Returning to Métis/Reford

(Réflexions colorées by Hal Ingberg. Photo courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

Exactly four years ago today, in one of our very early posts, we noted the start of the latest edition of the International Garden Festival at Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens. We would like to tip our readers again the start over the weekend of this year's festival, which will last until 4 October. Below are some photographs of the gardens to temp you to make a trek to Quebec.

While the gardens look rather inventive, something you'd expect when the designers are given absolute creative freedom, however, you can be sure that there will always be some sort Picturesque-esque visualary:


(Réflexions colorées by Hal Ingberg. Photo courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

And hyper-modern geomet-o-rama:


(bois de biais by Atelier le balto. Photo courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

And everyday objects given post-modern cooptery for high designery:


(Passe-moi un sapin Rita by Stéphane Halmaï‐Voisard, Francis Rollin and Karine Corbeil. Photo courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

And algorithmic computerary:


(Camouflage View by Benjamin Aranda and Chris Lasch. Photo courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

And volup-terra-ry (see this one with bouncing, infectiously joyful kids):


(Safe Zone by Stoss Landscape Urbanism. Photo courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

And green-goism (though this one isn't overtly treebuggery):


(Pomme de parterre by Angela Iarocci, Claire Ironside and David Ross. Photo courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

And pushing-it-with-the-project-statement:


(Dymaxion Sleep by Jane Hutton and Adrian Blackwell. Photo courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

And rhythmametry:


(Le jardin de bâtons bleus by Claude Cormier Landscape Architects. Photo courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

It's interesting to note briefly that not one of the gardens are peddling in what Piet Oudolf, the avant-gardener of the High Line, would call “the soft pornography of the flower.” The installations are less about botany and almost singularly about sculpting spaces and programming them with melodrama.

Go see (and play).