Jardin botanique

The Botanical Garden of Montréal is big and relatively expensive — $22.50 for adult admission, with a $5.50 discount if you live in the greater Montréal area. But if you get a $9 Accès Montréal card, you can have free access to the outdoor portions of the Botanical garden! While the rest of Canada had a normal workday on Monday, I had the day off, and thought it would be a good opportunity to visit the jardin.

Over the past weeks, I’d been seeing pictures of the beautiful tulip display out front. That was before the record-breaking heat of last week, though.

The ticketing process was confusing, and I waited in more lines than necessary. I discovered my theory of fewer visitors being present on a normal workday left some important factors out of the equation. Two major populations were there in force: retirees and school groups.

With the tulips largely over, the flowers making a good showing at the gardens were lilacs, peonies, irises, and columbine. In the Alpine Garden, I saw more varieties of columbine than I ever imagined existed. I was startled and impressed by the peonies. Reading about their preferred climate zones, it looks like southern California is marginal for peonies, but they sure seem to like it in Montréal!

Not unlike my experience in Parc-nature de l’Île-de-la-Visitation, I encountered a number of retirees with very fancy camera gear who were keen to know (first in French, then in English) what I’d added to my birding life-list. When I’d say “a cardinal? a red-wing blackbird?” their reactions ranged from pity to an insulted “indeed!”

That being said, there’s a lot of life around the ponds right now. The shallows are teeming with tadpoles, and larger bullfrogs croak among the reeds. Lots of little painted turtles are there too, sunning themselves wherever they can crawl up out of the water. The aforementioned red-wing blackbirds were gathering seeds from the cattails, or maybe getting the fluff for their nests? It seems late for nesting, but I really don’t know.

I spent the morning wandering around the ponds, the alpine garden, the Chinese garden, the Japanese garden, the First Nations garden, and the lilac grove. Heading towards the exit, I went via the learning gardens where they have different kinds of food gardens, medicinal plants, and Québec natives. There are also some shady promenades where you can sit on a bench and watch the world go by.

I had a nice lunch at the garden café, and then exited the big gates. The entryway, beyond the tulip planters, has a field of tall conifers that shade a grassy area where dandelions still bloom (elsewhere, they’ve gone to seed). I walked through the old Olympic Park to get back to the metro station, and headed home.