The Globe and Mail

If you thought of Montreal as a sophisticated, slightly down-at-the-heels but dashingly European kind of city, add another element: floriferousness (a fancy way of saying it's home to a lot of blooms). After what seems like years of stasis, the city is perking itself up in the most extraordinary way: With the Montreal International Flora 2006. This show of demonstration gardens in the Old Port is quite unlike anything else we've seen in this country. First of all, there's the size. There are 53 gardens, which is a scale never tried before in any other city. It is out of doors (unlike Canada Blooms, which is in a hellish gloom underground). And it is international in character. The location alone got the landscape architects in a mood to do something extraordinary. The Old Port, with its ancient quays, has some of the most colourful close-to-derelict grain silos still standing.