2011 International Garden Festival — Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens
Photo © 2011 Louise Tanguay / Jardins de Métis
Le bois de biais et sa folie – Through the Wood… Design by Atelier le balto – Marc Pouzol, Véronique Faucheur et Marc Vatinel. Below: The installation’s architectural ‘folly.’
The 12th Edition of The International Garden Festival runs through October 2, 2011. The theme of this year’s festival: Secret Gardens… “a protective space full of emotions, mysteries and wonder connected to the natural world.”
Photo © 2011 Louise Tanguay Jardins de Métis
“Le bois…” an installation built in 2006 has now entered its fifth year at the Jardin de Métis. The garden’s lovely framework of willow and poplar trees features a constructed addition — a wooden folly that functions as a lookout tower.
Photo © 2011 Louise Tanguay Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens
Mirror mirror on the floor, whats beyond the great grass wall…
Habitation Landscape Architecture: David Vago, Simone Marsh, Nick Brown
Photo © 2011 Louise Tanguay
An installation built in 2010 as “The grass is greener” … which featured grass walls and floors. For the year 2011, the design has been altered in provocative ways, so that the garden visitor climbs a ladder to discover a secluded sanctuary space where they encounter their own reflection together with that of the looming sky.
Fractal Garden: International Garden Festival © 2009 Louise Tanguay
The Fractal Garden has entered its third year at The International Festival. With its grouping of 21 steel planters, this popular installation exhibits the ability to morph into highly varied designs, riffing on references to colorful, lavishly planted historic parterres. And at the same time, it evokes elements of fractal geometry. Thoroughly engaging and delightfully eye-catching in its conception.
International Garden Festival © 2009 Louise Tanguay
HAHA! Design: spmb -(Eduardo Aquino et Karen Shanski), Ralph Glor, Matt Baker, Martin Gagnon
Photo © 2011 Louise Tanguay – Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens
A brightly constructed installation from 2009, HAHA! reveals an updated take on the traditional sunken trench of a country estate. The contemporary design pushes the bounds of the HaHa notion further, borrowing inspiration from Roberto Burle Marx, as exhibited by its colorful layout and aspect of tropical plantings.
Photo © 2011, Martin Bond
Rope Ladders Design: relais Landschaftsarchitekten – Gero Heck, Marianne Mommsen
In 2010 this installation premiered as Tree Stands: “Using locally found material” the designers crafted “an infrastructure which offers both a new perspective and a glimpse of paradise.” Reborn as Rope Ladders, the objects reach high up into the crowns of the towering trees to present the chance to experience a space beyond; a verdant fantasy that I can imagine becoming lost in.
International Garden Festival — Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens is located on Route 132 in Grand Métis, on the shore of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec.
Fascinating and avant-garde, while I’m not a modernista, I find the gardens in these photographs fun and inspiring. Definitely a place I would like to visit and an aesthetic I would incorporate into a garden bed.
Hey Wieders, thanks for stopping by to tour the Festival gardens!
Sounds like a great garden event. Whilst a lot of the gardens are fab, exciting designs and innovative I could’nt see them as average gardens. More like art installations. very nice nonetheless. I suppose there’s always ideas to pick up. Rope Ladders is my fave.
There are many interesting design ideas in this post. I especially like the steel planters on wheels. The idea that the planting beds are changeable/moveable is very original and intriguing.
Thanks, Jennifer. I really love that design!