News

Les Jardins de Métis and the Circuit électrique announced the new public charging station for electric vehicles visiting the gardens and the Gaspésie region. The charging station is located on the public parking lot of Les Jardins de Métis, at 200 Route 132, Grand-Métis. With more than 50,000 visitors per year and 20,000 or more cars, the charging station will permit electric car owners to recharge their vehicles while visiting the Gardens.



Alexander Reford, director of Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens, commented “These Gardens have long been known as a place where visitors can recharge their batteries with the beauty of our flowerbeds and landscapes and the beauty of the place. Adding a charging station is yet another service for our visitors and contributes to developing le Circuit électrique to serve those visitors and tourists who own or use electric vehicles for their trip. It is one more step in our effort to become the “greenest garden” in North America by various investments and programs to diminish our environmental footprint and to become an exemplary example of sustainable development”.

This public charging station is the second one at Les Jardins de Métis. A private charging station is installed at ERE132, the centre for excellence in green buildings for the use of staff members of Les Jardins de Métis.

This is another in a series of investments to become the greenest garden in North America. The effort to green the gardens has this year seen a series of new initiatives and programs:

• the Lambmowers: ten sheep on a 2-hectare eco-pasture, with a corresponding diminution in the use of gas-powered lawn mowers and greenhouse gasses;
• the opening of ERE132, the centre for excellence in green building;
• the construction of a fence made of logs around the greenest house, the result of a forestry management program undertaken by workers of the International Garden Festival and the future home to dozens of “bee hotels”;
• hosting of bee hives from Le Vieux Moulin to pollinate the gardens and produce organic honey;
• the development of bee berms to create and protect bands of pollinator plants for native bees and pollinators, in collaboration with Evergreen-Walmart;
• planting of more than native 500 trees, in collaboration with the CNEconnexion program;
• production of more than 20,000 plants of sea-lyme grass to promote ecological methods to prevent erosion of the St. Lawrence shoreline for local environmental organizations and municipalities of the region;
• the purchase of produce and food products from local farmers for the kitchens of Estevan Lodge;
• a growing fleet (we now have 16 bicycles in use in an on-site bike sharing program) of bicycles and electric golf carts to facilitate the movement of staff on site and diminish the use of gas-powered vehicles;
• a lecture series at the Mitis River Park to present to local citizens the environmental challenges facing the region and the St. Lawrence Estuary;
• two shoreline cleanups along the St. Lawrence in collaboration with local residents and the Rimouski branch of RBC, resulting in more than 8 truckloads (2000 kg) of detritus collected from the beaches of Ste-Flavie, Grand-Métis and Métis-sur-Mer taken to the Écocentre de La Mitis;
• promoting the Right Tree in the Right Place program of Hydro-Québec to encourager Quebekers to make the right choice when planting trees in their gardens and landscapes;
• joining the new collection program for organic matter and table scraps offered by the MRC de La Mitis.

About le Circuit électrique
The Circuit électrique is the largest public charging network in Quebec. It remains a major initiative in the deployment of the necessary infrastructure to support the arrival of plug-in electric vehicles in Québec. The network has nearly 450 public charging stations, including thirteen fast terminals in service particularly in parking lots of the AMT and several RONA stores, Metro grocery stores and St Hubert rotisseries in Quebec. Since opening in March 2012, 111 private and institutional partners have joined the Electric Circuit and the network now has more than 5,000 members.

About Les Jardins de Métis 
A National Historic Site and Québec heritage site, the Reford Gardens / Jardins de Métis are an obligatory stop for all those visiting eastern Québec. Cultural space and tourist destination for over 50 years, the Reford Gardens is one of the most popular attractions in the Gaspésie region, providing visitors with experiences for every sense. Located on the banks of the St. Lawrence and Mitis rivers, they were created between 1926 and 1958 by avid gardener and plant collector, Elsie Reford. Hydro-Québec has been the lead sponsor of the Reford Gardens since 1999. The gardens will be open every day up to September 27, 2015. Children 13 and under are admitted free of charge. Consult http://www.refordgardens.com for more information.