Alexander Reford is the director of the Reford Gardens and cofounder of the International Garden Festival. He has written several books, is an active member of his community and, together with other volunteers, advocates for the ecological preservation of Gaspésie, which is very dear to him.
In 1995, Alexander “escaped from Toronto’s metropolis” and returned to the sea and the fresh salty air of Grand-Métis in Gaspésie to direct the
Reford Gardens. For this university graduate, an Outaouais native and historian by training, the promise of adventure was very appealing. It provided him with an opportunity to preserve and showcase an extraordinary family heritage: Estevan Lodge and the grounds that were home to his family beginning in 1887, not to mention the gardens, a lifetime of work by his great-grandmother Elsie Reford, which are truly a gem in the heart of the region.
"The freedom I have to become involved here holds great appeal for me. I am able to carry out many projects like the ones I had worked on with my team over the course of several years, and we can share them with the general public.”
This is how the
International Garden Festival came to be in 2000. Its objectives, among others, were to attract new visitors to the Reford Gardens and to entice young designers from all over the world.
"We wanted to begin by getting the younger generation to come out to visit us. Gaspésie’s natural attractions were not all that interesting to them. We had in mind the true cultural consumers (Montreal fashion designers, Toronto architects, New York artists) who are well travelled and who, for instance, will visit an architecture exhibit in Bilbao, New York or London.”
“We also wanted to offer young landscape architects a place where they could create contemporary gardens in a stimulating setting. Back then, the attitude in garden design was generally quite conservative.”
“Lastly, we wanted the Festival to become a design destination and Grand-Métis to provide a platform for a dialogue between history and modern times, between the past and the future . . . one that would build a bridge between two languages that were still quite segregated at the time.”
“Today, these objectives have been met. From abroad, our International Garden Festival is seen, without exaggeration, as the largest North American festival of its type, and the second largest in the world.”
“Applicants who have responded to our requests for submissions over the last 11 years are landscape architects who wish to explore a side of their creativity that they are unable to do in their everyday lives. They want to display their work to a new audience and might be interested in a point of entry into the North-American market. This is why, each year, we have between 150 and 300 individuals from all over the world who enter the contest in the hopes that their design will be among the four to six selected.”
“What has touched us in the past and continues to touch us today is that we host about 50 designers each year – from Montreal, Berlin, London, Toronto, New York, etc. – who are typically coming to Gaspésie for the first time. For most of them, it is their first visit to a rural area.”
“They know that the warm welcome they receive, the beauty of the region and the spectacular sites will capture their imaginations. This opportunity to spend a week or two away from the office and their daily emails, and even with a break from their family obligations, provides them with a creative space that will mark their lives and their careers.”
“It has become a family of friends at the global level, and this is extremely important for a site like ours. Without the Festival, they probably would never have come to the region. We have created a sort of diplomatic corps that is quite extensive now, with over 400 people who have passed through and who have become our ambassadors all over the world by recommending us to other designers or by sending journalists our way.”
Over the years, this effervescence has resulted in a great diversity of designs. In addition to the gardens created on the site, others are exported and reproduced outside the region: Place de la Dauversière in Montreal, the Canada Blooms Festival in Toronto, the Olympic Plaza in Calgary, as well as in France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Just back from a short trip to Lévis where he spoke at a conference, Alexander Reford remarks that he rarely refuses an invitation, whether here or abroad. “My objective is always to convince 10 to 40 people to visit our gardens and our Festival.”
“People often ask about what I do in the winter, as if a garden is only managed three months of the year! The reality is that we are the size of a small to medium business, and like all other tourism organizations, we have to work hard with limited means to be successful.”
Given the depth of Alexander Reford’s passion and all of the projects he has in mind, we can rest assured that he has lots of surprises in store for us.
Summer 