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At a glance: Galeries d'Anjou, the Montréal shopping centre managed by JLL Canada, has grown an urban garden at ground level since 2024. It sits in a fenced corridor between the mall and its parking lot. MicroHabitat designs, plants and tends it, and every week an urban farmer posts photos and harvest notes to the garden's public MyUrbanFarm farm feed.
- Where: 7999 boulevard des Galeries d'Anjou, Montréal
- What: a ground-level garden of grow bags lining a fenced corridor beside the mall
- Seasons: first season in 2024; the 2026 garden was planted in early June
- Follow it: weekly photos on the Galeries d'Anjou farm feed
A garden where shoppers don't expect one
Most shopping centre green space is lawn and planters. At Galeries d'Anjou, the garden is on the ground, next to the building. Rows of fabric grow bags line a concrete path inside the fence. Tomatoes climb bamboo stakes, and flowers fill the gaps between the vegetables.
Growing at ground level suits a retail property. There is no roof to reach and no roof load to plan around. Visitors and staff can walk right up to the plants, which matters on an event day.
What grows there
The weekly posts on the farm feed show what each visit brings in. In 2026 the harvest has included:
- Tomatoes in every colour: cherry, red, pink-striped, pale yellow and orange clusters
- Purple and green beans, long enough to climb the same stakes as the tomatoes
- Eggplants, white and purple-striped, several sizes on one plant
- Peppers, green, pale yellow and purple, plus habaneros
- Carrots, onions and cucumbers, and strawberries well into the fall
- Herbs and edible flowers: green and purple basil, rosemary, mint, oregano and kale
A retail amenity people can step into
A garden earns its place at a shopping centre when people use it. On August 14, 2026, families toured the garden and picked their own vegetables, filling paper bags to take home. For many of the children, it was the first time they picked a tomato off the plant.
That is the difference between a garden and a planter. People remember a morning they spent harvesting, and they come back to see how the garden has grown.
Room for biodiversity at the edge of a parking lot
Flowers are planted among the vegetables on purpose. Marigolds and nasturtiums bring in pollinators, and the pollinators set the fruit. Bees, bumble bees and dragonflies visit the garden all season long. Our urban farmers photograph it every week, and this year's photos include bumble bees at work on the flowers and a dragonfly resting on a tomato plant.
In a corner of the city made of pavement and loading docks, the garden gives that wildlife a stretch of food and cover. The farm feed keeps a running list of the pollinators photographed there each season.
Part of a longer sustainability record
The garden joins work Galeries d'Anjou already publishes on its environment page. The centre composts 110 tonnes a year and runs four sorting rooms, one of them for the food court. Its diversion rate rose from 41.6% in 2018 to 60% in 2022. The building has held BOMA BEST certification for several years.
Those numbers are real, but nobody can walk into a diversion rate. The garden is the part of that record a shopper can see, smell and taste.
Follow the garden on MyUrbanFarm
Every Galeries d'Anjou visit ends up on the farm feed: what was planted, what was picked, and what the garden looks like that week. Anyone can open it, and anyone can subscribe to get updates by email. Property teams can share it with tenants, shoppers and their own ESG reporting, with no extra work.
Bringing a garden to your property
Shopping centres, office towers and public buildings each have a corner like this one: a fenced strip, a terrace or a roof. If you manage one, see how MicroHabitat works with commercial real estate, from the first site visit to the weekly farm feed.
