Just One Word: Go

to the Montreal Botanical Gardens Mosaiculture on until September 29th.  

This is one of those events that you have to experience.  We've all been told over the years about certain things that you just have to see, how marvellous it is and how much you're going to like it. You go and it's fine, but perhaps a little forgettable.  

I can guarantee, this is unforgettable.   You don't even have to love gardening to appreciate the magnificence of the living sculptures.  The consistently brilliant Montreal Botanical Gardens have pulled their socks so high, it's a wonder they still fit on their toes.  They've scattered the 48 or so sculptures throughout the botanical garden so you travel through the gardens discovering one wonder after another.  So should you tire of the sculpture, look down to see new plants, great design work, shade gardens, fantastical tropicals - all incorporated, labeled and ready for you to discover.

If you're travelling with children, providing you keep your visit to their attention-span limits, they'll have a terrific time too.

So here is the first sculpture.  The surrounding trees are probably about 7 meters (25 feet).

My dear friend from Montreal Diane Demeule joined us at the gardens.  I met her at my first full-time job at Velan Valve over 30 years ago.  Thank goodness for cell phones.  Leaving Oakville, Kevin and I ran into a dreadful accident that closed the highway about 90 minutes from where we started.  Making matters worse, a transport truck had taken out the hydro wires on the secondary route.   Fortunately we reached Diane by phone before she left home.  More construction outside the island of Montreal added to our travel time.  All I can say is I'm glad she was waiting at the gardens and she enjoys them.  Our 5-3/4 hour trip took 9 hours, so now when we say to her we'll be there in 5 minutes, she takes that number and multiplies by 10 to the power of 3.

Not only had the designers put their creatures together beautifully, the settings were chosen with such care.

 It was fantastical to see the tails being whipped around in the wind.

For those children with allergies, might I suggest a puppy made with Carex?



The Montreal Botanical Garden's Chinese garden is spectacular at any time - but especially when the lotus blossoms are in bloom.

You know, there are just folks out there, no matter how lovely a setting, how pretty a day, and how fortunate they are to be in the right place and the right time, they just can't bring themselves to be happy.

These twig and mud warthogs looked like they were up to no good.

And then just beyond we discovered two beautiful horses.

This is huge - the fingers being the size of a person.

Some of the sculptures had their own built-in irrigation systems, but many were watered by hand throughout the day.

Now there's a hairy Carex-d beast.

Frogs enjoying the pond.

Diane had been earlier in the year and said this didn't work too well when it was new  - however, now it does.  (Another reason to go now.)

The imagination and execution of these pieces was divine.

To the right are the washrooms.  Just shows, utilitarian doesn't have to be an eyesore.

Spectacular - the signature piece of the whole event.  It weighs over 100 tons.

Then it was off to the parking lot to dash off to dinner with friends (for which we were already late....). There was  an excellent display of vegetable gardening.

And yet one more piece belonging to the Mosaiculture exhibit.

For those of you who will be going.  Here is the link Montreal International Mosaiculture 2013

As we were making the mad dash to the car - we found another creature - this time a real one.  Wonder which one of the creatures he visits when the park is empty at night?