Montreal Chinatown community garden connects people from all generations

A community garden in Montreal’s Chinatown provides seniors and youth a green space for exercise, cultural connection, and growing fresh produce.

In the concrete jungle of Montreal’s Chinatown sits a quiet oasis, a community garden full of greenery and blossoming fruits and vegetables.

The weather may be colder now, but still, every day, Mr. Luo tends to his garden, his own little haven tucked away next to the Montreal Chinese Hospital.

“This is actually a good way to exercise and keep healthy,” he tells CTV News.

At 75 years old, Mr. Luo is retired, but he used to be a farmer on Montreal’s South Shore, where he grew and sold vegetables for a living.

These days, the community garden is a simple escape from aging, reminding him that he is still strong and capable in his own right.

“We know that a lot of seniors had no access to growing things. A lot of them were farmers before they immigrated to Canada,” explains May Chiu, Montreal Chinatown Roundtable coordinator.

“It’s out of recognition of the fact that Chinatown is one of the heat islands with very little green space, and on top of that, we did not have any garden facilities for Chinatown residents, who are mostly seniors.”

The Montreal Chinatown community garden is an initiative that was started in 2011 by the Green Chinatown Montreal Collective.

Its goal was to provide occupational therapy to seniors and promote intercultural, intergenerational exchanges by inviting people of all ages to help and keep each other company.

In 2017, due to space issues, it was moved to the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough.

Finally, in June 2024, the now Indigenous-Asian garden, Kahéhtaien Jardin Lumb, was inaugurated next to the Chinese hospital, carrying on the cooperative’s green legacy under a collaborative umbrella between the Montreal Chinatown Round Table and Projets Autochtones du Québec (PAQ).

“We designed it with Chinatown residents [in mind], which includes unhoused Indigenous people,” said Chiu. “A lot of their participants are able to also have access to the garden.”

The space boasts a variety of climbing beans, squash, and corn —mainstays of the Indigenous three sisters planting method — as well as an array of Chinese, Japanese and other Asian vegetables.

It has also become a place for younger members of the Asian community to learn about their heritage directly from seniors who immigrated from their ancestral countries.

“A part of me [sought] out this garden because I wanted to connect more with the Asian diaspora, and this was the most natural way to do it,” explains Anna Can, a youth volunteer.

The space also hosts workshops, events and other bonding activities.

“It’s a space where people really feel comfortable, just from the moment they enter the space,” said Can. “It gives [us] a chance to connect with different generations, different people they wouldn’t encounter necessarily in their daily life without being in Chinatown. So, I think it’s just really a space in community that they really long for.”

Chui points out that the younger, more technologically savvy generations also help advocate for the plot, sometimes on a political level.

“The result is this really beautiful collaboration of an intergenerational and intercultural space where people come together, they celebrate, they grow things together,” she said. “A garden is a living entity, the plants and the vegetables, the flowers, the strawberries, they need care every single day. So, for that, we heavily count on the senior residents.”

Much of the produce grown goes directly to Chinatown’s residents to take home and enjoy the benefits of their hard work.

The garden is slated to close by the end of October and will reopen in the spring, ready to welcome a new year’s harvest.