Garden sights in Canada
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Butterfly Conservatory
Inside the botanical gardens, the conservatory has more than 50 species of butterflies (some as big as birds) flitting around 130 species of flowers and plants. This is also a breeding facility where you can see young butterflies released.
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Royal Botanical Gardens
With 1000-plus hectares of flowers, natural parklands and a wildlife sanctuary, the Royal Botanical Gardens is only one of six world gardens to be designated ‘royal.’ During spring, the rock garden is a highlight, with 3 hectares of rare trees, waterfalls, ponds and 125,000 flowering bulbs. Think a rose is a rose? Think again, pal. From June to October, thousands of different roses (including antique varieties) bloom in the Centennial rose garden. The arboretum is best in May when the lilacs explode into flower. The sanctuary is home to birds, deer, fox, muskrat and coyote, with trails traversing marshes and wooded ravines.
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Cloud Forest Conservatory
An unexpected sanctuary, the steamy Cloud Forest Conservatory is crowded with enormous jungle leaves, vines and palms. Information plaques answer the question ‘What Are Rainforests?’ for temperate Torontonians, distracting accountants from their spreadsheets for a few minutes. It’s a great place to warm up during winter, but avoid the area after dark – the adjacent park attracts some pretty lewd types. It’s between Richmond and Temperance Sts, west of Yonge St.
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C
Toronto Music Garden
Delicately strung along the western harbourfront, the Toronto Music Garden was designed in collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. It expresses Bach’s Suite No 1 for Unaccompanied Cello through landscape, with an arc-shaped grove of conifers, a swirling path through a wildflower meadow and a grass-stepped amphitheater where free concerts are held. Contact the Harbourfront Centre box office for performance schedules and guided tour details.
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D
Floral Showhouse
Around 1km south of Horseshoe Falls, the showhouse offers year-round floral displays and some warm respite on a chilly day. Opposite, lodged on rocks in the rapids, the Old Scow is a rusty steel barge that’s been waiting to be washed over the falls since 1918 – a teetering symbol of Western imperialism, perhaps?
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Botanical Gardens
Almost opposite Niagara Glen are the neatly pruned botanical gardens with 40 hectares of herbs, vegetables and trees – a quiet spot to chill.
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