Vincelli's Garden Centre

The entrepreneur who wanted to build a 12 story mixed condo/commercial building on this site was defeated in a referendum.The fact is this is a poor location for luxury living, it's beside a huge rail yard with the noise of trains shunting, trains coming and going, and cars and trucks entering and leaving the area; as well, the small strip mall across the street from the proposed condo has never been a success, it's maybe half occupied, so who will shop at the stores in the proposed condo/commercial area? And, finally, this is a low density area of single family dwellings, not condos, not apartments, but families with parents, children, the elderly, working people, all living in homes they rent or own; it is an isolated location unless you have a car. The local residents are hostile to the proposed building they attempted to impose on their neighbourhood, they voted against it; who would vote in favour of a year or longer of construction -- danger to their children caused by large trucks, noise, and dirt -- followed by a needlessly large 12 story, or even a six story, building looming over one's home and community and an influx of strangers? How does that affect one's property taxes? How does that affect the quality of one's life? It doesn't. The age of the 12 story complex in this area has come to an end, but what will be proposed next?

Vincellli's Garden Centre, March 2023

I finally took some photographs of the old Vincelli's Garden Centre; they closed about two years ago. What you see below is about one quarter to one third of the size of the property, and public hearings on building a large condo building here are slated for this week. This is also one of the few unbuilt property lots in the City of Cote Saint-Luc (which is adjacent to where I live in Montreal); it is a mostly residential city but includes Cavendish Mall and Cote Saint-Luc Shopping Centre. Is this the best development of this property? Housing is needed, or seems to be needed, and a growing population means more tax dollars for Cote Saint-Luc. Of course, this might be considered a remote location in this area, but nothing is all that far from something else in CSL; and while there are some stores across the street from Vincelli's, out of five stores only two are still in business, so I am not sure if the commercial part of this development will succeed. I am also not sure other services are available for the future inhabitants of this condo; I expect they will be mostly elderly people moving from single family residences to condos. The development (one tower will have 8 to 12 storeys) will bring a lot of people and their cars into the neighbourhood; stores, bus service, EMS, infrastructure, and so on will have to be improved, or will have to be provided. Would it be better to make this a park instead of more condos? That won't happen because the desire for increased tax revenue is strong and there is no need to promote the area for future residents, many people want to live in CSL and residents are happy to live there. Personally, I don't like what I see slated for this site; if I lived in the area I would oppose it, oppose two years of construction, trucks, noise, pollution, and an influx of people to the area. But it is a prestige condo development as long as no one cares about the noise from the adjacent CPR rail yards. Consider a modified version a done deal. 

This is what is planned at this location

People have begun dumping construction material and other garbage on the site

There is a cardinal on the left, the site is home to many birds and small animals

Vincelli's Garden Centre, two

Here are the rest of the photos I took of Vincelli's Garden Centre, closed two years, gone back to nature, soon to be the site of a condo.

Vincelli's Garden Centre

Like many others, I always enjoyed visiting Vincelli's Garden Centre; it closed about two years ago. Many of the first perennial flowers I planted in my garden came from Vincelli's and they were always strong plants, good stock, and I still have them; in fact, these plants have multiplied and I've divided them so they're in different places in the garden. I guess the condo that is planned to be built here will begin construction one of these days, in the meantime the whole lot has gone wild. It looks great as is! The plastic greenhouse has been removed, the main building has a few broken windows, there is some old junk at the old entrance to the main building. Well, everything changes but it's sad to see the demise of a place that is dear to the hearts of so many people, including my own. If the garden centre at Reno Depot closed I would be inconvenienced but I wouldn't be nostalgic for the place; that's the difference between Vincelli's and where I now go for garden supplies. And I am not impressed with the idea of more condos. We are told the population is growing and we have to house people somewhere, that's progress, but I am not a believer in progress. Progress is overrated; I like things the way they are.  

At the garden centre

Last week I visited our local garden centre, then I returned a few days later for what I didn't get the first visit. Don't be cheap; within reason, buy more than you think you'll need, that blackberry bush won't be there the next day or, if it is there, only the plants that other people have picked over will be left. Vincelli's Garden Centre is gone, now it's just an overgrown city lot where, two years ago, you could buy perennials that weren't sold at larger garden centres. BTW, last fall we saw a rabbit near Vincelli's, we thought he must have been someone's pet that had escaped and that he wouldn't survive the winter; about a week ago we saw him again, worse for wear but still alive. Here are photos from the garden centre at Reno Depot on rue St-Jacques; I've come here for years. Prices this year are about 40 to 60% higher that what you paid a year ago. If you have mostly perennials this won't matter, there may even come a day when you won't buy any plants. 

The first photos were taken on May 5, the garden centre was still being set up; return visit was on May 8. 

What I bought a few days after my first visit; geraniums, a lavender plant;
a stringy blackberry bush that has since flourished.

The illusion of progress and Vincelli`s Garden Centre in late July 2021

If I remember correctly, in Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley writes that the main problem for the world is overpopulation. So many of the world's problems can be traced back to there being too many people; people are everywhere and they're destroying the planet with garbage, pollution, climate change, building houses on farm land, forest forests, destroying rivers, and causing the extinction of thousands of species of wild life. We are destroying the world with our own species. People are everywhere and it's not a pretty sight. 

I suppose there will be a resolution of this problem of overpopulation as more women are educated, there is a relationship between women's education and the number of children they have; women with careers generally have fewer children. As people become more affluent they have fewer children. This seems the only solution to overpopulation. As well, although the world has almost eight billion people we haven't had an increase in the number of gifted people, we don't have dozens of Newtons or Einsteins, nor do we have a few hundred Leonardos or Michaelangelos, or fifty Shakespeares cranking out works of genius. We are destroying ourselves as we proliferate; what will be left of the natural world by 2100? Will it be like J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World? That seems one possible scenario...

There have been some extreme visions of a post-apocalyptic world; after the apocalypse the population is reduced, mankind is almost extinct. Yesterday, when I walked by Vincelli's Garden Centre, I was reminded of an old television show about what happens to civilization without people; for instance, they might show New York City and then, through computerized special effects, they show New York City in ten years, twenty years, and further off into a future without people. The asphalt streets are cracked and overgrown with weeds, windows are broken, buildings are beginning to collapse, the city is abandoned and overgrown with vegetation. It doesn't take long for coyotes and wolves to be walking along Fifth Avenue and the Empire State Building to collapse. Look at Chernobyl where, in 1986, there was a nuclear disaster, today wild life has returned, the place is overgrown with lush vegetation, and animal life has returned despite high levels of radiation. Tourists are visiting Chernobyl to see how a city that was once full of people going to work, spending time with their families, and enjoying life, has become a ghost city. It took just thirty-five years for nature to reclaim the abandoned city of Chernobyl but it won't be safe for permanent human habitation for many years, possibly for centuries. 

More of anything does not necessarily increase the value of that thing, it might even diminish its value. It has been said before that we are not as moved by the suffering of a million people as we are by the suffering of one person, for instance a child's dead body on a beach. More of a thing seems to diminish its value, and one recalls the photographs of Spenser Tunick in which he invites hundreds of people to pose naked, standing or lying down on a city street. I always found these photographs disturbing, the pink naked bodies remind me of the dead naked bodies of Nazi victims, bodies thrown into mass graves before being covered with dirt. It is all highly disturbing. I don't like Tunick's photographs but I can still recognize their message; his photographs remind us that too many human beings in one place has not made the human race more attractive, it has made it something less attractive, more vulnerable, more expendable. I would add that overpopulation is dangerous to the long-term survival of humanity.  

These photographs of Vincelli's Garden Centre taken in late July 2021,

Vincelli's Garden Centre a month after closing for good.

When I used to visit Vincelli's Garden Centre I never thought it would end up like this . . .