Glog
Our Greenhouses (December 14, 2010)
The arrival of December is the beginning of the new planning cycle for the gardens. Out with the old and in with the new. We begin by placing our orders for seeds and plants and get ready to begin the preparation of the plants early in the New Year.
This year the preparation of the plants will be much different because we have just completed the installation of new greenhouses. Purchased when the government of Quebec closed the Quebec City zoo in 2006, the greenhouses had been warehoused until an opportune moment arrived for their installation. That moment was this summer. 
Under the supervision of our own greenhouse expert, Jean-Yves Roy, and a team of workers led by Laurent Gagné, the greenhouses were re-erected, each piece carefully installed. These Harnois Nordique greenhouses are the latest generation – much more modern than those they replace. Our original Lord and Burnham greenhouses were built in 1972 and were once start of the art as well – but 50 years later, they are less efficient and more costly to heat and maintain than their modern successors.
Greenhouses have always been an essential aspect of Les Jardins de Métis. Elsie Reford had a modest greenhouse that head gardener Wyndham Coffin used to start the vegetables and the rare and exotic seeds that Elsie Reford obtained from friends and fellow gardeners from around the world. And the Lord and Burnham greenhouses were among the first significant 
investments made by the government of Québec after acquiring the gardens in 1961.
Our greenhouses produce more than 20,000 annuals and perennials every year – plants used for the gardens of the International Garden Festival, to beautify the beds throughout the gardens and to populate the new vegetable and picking garden. Winter brings a moment of repose- but it won’t be long before the greenhouses start production for the coming summer.
Alexander Reford
