Short Jaunt: Allan Gardens

Hello! It's 2022 and time for a new season of Walking in Place. I'll be switching things up this year and alternating full tours with Short Jaunts like this one, so you'll have something to listen to every two weeks.

I've talked about Allan Gardens very briefly before. It was in the "Creepy Cabbagetown" episode in case you missed it. But I felt it was worthy of a slightly deeper dive and there's never a bad time to go see interesting plants- for free, no less.

So, we're gonna start at the entrance on Horticultural Lane, just north of Gerrard. In the early days of Toronto being a colonial city, this land was part of the estate of William Allan. It was the early 1800s in a "new land". So naturally, William's career went from shop owner to postmaster to military major to judge to banker to politician. He was friends with John Strachan, and therefore part of the family compact, making these career moves a lot easier. We're standing on what was once part of his estate. From what I can understand, it was bound north and south by Carlton and Dundas and east and west by Sherbourne and George Street. If you've listened to other episodes, or are familiar with colonial property owners, you know that they like giving fancy names to their properties. Allan named his Moss Park after the part of Scotland where he was from called The Moss. The park/area just south of here still bears that name.

His son, George William Allan, inherited the property when William died in 1853. And five years later, George donated five acres of it to the Toronto Horticultural Society so that they could build a garden. The Toronto Horticultural Society had been around for a while at that point. It was founded on May 1, 1834, and is actually still active to this day. Its motto was "Beautify Toronto", and it was the first group of its kind in Upper Canada, not that Upper Canada was that big at the time, but still. They felt, and I must agree, that gardens "not only provide for our sustenance, but also for our soul". It sounds cheesy, but if you don't feel something when you're looking at a thriving plant, or flower, or when you're eating a fresh vegetable, you might be dead inside.

When George Allan donated those five acres, the society created a public garden complete with a rustic open-air pavilion, meant to host concerts, horticultural displays and gatherings. It was the Victorian era, so nothing too wild.

They called it the "horticultural pavilion". Creative. It was popular and the city gave them another five acres on the condition that the grounds were free to the public. The Society's ambitions were large, and they took out a mortgage to replace the rustic pavilion at one point -they wanted to build a glass one- and tried to make that money back by renting out the space after 8pm. They'd be renting it for private events, but keeping it free during the day to meet the city's condition. Despite this, they fell too deeply into debt and had to turn the property over to the city who promptly built a multilevel closed pavilion with the intention of it generating revenue as a concert hall.

How ironic. Well, that pavilion burned down in 1902, so joke's on them.

Eight years later, in 1910, the city opened the glass-domed building that we still see today. It's called the Palm House. By this time -since 1901, actually- the site was publicly known as Allan Gardens Conservatory in honour of George Allan. Over the decades more rooms got added to the conservatory: two new display greenhouses, one on either side of the Palm House, were added in the 20s. And in the 50s, those greenhouses got expanded. Here's a rundown of how those displays are organized.

There's the Palm House. This is home to, well, palms, but also tall plants like banana trees. Plants have to fit within 12 meters to go into this room. That's the height of the dome.

South of the Palm House is the Temperate House. It has a temperate climate, and includes citrus and olive trees, florals and a koi pond. West of the Temperate House is the Orchid House. It has orchids as well as tropical plants and vines and a pretty waterwheel and turtle pond. If we recenter at the Palm House, just north of it is the Tropical House. It has exotic tropical plants, including cycads and Brugmanias, which mean nothing to me, but maybe they do to you.

West of the Tropical House is the Arid House, also known as the Cactus House. Full of cacti and succulents, as well as agave and aloe. I won't get into too much detail, but some of the cacti are very interestingly shaped.

On the outside of the building, you can see the northern bit of the conservatory. It's the part of the building that's parallel with Carlton. This is typically a private building intended to be a children's conservatory and it was added in 2004. It hosts horticultural programs for children. It's housed in a historic greenhouse that was donated by the U of T (University of Toronto) botany department and was moved over here. Right near this building there's a playground just outside the west side of the main building. For adults, and all ages really, a new feature in this area is the teaching gardens where anyone can join horticultural programs. I think that's pretty cool!

Let's go to the other side of the property -the east side- and check out the outdoor display gardens. Don't forget to look up. This spot is also an arboretum so there are a number of huge beautiful trees- apparently 55 different species of trees. Prince Edward, later King Edward, planted a maple tree on this property when it opened in 1860. The second park christening that day, the first having been at Queen's Park. These two parks are the oldest in Toronto. There's also a statue in honour of Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet, at the most eastern edge of the park.

Lastly, on the north side of the property, there's an off leash dog park with separate areas for big and small dogs. Apparently only the big dogs currently have a water fountain but locals have been campaigning for a small dog fountain as well as one for humans. So if you're into local gossip, keep a close eye on that issue.

I hope you enjoyed our Short Jaunt in Allan Gardens. A lot of this info came from the Friends of Allan Gardens, a community group that supports the park so if you like the sound of that check them out!

Thanks for listening to Walking in Place. If you like what you're hearing, it would mean a lot to me if you followed the podcast on Apple or Spotify, and it would super mean a lot to me if you left a rating and review. If you'd like more Toronto stories and walk inspo, follow me on Instagram @walkinginplacepod, on Twitter @placewalking, and on Facebook the page is called "Walking in Place". Until next time.