Montreal Botanical Garden
(Jardin Botanique de Montréal)
Chinese Garden at Montreal Botanical Garden
Where Beauty Beats Smoke
Plan Your Visit | Destinations | Natural Beauty
Despite skies full of heavy smoke from the 2023 forest fires in Quebec, the colors of the flora at the Montreal Botanical Garden could not be dulled. My uncle and I both love botanical gardens, so we prioritized a visit during a side trip to Montreal while we were visiting state capitols in New England.
We arrived in Montreal just in time for one of the biggest holidays in Quebec, the Quebec National Holiday (Fête nationale du Québec), also known as St. John the Baptist Day (Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day). Held every year on 24 June, it celebrates the Nativity of John the Baptist, a popular event in France that was brought to Quebec with the first French settlers.
As a statutory public holiday in Quebec for all Quebecers, the holiday has become more secularized over time. As we arrived at the Montreal Botanical Gardens, they were setting up the parade route in front of Pie-IX Blvd. Though many offices and a few businesses close on 24 June, the Garden, thankfully, was open.
Located near the Olympic Stadium, the Montreal Botanical Garden is regarded as one of the best botanical gardens in the world, and it is certainly among the best I have visited. It has thousands of unique plants, including hundreds on the endangered list.
You can learn more about the garden’s history as well as the different collections featured there. It is quite large, so I will cover the parts I enjoyed the most. I encourage you to visit and decide for yourself what you like best based on how much time you have in Montreal. A complete list of gardens and greenhouses can help you plan. The garden provides a map (PDF) you can save and print.
One of our first stops was the Rose Garden, which was created for the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. Roses are my favorite flowers; it was in full summer bloom (the best time to visit is mid-summer to first frost). This rose garden features over 7,000 roses of more than 900 species and cultivars (plants cultivated using selective breeding by humans).
Many botanical gardens I have been to have a Japanese tea garden. Montreal overachieves with Japanese and Chinese gardens, and both were created in harmony with nature while fusing the surrounding landscape by thoughtful use of flora, fauna, water, and architecture. After visiting a few botanical gardens, I noticed Asian cultural gardens are common because the thought put into creating them results in peaceful places of unequaled beauty.
The Chinese Garden features classic Chinese architecture. It is a peaceful retreat with Chinese plants and materials imported from the Shanghai area; the Montreal Botanical Garden worked in partnership with the City of Shanghai Parks Department using master landscaper Le Weizhong’s garden concept to create a garden that I found soothing.
According to the Montreal Botanical Gardens website, “It is both a place of contrast and harmony. The spatial organization and pavilions' architecture, the selection of plants and minerals, the water and the contrast of yin and yang are all expressions of the secular principles of the Chinese art of landscape design.”
We went right to the Japanese Garden, which was created with a similar approach, making the transition from the Chinese Garden seamless. Opened in 1988, the Japanese Garden is the work of internationally renowned landscape architect Ken Nakajima, who was also the landscape architect for the Japanese Garden in Houston’s Hermann Park and other gardens globally.
The gardens include the Japanese Pavilion (designed by architect Hisato Hiraoka), which holds Japanese culture events, including summer tea ceremonies. It includes a Japanese art gallery and book collection. I will include this in a future visit.
The Flowery Brook and Alpine Garden were a great way to conclude our visit.
The Flowery Brook reaches peak in June, so it was at full color from many varieties of flowers during our visit. It is set apart by the “Irregular flower beds characteristic of great English gardens.”
The Alpine Garden features a waterfall and plants that thrive in the mountains. Not surprisingly, it’s not as lush as the neighboring Flowery Brook, but the waterfall in the middle of this garden was my favorite part.
The Montreal Botanical Garden is one of the largest I have visited and, looking back, I realize we skipped some major areas, including the Arboretum and greenhouses. The garden is part of a larger complex that includes the Insectarium and is across the street from the Olympic Stadium, Biodome, and Planetarium. The Biosphere is located on St. Helen’s Island in the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Longueuil.
We only had a weekend in Montreal, and there is a lot to do both in this botanical garden and the city itself. The good news? There is plenty of reason for me to return to Montreal.
