Canadian Gardening: Les Jardins de Metis (Reford Gardens), 1 by sanannie

sanannie wrote:
I've wanted to visit this garden for a while now while the Blue Poppies were in bloom. I got my wish recently when we took a trip to Quebec and spent a couple of days on the Gaspe peninsula.

Les Jardins de Metis, aka the Reford Gardens, is situated along the St. Lawrence River, near St-Flavie. If you've been, you know what a beautiful and inspiring place it is! Even though it's far away from any urban centre, (350 km from Quebec City), the garden is very well known and gets approx 100,000 visitors per season.

This was the summer residence of heiress, Elsie Reford, who started transforming the forst and fields into a garden in 1926. There are 3,000 plant species in the garden, including the Himilayan Blue Poppy, which can be difficult to grow.

Elsie died 50 years ago - but her great grandson is a director, along with 80 staff that maintain the garden.

I took a few pics of this awesome garden which don't even come close to doing it justice.

Sandy

PIC #1
That's me in the giant Adirondack chair at the entrance. At first I tried to climb onto it from the front but it was too high!