Garden Muses: A Small Toronto Gardening Services Company Blog: Centennial Park Conservatory 's Tropical House

22.2.14

Centennial Park Conservatory 's Tropical House

Warmth, colour and high humidity in late winter?

My last post titled "Centennial Park Conservatory 2014 Spring Flower Show: Colour riot in Etobicoke!" showed many gaudy blooms, for this time of the year, in this west-end Toronto public greenhouse. Toronto experienced this past week a thaw (over zero Celsius/ 32 F for a couple of days anyway) and with the melting snow and runoff, all the debris and garbage previously buried now emerges. It's actually quite disgusting to see and dodge around the countless cigarette butts, coffee cups and piles of dog excrement: out of sight, out of mind.

Or better yet, take a look at these pictures and imagine being in a warm, quiet and tranquil place.

Centennial Park Conservatory
tropical house amaryllis

This Conservatory has three separate buildings open to the public: the entrance leads you into the main "tropical house" and from there you can go into the "cooler" section that displays the seasonal flower shows and another section that displays desert plantings like cacti and succulents. Something for everyone and with the total area being around 12,000 square feet (sorry, no metric here!), you needn't spend the entire day.

Here are some highlights of my visit to the tropical section. With the sound of the waterfall, the automatic misting system and resident parrots, it's not that hard to suspend your disbelief and imagine you're in warmer climates--until you step outside and face the dreary weather.

Anyway, enough whining, spring supposedly is around the corner so just enjoy!