Vertical garden at Loyola Park

The "vertical garden" was opened in early June, it is a project of our local burrough; this is a garden for a small space, a vertical garden, a garden that grows upwards, and growing upwards it is expected to increase the amount of food possible to grow in this space. For weeks, maybe months, city workers laboured to make build the vertical garden located in the north-east corner of Loyola Park, and then it was done and it was announced. Photographs were taken. Food grown here will be donated to local food banks. These photos were taken on 11 June 2025. But now, a month later, the garden is still padlocked, so no one is walking in this vertical garden, and no one is picking vegetables grown there, it looks like nothing is growing there. With the amount of space they have to work with the city could have laid out some garden plots, there is probably a long list of people who would like the have their own garden. And what did this cost? I hear it cost around $190K, and you can buy a lot of turnips, tomatoes, and beans at the IGA a few blocks from here for $190K and not have to grow them yourself. 

At Loyola Park, a quiet place

 

Butters, the wild turkey, visits our back yard

Named Butters by someone, here is Butters the wild turkey visiting our back yard about a month ago. He's caused quite a lot of excitement, from people wanting him relocated for his own safety, to comments about Christmas dinner, to seeing him in Loyola Park. He travels slowly but he's on the move. His sightings make the news on Face Book, most people around here have never seen a wild turkey and certainly not in the city. I've seen him in our backyard and at Loyola Park. He's a big topic of conversation, bringing people together in this time of Covid-19. 

A Place of Quiet in Loyola Park

The new soccer field at Loyola Park has been completed and the children's area has been moved and improved, but thankfully nothing has been done to this quiet area; some things don't need to be improved, they're perfect just as they are.

Let's begin our walking tour of places of peace and quiet in this part of our neighbourhood. 

Edmund at Loyola Park

It's July 2, 2016 but feels like an early fall day, windy, grey sky, rain blowing in; cool until the sun comes out. Here is my grandson, Edmund, playing at Loyola Park. "That's fun" he says after coming down the slide...

A Place of Contemplation in Loyola Park

Soccer, baseball, exercise machines, wading pools for children, these and other activities are available at Loyola Park just a few blocks from where I live. But, also, the City has created some areas for contemplation and quiet, for instance this quadrangle entered through one of four gates. There was also an attempt to restore a small pond from the lost underground St. Pierre River that runs through the park to Wentworth Golf Course. Plants suitable for an aquatic "garden" were planted. The pond failed but the vestiges of it are still present near the baseball diamond. Acknowledging that not everyone is interested in physical exercise is important; it allows for a greater diversity of activities at Loyola Park and other places in Montreal.

Loyola Park

Holy Wells, Montreal (late August, 2010)

Last summer, I wrote here about holy wells in Ireland and in Montreal. Here is the effort of the City of Montreal to deal with a natural occurring well in Loyola Park, in western N.D.G. The bottom photograph shows the site of the well, it's on the far left towards the top. Yearly run-off from the well, or underground stream, has caused the asphalt to lift on the footpath to Fielding Avenue (not shown, but visible in a Google street view of "Fielding and Doherty, Montreal"). This neighbourhood, Notre Dame de Grace, has many underground streams, as do other areas of Montreal. It's not so long ago that this was farmland, apple orchards, out in the country.

Update on 10 September 2018: The St-Pierre River, which has been covered with asphalt and buildings, runs under different parts of NDG; it originates in Old Montreal and ends at the Meadowbrook Golf Course in Cote St-Luc. Re. this experiment in Loyola Park, it failed because some people were afraid it would cause disease as they believed mosquitoes would breed in the water; however, it also dried up and I suspect the amount of water in this experimental area was a lot less than originally estimated.