World Federation of Rose Societies Award of Garden Excellence

Presented to

The Rose Garden at the Montreal Botanical Garden/Le Jardin Botanique de Montréal

 Despite the cool, grey day on May 28, it was all warmth, smiles and pride in the Marie-Victorin marquee at the Montreal Botanical Garden. As part of Rendezvous Horticole, a large crowd gathered to see the presentation to the Rose Garden of the World Federation of Rose Societies Award of Garden Excellence.  Rachel Flood, CRS President, and Mrs. Helen Fotopulos from the City of Montreal, congratulated the Garden on their outstanding roses and their well deserved award.  Then, the WFRS Vice-President for North America, Mrs. Marijke Peterich of Bermuda, made the official presentation in French of a lovely bronze plaque. Lunch was served in the Greenhouse to all the participants, including other CRS members from Toronto and André Poliquin, President of the Quebec Rose Society, and their spouses.  Many of us then went to see the species roses that were in bloom in the Garden.  Especially outstanding was a large bush of ‘Mary, Queen of Scots’, clothed from head to toe in single bright red blooms.

 

The Montreal Botanical Garden now joins the exclusive list of great rose gardens around the world that have received the WFRS Award of Garden Excellence.  The others are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Montreal Botanical Garden attracts almost one million visitors each year and one of its main features is the 6 hectare (15 acre) Rose Garden.  Designed in 1976, it is not a traditional formal rose garden. Completely modern in design, the rose garden is divided into two main sections, which serve to illustrate the history and development of roses.  The more than 10,000 roses in the collection are laid out in winding beds flanked by shrubs and trees and provide a symphony of colours in a natural setting from the end of May to the first frost in October.  More than 1000 species and varieties are grown to perfection in approximately a hundred different beds. Each year the latest All American Rose selections and other new Shrub roses are added to their complete collection of roses hybridized in Canada.  There is also a test area where new varieties from Agriculture Canada and other Canadian hybridizers, George Mander and Joyce Fleming are evaluated

 

The greatness of the Rose Garden at the Montreal Botanical Garden rests not only on its outstanding design, its wide range of varieties, its educational value and its sheer beauty.  The fact that it accomplishes all these things so well in what is possibly the most northern of all the world’s great rose gardens is quite remarkable. Claire Laberge and her team of gardeners, with the help and encouragement of Gilles Vincent, the Director of the Montreal Botanical Garden, have created a garden of exceptional beauty and educational value.  The Canadian Rose Society was very pleased to nominate this garden for the World Federation of Rose Societies Award of Garden Excellence and to ensure that an appropriate, bilingual plaque was presented.  We all share in the pride that Claire Laberge and the Montreal Botanical Garden are feeling.

CLAIRE LABERGE