Claude Vallée Receives the Prestigious Henry Teuscher Award at the 2015 Great Gardening Weekend

MONTRÉAL, May 22, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ - The Montréal Botanical Garden, part of the Montréal Space for Life natural science museum complex, is proud to be awarding Claude Vallée the Henry Teuscher Award at the 2015 Great Gardening Weekend. This prestigious award salutes the winner's exceptional contribution to the advancement of ornamental horticulture in Quebec.

Mr. Vallée is recognized by his peers in the Quebec and international horticulture industry for helping to advance ornamental horticulture over more than 25 years. He has shown an exceptional commitment to horticulture and biodiversity through all his endeavours in the fields of teaching, research, technological innovation and publishing.

A remarkable career
An agronomist, teacher and technological innovation co-ordinator, Mr. Vallée spearheaded and today manages the eco-responsible horticulture pavilion at the Saint-Hyacinthe campus of the Institut de technologie agroalimentaire (ITA). He was also responsible for creating "Les Exceptionnelles®," the new-plant selection program. This increasingly popular, unique Quebec program won the 2007 ministerial award in ornamental horticulture in the best innovative horticultural service category.

Mr. Vallée sits on the boards of the Société québécoise de phytotechnologie and the Daniel A. Séguin garden. He has worked with the ITA Centre d'innovation technologique en horticulture on numerous ornamental horticulture projects and has had over one hundred articles published in professional magazines.

Promoting horticulture for tomorrow
Mr. Vallée works in the field, innovating, teaching and building awareness of the need to protect biodiversity and foster sustainable urban ecology for the well-being of our communities, today and in the future. He advocates a more holistic approach to agriculture and horticulture, one that puts plants at the heart of sustainable development. In his words, this cutting-edge approach requires us to recognize plants' major role and their benefits for the environment and the health and well-being of our communities.

In this respect, Mr. Vallée is a leader among the professionals working to develop and promote new approaches advocating an updated, broader role for horticulture. As a trailblazer in this new way of seeing our relationship with plants, he is involved in teaching and developing agriculture and urban phytotechnologies at the urban agriculture laboratory (TechnoLAB) on the Saint-Hyacinthe campus.

The Henry Teuscher Award, a tradition since 1999
Henry Teuscher, a visionary and passionate horticulturist, botanist and landscape architect (1891-1984), designed the Montréal Botanical Garden. He worked closely with Brother Marie-Victorin, and was responsible for designing several of the exhibition greenhouses and putting together some of the Garden's main plant collections.  

Since it was created in 1999, the Henry Teuscher Award it has been presented to Albert Mondor (2014); Isabelle Dupras (2013); Francis H. Cabot (2012, posthumously); Hélène Leclerc (2011); Jacques André Rioux (2010); Elsie Reford and Alexander Reford (2009); Jean-Claude Vigor (2008); Émile Jacqmain (2007); Fred Oehmichen (2006); Daniel A. Séguin (2005); Gaëtan Hamel (2004); Milan B. Havlin (2003); Henri and Camille Perron (2002); Wilfrid Meloche (2001); Roger Van den Hende (2000) and Tony Huber (1999).

SOURCE Ville de Montréal - Jardin botanique de Montréal

Karine Jalbert, Communications Co-ordinator, Telephone: [phone], E-mail: [email protected]