"Land of Hope," International Mosaiculture Competition in Montreal


The Man Who Planted Trees, inspired by a remarkable book. Click here to learn about it.

Mosaiculture consists of artworks made primarily of living plants. Often some of these "plant sculptures" are huge. Underlying structures are built to hold hundreds or thousands of small plants. The plants continue to live and grow, and must be watered and trimmed from time to time!

A problem with showing photographs of mosaicultures concerns scale. With no one in the foreground, it's impossible to see how big these figures are. In the case of The Man Who Planted Trees, above, the small tree he is planting is almost as tall as a man. Images below illustrate the scale of some other works.


The Bird Tree


Mother Nature


Mother Nature's hand – note eagle and horses.

This shows a horse's size!

Below are a few more of our favorite mosaicultures from the botanical gardens. The international competition had abour 50 exhibits from 20 countries. We spent over five hours walking about and enjoying it.


The Girl Who Saved the Crane — from a Chinese story that is tragic but true


Green Man

Charming creatures


Sculptures commissioned for the event — the wood was not cut, but used as collected.

Though the amazing mosaiculture occupied all the time we had several hours there was much more to see. Below are photos that show why we look forward to another visit to the Montreal Botanical Gardens.


In the Japanese Garden

Bonsai trees are displayed at the Japanese Garden, above, and the Chinese garden, below.


In the Chinese Garden 

Besides the Chinese and Japanese gardens, there are innumerable beds of flowers, plants of all sorts, even decorative vegetables — and also the occasional sculpture or other artwork that adds interest to the gardens.


Flower and insects made of tableware, a doorknob, and sparkplugs!

These insects involve, among other things, bicycle chains!


There is even a decorative vegetable garden — just the thing for Barbara!

The Montreal Botanical Gardens are huge, and we are eager to go back. But that will take another trip. We had to cycle back to Vermont. That ride appears, briefly, on the next page:

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