Terragrams is a podcast series providing a wide portal into the world of landscape architecture by the professionals who shape it. Running from 2006 to 2012, the podcast dispatched over 30 interviews. It is now being re-edited and re-broadcast. Learn more about Terragrams.

Dispatch 22: Alexander Reford

First published 6th Dec, 2009

Republished 7th Mar, 2022

Alexander Reford is a historian and the director of the Reford Gardens of Metis in Quebec and the co-founder of the International Garden Festival of Metis, a festival that has featured designers such as Claude Cormier, NIP Landscape, Paula Meijerink (TG 10) and Chris Reed of Stoss Landscape Urbanism (TG 15).

Alexander is on the board of directors for the Canadian Tourism Commission as well as the president of the Quebec Gardens' Association and Tourism Gaspésie. He has written a number of books and numerous articles in the fields of Garden Design, Canadian history and tourism. In this dispatch, Alexander talks to us about the 10th edition of the Metis Garden Festival, its future, the origin of Reford Gardens, the effects of tourism on the landscape, and blue sticks.