The arrondissement of Rosemont La-Petite-Patrie had a promotion this morning, widely advertised, of a gardening give-away day.
Our neighbor in the condo organized a group to go and pick up some flowers and shrubs with the intent of creating another small garden plot in front of the building. It may be hard to tell from the small gallery below, but there are several little gardens set in the strip between the sidewalk and the street. They were created and are tended by people in the building, and the consensus was that another plot would fit nicely in the area towards the corner of Boulevard-Rosemont.
One of the garden distribution centers is half a mile from here, so, having been warned that there would be a big turn-out, I hopped a Bixi bike at 8:30 to get there early.
At 8:40, I arrived to find a line.
With my Bixi plan, I get a bike 40 minutes before they start charging me, so I took the bike to a nearby docking station to end my session. Then I walked back to get in line, and discovered it wasn’t just a line, it was a line!
I met up with our neighbor, and we talked and stood in line and talked — sadly, only in english. My french is still not good enough, although I did catch snippets of other conversations. Our neighbor is a Québec native who works in the healthcare system as a recruiter, so we talked about the challenges in staffing nurses post-Covid, the neighborhood (Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie is known for being a progressive neighborhood), the garden, the ice-storm that happened just before we arrived in April, and more.
Meanwhile, city workers walked up and down the line, with educational signs about the dangers of giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) and gave other gardening tips. After 45 minutes, we made it up to the distribution area. The line behind us was twice as long as when I had arrived — probably a hundred people or more. If supplies hold up, the arrondissement will be even more filled with beautiful gardens this summer!
Unlike previous years, they weren’t giving out shrubs, but we got a choice of one herb (Thai basil, thyme, mini-eggplant, or cherry-tomato) and two flowers (petunias, marigolds, or impatiens). I took petunias and marigolds and thyme, and a big bag of wood-chips for mulch. It was a bit heavy to carry all the way home, so I improvised a Bixi-bike into a packhorse, and walked it back.
Unfortunately, many of the neighbors who had planned to spend the morning gardening together were unable to make it, and the plants that were distributed were deemed insufficient to build out the new plot, so I took my plants and added them to existing plots.
I’ll report back here, should any interesting garden developments occur!