Reford Gardens founder honoured by Quebec government
Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
editor@qctonline.com
The founder of the Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens, Elsie Reford, was recognized as a person of historic significance by the Quebec government on March 8, International Women’s Day.
Reford, who died at age 95 in 1967, was a Toronto-born socialite, philanthropist and Conservative political activist who played a key role in the organization of Quebec City’s 300th anniversary celebrations in 1908. Reford and her family had a summer home near Grand-Métis, east of Rimouski in the Lower St. Lawrence region – a popular summer getaway for well-heeled English-Canadian families which remains somewhat of an anglophone enclave to this day.
In 1926, while recovering from surgery, Reford could no longer practise her other passions – horseback riding and salmon fishing – so she turned her attention to the estate’s gardens, transforming them into a sprawling horticultural landmark which drew visitors from miles around. Several of the flowers she brought to the gardens, including azaleas and Tibetan blue poppies, had never been grown in the region before.
The Quebec government bought the gardens in 1961. In 1994 they were declared “surplus inventory” and sold to a nonprofit headed by Alexander Reford, Elsie Reford’s great-great-grandson, who still oversees the property to this day. Between June and early October, thousands of tourists flock to the gardens.
“The Gardens are recognized as a historic site, but this is the first time the woman behind them has been recognized as a historic person,” Alexander Reford told the QCT. He said the decision by the Ministry of Culture and Communications to designate his great-great- grandmother a historic person came as a wonderful surprise, two years after the 150th anniversary of her birth.
“She was a person of extraordinary energy and enormous strength and force of character, who led rather than followed,” said Alexander Re- ford, who met his great-great- grandmother once when he was five, and heard many stories about her growing up. “She made a decision for my father when he was engaged; she said, that’s not the woman you want to marry. She was truly legendary.”
Elsie Reford was a self-taught horticulturalist who realized that along the St. Lawrence River, “she had the perfect climate for perennials because of the cool air and the snow,” Alexander Reford said. “She was trialling plants [that were new to the area] … she was fortunate, but she was also a genius.”
Although the aristocratic family matriarch was “initially a bit horrified” at the idea of her gardens becoming a tourist attraction, Alexander Reford said he believed she would be happy to see people from around the country and the world “enjoying her creativity.”
To learn more about the Re- ford Gardens, visit jardinsdemetis.com/en/plan-your-visit.