Farmer's Almanac Weather Prediction for Ontario: "Stormy conditions spread in from the west."
Currently blooming in my garden: Portulaca, Gazania Sonnegold, tomatillos, tomatoes, nasturtiums, nicotiana, Echeveria lilacina, anise hyssop, black-eyed Susans, calendula, day lilies, coleus, and passion flower.
I just got back from a trip to Montreal. The forecast for last week, according to the Farmer's Almanac was "fair weather". What an understatement. Anyone basically anywhere in the Northern hemisphere last week can tell you that it was hotter than hell. I am actually really glad we were in Montreal when we were because according to friends at home, Toronto was brutal. Apparently it was hotter than it has ever been here. Smog levels were unbearable and so many people had their air conditioners pumping, that the City had to access an extra coal burning power source in order to keep up. If this doesn't make a case for the existance of Global Warming I don't know what does.
Montreal, while hot, was much nicer and the air quality was better. Most of our trip involved slowly pushing our bodies up hills and occassionally ducking into air conditioned places just to get some reprieve from the heat. I'm not complaining though. I'd much rather fry to death than freeze to death. I'll take the sun over the gloom of mid February any day.
On Friday we went to the Montreal Botanical Gardens and the Insectarium. The Insectarium was great but a bit of a disappointment. I think I just expected too much from it. I thought it would be this huge place, but in fact it was a fairly small building. We were in and out in just over an hour. Don't get me wrong. They did have an incredible display of insects and I was completely transfixed for most of the hour. It just wasn't what I had built it up to be in my imagination.
While in the gift shop at the Insectarium (I always look but never buy) Davin found a book about the Botanical Gardens. In it was a page with photos of the Greenhouse showing HUGE cacti and succulents. We didn't even know the Botanical Gardens had a Greenhouse open to the public! We were supposed to go to the Biodome, but once I saw the photos of the Greenhouse I didn't care about anything else. I had to get to the greenhouse! We had seen a cluster of greenhouses when we drove by in a cab but we didn't think they were open to the public. So we had an idea of direction but no idea how to actually get there. The Gardens are huge and we had less then two hours left.
 After the Insectarium we came across a Butterfly Garden. It was all encased by mesh to keep the butterflies in. It was beautiful and thrilling, several photos were taken, ooohhing and awing over the butterflies and crysalids were abundant but I practically ran thorough it. I had to find the Greenhouse.
Then we checked out the Japanese Garden. It was huge. They had bamboo, bonsai that were up to and over 300 years old, a koi pond, a mini forest, lotus, water lilies. The list goes on. I was sort of just running around saying "Oh that's my favourite" to everything. I was in such a rush I really didn't see anything so it's really hard to give descriptions. I just got a brief impression of things. I really wanted to see everything but I knew I couldn't live with myself if I didn't get to the Greenhouse. I felt a real sense of desperation.
 On our way to find the Greenhouse we walked/ran through the Rose Garden, the First Nations Garden, the Chinese Garden, the Alpine Garden, and walked right past what looked like a giant vegetable and edibles garden. At the Chinese Garden I discovered that all the photos I'd been taking with the 35mm camera were lost because the film hadn't been advancing! It was too late to go back and get those shots. I had to get over the disappointment quickly because by the time we hit the alpine area we had 45 minutes left and we were literally running up and down paths trying to get through what seemed like a maze in order to find the Greenhouse.
I felt such a sense of relief once I handed over my ticket and walked into the Greenhouse. The very first thing I saw was a really cool display of carnivorous plants. Next I headed for the Arid Plants room. As soon as I walked in my eyes started tearing up over the excitement of having made it and the shear awe of the display. I took an entire roll of 36 photos in that room (yet to be developed) as well as several digital shots. Sadly the digital shots don't show the scale of some of the plants. There was one cacti that was literally about to go through the roof! They had several species of agave, many of which were gigantic. Poor Davin had to endure a full 45 minutes of me running around with the 35 mm camera (him with the digital camera) yelling "Get a shot of that one", or "Oh, now that's my favourite" and various facts that he'd already heard a million times before. "Did you know that the agave is not a cactus but a member of the lily family?"
 They had the room divided into 3 columns with 2 paths going through them. The plants seemed to be divided by regions, (i.e.the Americas or South Africa) but I wasn't paying much attention to plant names and locations. There just wasn't time. I was excited to see a sisal agave (the plant that sisal rugs are made from). I realized I'd actually seen one while in Mexico, but at the time I didn't know what species it was. They had an incredible collection of aloe. Some had trunks like trees with a thick layer of bark. I'm newly fascinated by paddle cactus (Opuntia) and they had a nice assortment of sizes and species.
At the end of the room they had a display that was set up to look like the fronts of Mediterranean houses. It had fake facades with plants hanging from the front and plantings on the ground. There were also a number of plants behind plexiglass displays. I don't like the plexiglass shields because it makes me feel like there is too great a barrier between me and the plants. It's a psychological barrier rather than a physical one since the plexiglass doesn't obstruct my view.
I don't know what went beyond this last room. I think it was all bonsai and whatnot. I didn't have time to see because with barely 20 minutes left I still had the entire tropical plants wing of the building to check out.
This entry is too long so I'll get into that side of things in my next entry.
In the meantime a few photos from the Gardens.
Last year at this time: Sentimental walks down the nerdy roads of my life.
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