I had a good trip, albeit short. The Jardin de Metis was more than I had imagined in every way, much bigger and more layered. Some background, on Thursday of last week I travelled by train to the Jardin de Metis, a traditional garden started in the 1920’s by heiress Elsie Reford on the banks of the St-Lawrence river. I was there for the opening of the seventh edition of the International Garden Festival, a contemporary garden festival. The original Jardin de Metis is a garden that circles “the cottage” a large unassuming structure from the outside, but spectacular inside, that sits on the grounds of a magnificently sited, 200+ acre property that looks out over the river just before it pours out into the Gulf. For all practical purposes, it’s as far as, looks like, and smells, like the ocean. When you arrive et the Jardin, you’re greeted by an award winning modern structure (above) that leads into the gardens and the festival. The Festival has got it’s own grounds East of the traditional gardens. In short, since its inception, every year landscape architects from all over the world submit proposals for new gardens. Four or five are chosen and get built in the weeks leading up to the festival opening. This is the first in a series of posts that will document these new gardens and the gardens built in previous editions of the festival.