Quebec's Secret Garden

The Musee de Civilisation in the lower town of Quebec City is an almost-brand-new building. When it was built, its designers included a space for an inclined garden in the center of the building's roof.

It's a beautiful example of urban architecture, integrating with nature.


This summer's installation is called Growing High on the Rooftops of the Museum (Vertiges sur les Toits du Musee), and it brings together architecture, design, poetry, sculpture, sound, and almost 150 varieties of multicolored plants (about a third of which are edibles).

The plants are greatly varied, and themed by colors in gardens with names like Wild (reds), Eternal (yellows), Secret (greens), Frost (whites and silvers), Nourishing (mostly edibles), and Inner (pink).


The central stairway is flanked by raised beds and sculptural piping (the Eternal Garden). As you walk up, you hear voices (all in French, so I can't say much about that).


Large words on the walls connect with the differently themed sections.


A mysterious figure swathed in nasturtiums within the Secret Garden.


Much of the garden is made up of edibles, and a local nonprofit is picking the fruits, vegetables and herbs to cook and serve to people who are food insecure. I love this statue. He's joyously distributing frogs to the garden.


This statue in the Nourishing Garden has both a front...


...and a quilt of fields as a cloak in back.


This is the Deserted Garden, beyond all the other gardens, alone at the bottom of its own stairway. It's filled with sand, and grows brown sedges -- grasses that look like they're possibly dead, but aren't.


This beautiful hibiscus is part of the Inner garden.


A savoy cabbage in the Morning garden.


I wish I knew what this variegated silver-green leaf is. The combination with the blue/purple petunias if very striking.

It's a lot of beauty -- and it's free. Quite a find!