This past weekend, I was up in Edmonton visiting some friends. One of them suggested we go check out the Enjoy Centre. As I'm an avid gardener and plant lover, she didn't have to ask twice. I was also excited to see this place since it is the dream child of Lois Hole, and if you know anything about her, this place would be fantastic.
After a fairly lengthy drive, we arrived at the Enjoy Centre. It's quite an architectual creation. It has tons of windows because it is mainly a greenhouse. As we walked up the front, we were greeted by a lady who gave us a map. Down the stairs and in we go.
First off, we come to a natural/organics store, I believe it's Amaranth. The one side is food, the other is more pharmacy. Off to the side is a spa and wellness retreat. Nice. We continue further to the moving sidewalk thing that takes us upstairs. That's where all the plants and flowers are.
There didn't seem to be a real structure to the layout of things. You kinda just wandered down one side and then back up the other side. You would find bougainvillea, some other plants that I think will not survive our climate, coleus, some annuals, ornamental pepper plants, tomatoes, peppers, then up the other side you have some perennials, herbs, geraniums, pots, and all the other cute garden decorations. Down the middle you'll find lots of other neat things like watering cans, tie-backs, hand tools, and a zillion other things you might need for your garden.
Off on each side of the building are these HUGE areas that are filled with plants and flowers. But the thing is you can't go back there. Yes you heard me right. You can look at all the pretty flowers but you can't get at them. You have to make due with whatever they put out. That is very very disappointing not to mention annoying as heck. They do have this really cool automatic chain thing rigged up that all the hanging baskets are on. It slowly moves the plants along so you may actually get to see more of what they have hiding back in the greenhouse areas. I did see an employee back there pulling out some huge fuschias to give to some customers. So perhaps if you see something you like, you may be able to get it. Otherwise, you might have to stand around waiting for the plants to slowly come by on the automatic moving apparatus.
The prices of the plants were actually not bad. I got a tomato plant for $3. My friend bought a nice ornamental pepper plant (which was really popular) for $10, a lemon scented geranium for $6 and some herbs for $4. I figure that they are grown organically and probably good quality if Lois Hole's name is attached.
Once outside, there is a fairly large area that trees, shrubs and larger plants are sold. We didn't go in but it looked pretty popular.
Overall, I was pleased with the Enjoy Centre but not totally blown away like I had hoped. It's a hell of a drive and there are many places in town that you can get most everything I saw here at the same or lower price. In my opinion, it's a bit over rated. read more