Saskatoon's historic greenhouse faces uncertain future as city weighs costly replacement

The city's greenhouse in 1967. Photo: Al Popoff

Saskatoon’s municipal heritage committee is asking city councillors to consider the historical importance of the city’s greenhouse program as they evaluate whether or not to build a new facility.

In February, the parks department warned the 64-year-old city-run greenhouse was on the verge of being condemned. An engineering assessment outlined concerns about rotting wood components, cracking and falling glass and snow loads in the winter.

The city has outsourced its bedding plants for the year from private companies, with plans to review the current operating model in the fall.

Stevie Horn, heritage committee vice-chair, penned a letter urging councillors on Wednesday’s planning and development committee to consider the special role the greenhouse played in the beautification of the city.

“Just to be sensitive to our history, of having our own massive nursery and greenhouse and how that’s played a kind of, I think in one of the documents they call it ‘social and aesthetic role’ in the city,” said Horn, who also serves as a local history librarian at the Saskatoon Public Library.

The city has left a capital project to replace the greenhouse unfunded since 2016. According to an administration report, replacing the greenhouse could cost between $2.5 million to $6 million.

Saskatoon’s parks department found itself in a similar situation in 1926.

Its first greenhouse, built in 1906, was at the end of its life, so a new one was constructed on the riverbank in Victoria Park for $6,500.

“A new greenhouse has been badly needed for some time, the old one having become worn out,” a 1926 report from the city’s archive says.

“The operation of an adequate and properly equipped greenhouse is an essential branch of the parks board’s activities on account of the immense quantity of plants required for parks and cemetery beautification.”

In 1927, the city established a nursery on 35 acres of land at the southwest corner of Avenue P and 33rd Street, where the now-shuttered greenhouse was constructed in 1959. The city even moved the glass and supports from the Victoria Park greenhouse to incorporate into the new facility.

Flower beds at the city's greenhouse and nursery, 1967. Photo: Al Popoff

Looking through archived reports from the parks department, the legacy of the city’s greenhouse and nursery program is clear — innumerable flowers for city parks, and thousands of trees and shrubs planted each year to establish an urban forest and beautify a growing city.

A 1933 report from the parks department touted the quality of the city’s plants.

“Nearly 6,000 trees of all kinds were planted out this year. The trees were all secured from the city’s own nursery started a few years ago. The progress made by the nursery indicates that it will be unnecessary in future to import any trees,” the report said.

“Besides the saving of expense thus secured, the locally grown stock produces much more satisfactory results.”

For Saskatoon’s early municipal government, growing its own flowers and plants were a mark of a modern, independent city, says Horn.

“There’s just so much pride,” she said. “I can imagine being that close to the empty prairie, having seen that; just being so proud that you’re able to grow things.”

Horn describes their pride in beautifying Saskatoon as part of the “intangible heritage” of the city’s greenhouse.

“Certainly, the perseverance of a greenhouse and nursery that is city-operated seems essential, as the beautification these facilities have provided our city has roots in the very first nursery planted in Saskatoon in 1906, and an early aesthetic impulse to create a city that was not just modern, but also filled with natural beauty,” Horn said.