(Heather Ring, Brenda Parker and Synnøve Fredericks, Algaegarden, 2011. Photo by Martin Bond, courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

That decorative workhorse of gardens since time immemorial — the water feature, pond scum included — gets a makeover in the Algaegarden, one of the new additions at this year's International Garden Festival at Les Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens, Quebec.


(Heather Ring, Brenda Parker and Synnøve Fredericks, Algaegarden, 2011. Photo by Martin Bond, courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

In the installation, an art/science/landscape collaboration between Synnøve Fredericks, Brenda Parker and Heather Ring, several different species of algae course through “curtains of tubes hanging from steel frames.” For the moment, the soupy mixture of nutrients and pointillist vegetation looks rather pallid, but the collaborators hope the algae will thrive and their colors grow bolder, like any foliage chromatically mutating through the seasons: reds becoming more vibrant, greens more lush, and blues turning bathypelagic.


(Photo courtesy of Heather Ring, Brenda Parker and Synnøve Fredericks.)


(Heather Ring, Brenda Parker and Synnøve Fredericks, Algaegarden, 2011. Photo by Martin Bond, courtesy of Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens.)

“The algae, often considered a nuisance in the garden pond, here become an object of secret beauty and curiosity,” the avant-gardeners explain. “The garden leads the visitor to appreciate algae both as an alternative to oil and other energy sources and a source of food and nutrition.”

It's a technolicious pergola (or is it an archetypal labyrinth? an espaliered cyborg-plant?) providing a cool respite from our post-millennial angst over peak oil and peak food.

Other gardens:
Sonic Garden
Poule mouillée!
Réflexions colorées