Montreal Botanical Garden

The Montreal Botanical Garden is a large complex of outdoor gardens and greenhouses on the east side of the island of Montreal, next to Olympic Park and the Biodome. It is one of the major botanical gardens of the world, and it is part of Space for Life, the network of natural science museums in the same area. The collections include many thousands of plant species and cultivars, arranged across themed gardens that can easily fill a full day.

The garden's story begins in the 1930s. Brother Marie-Victorin, a Quebec botanist, pushed for the creation of a public garden, and construction began in the early years of the Great Depression, providing work for unemployed labourers. Landscape designer Henry Teuscher drew up the plan, and the garden opened in 1931, with its first greenhouses completed in the later 1930s. That origin gives the site a spacious, park-like feel, with broad lawns, tree-lined paths and a pond in the central area.

The most distinctive sections are the Asian gardens. The Japanese Garden, with its pavilion, tea house and carefully raked stone and water features, is a calm space in any season. The Chinese Garden, built with Shanghai designers and opened in 1991, is often described as the largest of its kind outside Asia. It has pavilions, a lake, and a Friendship Hall in the traditional style, and in autumn it hosts a lantern festival in the evenings. The First Nations Garden presents the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the plants of northeastern North America, and the Alpine Garden shows how mountain flora survives in rocky, exposed places.

The greenhouses are an attraction on their own, with collections of orchids, tropical plants, succulents and bonsai. The rose garden is at its best in summer, and the arboretum and the perennial and annual displays give colour from spring to autumn. In winter the outdoor gardens are quiet, and the heated greenhouses become the main reason to visit.

Getting there is simple. Pie-IX metro station is a short walk away on the Green line, and the Olympic Stadium and the Biodome are across the street, so the garden pairs well with other sights in the same area. Visitors will find a slow weekday best, when the paths are quiet. It suits gardeners, photographers, families and anyone who wants a long, easy walk in a landscape that changes completely from season to season. Bring comfortable shoes, plan time for the greenhouses, and consider the evening hours in the warmer months, when the light is gentle and the crowds thin out.