Jardins de Métis—Reford Gardens

“Why not take up gardening?” said the doctor to Elsie Reford, while she was convalescing from an illness in 1925. Perhaps he thought, at age fifty-three, she might not have the strength for the other outdoor activities she loved, like caribou hunting and salmon fishing. But it seems the doctor knew little of Elsie’s determination, for it’s hard to imagine that he could have predicted her gardening on this scale.

So began Elsie’s three-decade conversion of an inherited twenty-acre fishing camp on the banks of the Métis River. She turned it into one of the finest botanical gardens in Canada. So fine that it has attracted five million visitors since 1962 and been designated a National Historic Site of Canada, a prime example of an English-inspired garden.

The gardens are on the Gaspé Peninsula, next to the Métis River that flows north into the Saint Lawrence, about halfway between Rimouski and Matane, Québec.

Dominated by spruce forest, the site lacked fertile soil, so many plants needed to be given better growing conditions to thrive. Trading salmon for compost, Elsie relied on the help of local Grand-Métis farmers during the hungry days of the 1930s Great Depression.

The surrounding conifer forest did, however, provide some benefit by sheltering the site from the salt-laden winds of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and creating a gentle microclimate—a sanctuary fit for the most delicate blossoms.

Another of Elsie’s challenges was that she was situated hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest nurseries, during a time when road travel was not nearly as convenient as it is today. However, with her family overseas in the import/export business, she managed to bring over many of the plants from Europe and beyond.

One of her imports was the Himalayan blue poppy, an icon of the garden that seems to symbolize Elsie’s tenacity.

Being a horticulturalist was not one of Elsie’s goals, at least initially. Rather, as the daughter of a successful businessman and a member of the Montréal bourgeois, she had gone to finishing school in Paris and Dresden, where she became fluent in French and German.

As a philanthropist, she was active in civic, social, and political issues of the day, with maternal and child health her greatest concern. Her great grandson wrote that Elsie “was at war with the superficiality of the world.” She always wanted to change it for the better.

Perhaps her greatest contribution was her gardens, which are deeply rooted in the community. Over the years, she hired and trained local farmers and fishing guides to become master gardeners.

In her will, Elsie left the property to her son Bruce, who lacked her passion for place and put it up for sale. The government of Québec intervened and bought it. More than thirty years later, in 1995, Elsie’s great-grandson, Alexander Reford, took over the garden’s management.

Under Alexander’s direction, the current team works to combine the historical with the contemporary and rethink what a public space can be. For example, each year artists and designers are invited to create new works in nature, which are left for some years to become intertwined with the surroundings.

The fifteen themed gardens are linked by meandering, fern-lined footpaths through forests, small meadows, and alongside streams.

Today more than three thousand varieties of plants thrive here under the care of a passionate team of gardeners inspired by Elsie. What was once a diversion for a convalescent, is now a world-class green space.