Get closer to nature

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Get closer to nature at Space for Life

Do you have a day to spend visiting our four attractions?

You can start your day at the Garden, visit the Insectarium, then go to the Biodôme and end the day at the Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium: If you’re driving, you can leave your car in the Insectarium parking area (P2) and use the pedestrian walkway under Rue Sherbrooke to walk over to the Biodôme (plan for a 15-minute walk).

Would you rather drive from one attraction to the next? In that case, you should start the day at either the Biodôme or the Botanical Garden, whichever you prefer. Your parking ticket is valid at all of the Space for Life parking areas for the amount of time you prepay (parking areas at the Garden and Insectarium are located on Rue Sherbrooke and the Biodôme parking area is located at 3000 Rue Viau).

Suggested visiting times for each attraction: Botanical Garden – 3 hours, Insectarium – 1 hour, Biodôme – 1 hour, Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium – 1.5 hours. Plan for 15 minutes travel time between the Insectarium and the Biodôme.

Are you ready for your visit?! Let’s start at the Botanical Garden.

Visit the Botanical Garden

Visiting the Botanical Garden, especially in the summertime, is a colourful show that engages all five of your senses. An explosion of scent, colour and sound awaits you on your stroll through the 30 outdoor gardens and 10 exhibition greenhouses.

Do you have a few hours ahead of you to discover this oasis of beauty? Your trip could begin with the Exhibition Gardens. Don’t miss the Ornamental Vegetable Garden. You could then visit: the Alpine Garden, the Flowery Brook and the ponds, the First Nations Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Chinese Garden, the Rose Garden.

Do you have time left? Head over to the Tree House through the Arboretum’s trails!

Perennial Garden

In botanical terms, a perennial is a herbaceous or woody plant that lives for several years. In horticulture, the term “perennial” usually refers to a herbaceous plant that is hardy in the region where it is grown, i.e. it is able to survive the winter because its underground organs go into dormancy each autumn and start growing again in spring.

Garden of Innovations

This garden highlights new cultivars of annuals, perennials and ornamental trees and shrubs, as well as ground coverings, walls, edging and other materials. These new products, developed for use in landscaping, are all currently available on the market.

Useful Plants Garden

This garden offers a window on the wide range of plants grown for their economic utility. It will take you on a trip around the globe, and back in time as well. For while many of these plants continue to be useful, some are no longer essential to people’s survival and are increasingly being transformed, and even replaced by synthetic materials.

Alpine Garden

Discover the amazing diversity of plants that grow on mountains and in boreal regions, and the remarkable ways these hardy yet sensitive denizens have adapted to their surroundings. This garden contains the Botanical Garden's largest plant collection in terms of number of taxa.

Gardens of the Flowery Brook and the pond.

Flowery Brook and Lilacs

This garden, with its flowerbeds laid out in typical English style, unconstrained by symmetry or straight lines, contains some 600 species and cultivars of irises, including blue flag (Iris versicolor) – Quebec’s floral emblem – and close to 200 species and cultivars of peonies, 300 of daylilies and 100 of lilies.

First Nations Garden

Created in honour of the First Nations people, this garden gives visitors the chance to rediscover the culture of America’s first inhabitants, and showcases their wisdom and traditions. It highlights not only Native knowledge, but also First Nations activities related to the plant world.

Japanese Garden

Created by internationally renowned Japanese landscape architect Ken Nakajima, the Japanese Garden spreads out over 2.5 hectares and showcases the Japanese philosophy of landscaping.

Chinese Garden

The Chinese Garden, the largest of its kind outside China with its 2.5 hectares, was created by renowned Chinese architect Le Weizhong, who was inspired by the private gardens of the Ming dynasty.

Rose Garden

Created in 1976, to mark the Olympic Games, the Montréal Botanical Garden’s Rose Garden is one of the largest in North America. It covers more than six hectares and features close to 10,000 rose bushes, representing more than 900 species and cultivars, laid out in about a hundred different beds.

Frédéric Back Tree Pavilion

The Frédéric Back Tree Pavilion introduces visitors to the scientific, ecological, economic, artistic and cultural dimensions of trees. It educates people about the roles trees play in many aspects of our lives, in both cities and forests, and in the ecological balance of many ecosystems.

Arboretum

The Arboretum has about 7,000 specimens of trees and shrubs, in 50 collections. There are species native to Quebec and many cultivars imported from all over the world. All are identified and grouped by family and genus. In this veritable forest in the heart of the city, visitors can see the way nature changes from season to season.

Visit the Insectarium

Considered the largest insect museum in North America, the Montréal Insectarium is also a favourite of children. It is home to a collection of some 160,000 naturalized or living insect specimens, an anthill, a hive of bumblebees, a hive of honeybees and many other captivating vivariums.

Meet entomologist/nature interpreters who are passionate about their work and discover the fantastic diversity of insects, these champions of nature.
When you visit our two permanent exhibitions, Atta Ants and We Are the Insects … you will enter a fascinating and often misunderstood world.

Do you have some extra time on a fine day? Your young children won’t want to miss our play and discovery area, the BuzzGround.

After your visit to the Insectarium, you can take the pedestrian walkway to the Biodôme or head back to your car and drive over to the Biodôme parking lot (3000 Rue Viau).

Atta Ants

Leafcutter ants (Atta sp.) carry out their gardening activities before your eyes: picking leaves to nourish the fungus on which they feed, maintaining the nest, defending the colony ... See them in action!

We Are the Insects

In this exhibition, you will learn that insects live everywhere and you will learn how their many shapes and colours let them eat, hide, defend themselves and find a mate. You’ll also see how insects play many roles essential for the survival of humankind.

The BuzzGround

This space is designed with families in mind, to give them a chance to play while exploring the fascinating world of Quebec insects.

Immersion experience at the Biodôme

You’ve arrived at the Biodôme! Get ready for an immersion experience in 5 ecosystems of the Americas …

Discover the Biodôme, where more than 4,800 animals from 230 different species and some 750 plant species await you under one roof. Experienced guides will lead you on this trip through the Americas that begins in the luxurious Tropical Rainforest. In the Laurentian Maple Forest, where – no small feat – the cycle of seasons is reproduced, lynx, beavers and otters will delight you. Next, the gigantic saltwater basin in the Gulf of St. Lawrence offers a view of its rich submarine fauna and the many birds that live on the surface. The visit ends with the charming penguins of the sub-Antarctic regions … a unique experience!

Animals from the Tropical Rainforest

Discover the most heavily populated ecosystem at the Biodôme!

Animals from the Laurentian Maple Forest

View pages about animals living in this ecosystem.

Animals from the Gulf of St. Lawrence

See pages about fish, invertebrates and birds from the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Animals from the Labrador Coast

Some 60 Alcids - also known as auks - live in the ecosystem.

Animals from the Sub-Antarctic Islands

All the birds in the Speniscidae family - the penguin family.

Space for life launches you into a new universe!

The last, but definitely not least, stop of your day in the Montréal Space for Life: The Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium. Two double features are being presented: We are Stars / One Day... on Mars and Asteroid / One Day...on Mars. Finally, be sure not to miss the digital immersive exhibition, Exo: Our Search for Life in the Universe. Explore this multi-faceted space on a captivating quest through its spectacular images and animation, projections and multimedia games!

One Day… on Mars

Join our expedition to Mars and enjoy a thrilling immersive experience.

We Are Stars

We Are Stars offers answers to the greatest questions of all time in an exploratory journey across the Universe.

Visitors to the permanent exhibition at the Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium

Exo: Our Search for Life in the Universe

How did life appear on Earth? Does life exist elsewhere in the universe? The interactive digital exhibition Exo: Our Search for Life in the Universe takes you on a captivating quest through spectacular images and animation, projections and multimedia games!

Is it raining?

Discover the Exhibition Greenhouses

It's a rainy day? Why not enjoy a visit to our greenhouses?

These 10 greenhouses, which will take you on a tour of the botanical world, are home to a very wide variety of species and cultivars. No matter when you visit, you’ll be able to see superb flowers in bloom.

Don’t miss the magnificent collection of orchids, the Celestial Garden with several spectacular penjings, and the Tropical Food Plants Greenhouse, which will shed new light on the food you eat. You could spend a whole hour visiting the greenhouses.

The Exhibition Greenhouses

Year round, visitors to the greenhouses can admire permanent and various thematic exhibitions showcasing the Botanical Garden's plant collections. In winter, the greenhouses beckon with their warmth and beauty. In summer, the lush tropical vegetation and the exotic penjing, a unique collection of landscapes lovingly fashioned in containers.

Something for all ages, year round!

Explore the splendours of the sky

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