From May 26 to 28, Espace pour la vie invites you to kick off your gardening season with the Great Gardening Weekend at the Jardin botanique. This 26th edition invites you to cultivate discovery by participating in workshops, finding tasty products that are ready to eat or that you can plant in your garden, and adopting new gardening practices to support biodiversity. Organized in collaboration with Les Amis du Jardin botanique de Montréal, the Great Gardening Weekend event shows the love of gardening in a festive atmosphere!
An all-new workshop tent
The Great Gardening Weekend welcomes you to the all-new workshop tent. On the program, a string of diverse and exciting workshops (in French): soil health and fertility, transplanting seedlings, choosing the right tree for your yard, pollinator gardening (Bilingual), and even making seed bombs.
Participation in the workshops is included in the price of admission to the Jardin botanique during the Great Gardening Weekend. Check out the full schedule at espacepourlavie.ca.
Fruitful encounters
You have a plan in mind for your small garden and would like to discuss it with someone who knows what they’re doing? Students from the École des métiers de l’horticulture de Montréal are on hand to give you some tips. You’d like to talk about gladiolas, roses, alpine plants, rhododendrons, bonsais, and penjings? Come and meet the friend societies of the Jardin botanique. At the My Space for Life Garden booth, learn how to bring biodiversity into your home; with the Mission Monarch participatory science program, see how you can help save the monarch butterfly; discuss urban agriculture at the Cultiver Montréal booth; and visit the Institut de recherche en biologie végétale booth to learn more about research! If you’re interested in planting a tree, head over to the Frédéric Back Tree Pavilion kiosk to get a free tree and tips for successful planting. And to admire the plants currently blooming or check out the favourites of Les Amis du Jardin botanique volunteer guides, hook up with them on a guided stroll of the outdoor gardens!
Festive atmosphere and finds galore
The Great Gardening Weekend is also a chance to make great discoveries: natural fertilizer made from cricket manure, native plants, seeds, garden plants, herbs, and even an app to discover things you didn’t know about the plants in your garden based on a dynamic calendar. You’ll also find decorative elements to spruce up your garden, hammocks to relax in, useful items for gardeners, and gourmet products to try out local flavours.
The Great Gardening Weekend is the perfect time to ask any question you may have about a gardening method that contributes to the socio-ecological transition.
Visit the Espace pour la vie website for a full list of exhibitors and their offerings, and don’t forget your reusable bags!
BOOK YOUR TICKETS TO THE GREAT GARDENING WEEKEND AT espacepourlavie.ca.
The event runs from 9 am to 5 pm
Booking tickets online prior to arriving on site is strongly recommended.
A regular ticket to the Jardin botanique grants you access to the 2023 Great Gardening Weekend event.
Do you have an Espace pour la vie passport? Reserve your free admission.
ACCESS INFORMATION
Reduce your GHGs by choosing public transit (Pie-IX metro station is a five-minute walk from the site) or carpooling! People with cars can use the limited parking spaces at P1 of the Jardin botanique (4101 Sherbrooke Street East). Paid parking.
- 30 -Espace pour la vie is made up of five major attractions: the Biodôme, the Biosphère, the Insectarium, the Jardin botanique and the Planétarium. These prestigious municipal institutions form Canada’s largest natural science museum complex. Together, they are launching a daring, creative urban movement, encouraging all of us to rethink the connection between humankind and nature and cultivate a new way of living.