The Winter Garden

 Each season I photograph the Landscapes Of Canada Gardens. This is set on the west side of the property at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Four distinctive ecosystems from across the country are presented, with plants, flowers, grasses, shrubs, and trees from each planted. This time of year much of it is buried in the snow. I approached from the southwest to take in this first view.

Boreal Forest is the first, and the vegetation in this area comes from that ecosystem covering a vast swath of the country.

The bare trees seen here are tamaracks- trees that look like coniferous trees, but shed their needle-like leaves when they turn golden late in the fall. I missed seeing that when I paid my autumn visit.

Some of the next ecosystem: Prairie Grassland, with the long grasses and flowers buried under the snow, waiting on spring.

The path goes beneath the sculpture of an iceberg, done by the late Canadian artist and inventor Bill Lishman.

This is the view from the west edge of the property. The third ecosystem, Arctic Tundra, has much of its plantings buried under the snow, along with most of the rocks that are placed here. During the growing season, the plants from the far north do quite well here.

Signage here and there along the path goes into detail about the ecosystem, or identifies specific plants, grasses, or flowers.

The path continues.

This portion of the Prairie Grassland caught my eye.

The last of the ecosystems represented here is Mammoth Steppe, with vegetation from the time of those animals that still grows today. It's almost all buried in the snow.

A family of three mammoths stands here along the end of the path. In the background, in the Queens Lantern, hangs a model of the Moon.