- March 19, 2025 - Jardin botanique : Behind the scenes at the Garden
The greenhouses had been preventively closed in January 2024 in order to carry out certain work. By April 2, 2025, they will be ready to welcome the public once again.
Hard work aimed at showcasing the beauty of orchids and bromeliads
After months of effort and painstaking renovations, the Jardin botanique’s tropical rainforest greenhouse will finally reopen its doors, providing tropical plants with an ideal setting to flourish in.
The exhibition greenhouse of the tropical rainforest is home to a striking variety of orchids and bromeliads. Some of these plants are epiphytes, meaning they grow on other plants without feeding on them – as they’d do in a natural environment, clinging to rainforest trees.
To host these plants at the Jardin botanique, we’ve built structures in steel and cork. Cork is a material that imitates the bark of trees and that allows tropical plants to attach themselves to it and grow and is the finest structure for ensuring their survival and their growth in a controlled-growth environment. With the reopening of the greenhouses to the public, we took the opportunity to renew all the “trees” in the tropical rainforest greenhouse, a colossal piece of work that hadn’t been carried out in over 20 years.
Meticulous renovation to make botanical treasures still more beautiful
As time went by, we noticed that the old cork trees had disintegrated to the point where they weren’t allowing plants to grow properly anymore. But we really had no idea just how much work would be needed to replace those trees that greet visitors just as they enter the greenhouse.
First of all, the horticulturist and gardeners had to completely empty out the greenhouse of all plants and move them to a production greenhouse where the temperature is subject to the same controls as in an exhibition greenhouse. These plants need to experience a climate of 23°C at all times.
The horticultural team’s work is often very physically demanding . For example, to remove fake tree structures, they had to take out close to 100 cubic meters of rock at the bottom of the immense tubs that house the plants.
A landscape architect drew up the plans for new trees, which required no fewer than 1,400 kilograms of cork from Portugal, the only country capable of supplying that quantity. Tracking the evolution of supply chains and juggling the vagaries of transport by sea between Lisbon and Montréal were two of the project’s many challenges. But happily, the cork made it here without too much delay.
Breathing new life into the greenhouse: a challenge met with passion and expertise
Once the cork arrived in December and January, construction began on trees consisting of a steel and cork structure. The Jardin botanique’s horticulture division led the operation in collaboration with Ville de Montréal’s Building Planning and Management Department. All the professions involved worked with the goal of providing the plants the best possible growing conditions and giving the public an unparalleled view of tropical rainforest plants. The bromeliads and orchids are back in their prime locations, while the horticulturist took advantage of these major changes to enrich the collection with wonderful new species of orchid (Brassia, Dendrobium, Bulbophyllum, Dendrochilum) as well as tropical green plants.
Starting April 2, the tropical rainforest greenhouse will be welcoming Jardin botanique visitors, offering them a chance to rediscover it in all its splendor!
