March was an exciting (and busy) month for the Gardens. We presented NIPpaysage’s Oursins at Canada Blooms, premiered a film in Montreal and completed the fundraising campaign for the endowment fund of the International Garden Festival. We have much to celebrate and many supporters to thank for their contributions and continued encouragement.

The première of Il était deux fois un jardin (Twice Upon a Garden, in English) at the International Festival of Films on Art in Montreal was a great success. All five screenings were sold out and the critical and public reaction to the film by Philippe Baylaucq was exceptional. The film will now travel as part of the FIFA’s international Prizewinners’ Tour. This annual tour will begin in Quebec City on Friday, April 16 at the Musée national de beaux-arts du Québec at 8:10 pm, and continue its run in Boston, New York, Washington, Paris and London at such prestigious institutions as the Louvre and Tate Modern. The film will have its first broadcast on Télé-Québec on Labour Day Monday, September 6 at 9 pm. Until then, the film is available for purchase (for $19.95) from our on-line boutique. In April, I will be showing excerpts when I speak to the Hudson Garden Club on April 20 at 7.30 pm.

April will be a very busy month in the gardens as our crew returns to work and begins the enormous work necessary to ready the gardens for the 2010 season. The biggest job this month will be the installation of 11 restored bridges that have been constructed over the winter in the workshop of Gervais Pineault in nearby St. Léandre. They will be installed over Page’s Brook at the end of the month and no doubt become a feature attraction of the gardens this summer. They will appear new, but their style and construction has been inspired by the models created for Elsie Reford by her husband Robert that he documented in countless photographs.

April will also see the arrival of the first designers for the next edition of the International Garden Festival. We are presenting a record number of gardens this year as well as two extra-mural gardens, one in Calgary and another on the Place de la Dauversière in Old Montréal. Full information on both projects will be available when we unveil our 2010 program at the beginning of May.

Alexander Reford