigued by the talk Retainers, Not Containers — Don’t Leave Beneficial Insects out of the Equation — which will be presented by Taylor Marshall, orchid horticultural curator at Atlanta Botanical Garden.

The symposium’s keynote speaker is Alexander Reford, director of Jardins de Métis-Reford Gardens in Grand-Métis, Que., a national historic site that was created between 1926 and 1958 by pioneering horticulturalist Elsie Reford. Famed for its gorgeous traditional displays that include the Himalayan blue poppy, the gardens are also the site of the International Garden Festival, the largest contemporary garden festival in North America. Launched in 2000, the festival is a provocative experiment in conceptual gardens which has attracted new audiences.

Reford, director of the International Garden Festival, will present on the topic Dialogue and Disruption — When a Public Garden Embraces Contemporary Landscapes. He says he was inspired early on by influential Canadian landscape architect Claude Cormier.

“Cormier was a fabulously talented landscape architect from Montreal. He died about two years ago and was awarded the Governor General’s award for landscape architecture posthumously in February. I was in attendance when he gave a wonderfully witty talk, Are Gardens Boring?”

It is an interesting question, says Reford.

“Cormier believed that gardens should be more provocative, more imaginative and colourful, and indeed made from something other than just plants.”

The Blue Stick Garden, created by Cormier for the inaugural edition of the International Garden Festival, was a conceptual garden that was a pixellated metamorphosis of the Himalayan blue poppy. The iconic project used more than 3,000 wooden sticks painted blue on three sides and orange on the fourth. Hugely popular, it was featured in public spaces across Canada and England. Today, it has been reborn at Reford Gardens as the Blue Stick Forest.

Unconventional landscapes are an important dynamic for challenging traditional garden design, says Reford.

“By embracing conceptual garden designers, we have been able to attract a new audience. Frankly, some people just come to see the controversy. Not everyone is in favour of conceptual design, but it doesn’t benefit a botanical garden to not attract a new or different demographic.”

Reford says gardening is being pushed in different directions and there are ways that botanical gardens can respond.

“We see a lot of people coming into gardening not through traditional ornamental horticulture but because of their interest in edibles and growing year-round food crops,” he says. “Then there is a whole other group who are interested in climate issues. They are looking for solutions such as dryscaping (xeriscaping) when there is a lack of water, or how to deal with all these ecological issues that we’re now facing that we didn’t imagine decades ago.”

Reford has high praise for Dieleman and team at The Leaf.

“They have led the way in understanding and responding to the different challenges that public gardens face. I think they have been brilliant in creating a whole new destination for not just the gardener and people who are interested in the outdoors and the environment, but also plant scientists.

“Frankly, in today’s world, to create anything in our country that is the size of The Leaf is an amazing achievement, even before our new prime minister talked about major projects and infrastructure,” Reford says.

Dieleman is excited to showcase The Leaf. A new display, The Enchanted Forest, just opened in the Babs Asper Display House and features over 30 live trees, forest floor and bog plantings, bonsai and whimsical elements such as fairies.

Displays at The Leaf change every few months.

“Many conservatories have permanent collections which can run the risk of becoming too static,” Dieleman says. “How do you prevent that from happening or keep it exciting? That’s where the guest experience conversation comes in and will be one of the things we will be talking about at the symposium.”

colleenizacharias@gmail.com