Created by urban designer Eadeh Attarzadeh and architect Saroli Palumbo, Forteresses is a set of modular systems intended to protect trees from humans. Photo Jean-Christophe Lemay
It?s a summer of anniversaries for Reford Gardens, located on the Lower St. Lawrence River, east of Quebec City. 2022 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Elsie Reford, who designed the gardens adjacent a salmon fishing lodge built by her uncle, CPR railway magnate Sir George Stephen. And it?s the 60th anniversary of the gardens being opened to the public, after they were acquired the Quebec government as a rural counterpart to the Montreal Botanical Gardens.
It?s also the 60th birthday of another pivotal person in the story of Reford Gardens: Alexander Reford, the great grandson of Elsie Reford. In the 1990s, when the Quebec government was revisiting its portfolio of parks, the Reford family became involved in talks with the community about how to preserve the gardens as a public destination. Alexander Reford was ultimately responsible for creating the non-profit organization that purchased the property from the Quebec government in 1995. That year, he left his position as Dean of St. Michael?s College at the University of Toronto to become the director of Reford Gardens. ?It?s a pretty unusual history of private-public-private,? says Alexander of the property?s history. Estevan Lodge and the formal gardens are nestled in a spruce forest alongside the Lower St. Lawrence River. Photo Jean-...