Healthy and lucky

It’s great on pizza and essential in spaghetti sauce, but oregano has long been prized as a bringer of good luck and good health. It’s even been reputed to cure overdoses of opium and hemlock. Like many ancient herbs, oregano goes by a variety of names, including dittany and marjoram (which is a mild form […]

Help the bees

To help the bees, find their homes For bees to thrive, they need food, a summer home, and a place to winter. The flowers we plant are fantastic food sources, but what about their homes? Researchers at York University are asking for help to figure out what we can do to create and protect summer […]

Summer of herbs: basil

Ah, there’s nothing quite like the smell of fresh basil. Cooks know it as a fantastic addition to salads, lovely ground up into pesto, or used as one of three ingredients in a pizza margherita. Herbalists, on the other hand, have a much more complex understanding of the plant. Any plant this distinctive and pungent […]

Is it time to plant thyme?

You can walk on it and bathe with it, eat it, drink it, or just enjoy its scent. It’s supposed to boost your courage and decrease your melancholy, repel snakes and attract faeries to your garden. It’s a trouble-free garden plant that asks for nothing more than dry feet and a decent amount of sunshine. […]

More than monarchs

Monarchs are the poster child of the butterfly world, and with good reason. Their annual migration is one of the true miracles of nature, a multi-generational epic trek that sees great-great-great grandchildren returning to the place where their ancestors were born. Unfortunately, monarch butterfly populations have been plummeting – dropping by 70 to 90 per […]

The summer of herbs

We’re going to be celebrating herbs in our blog this season, taking a deep dive into some of the most versatile. We’ll explore their history, talk about how they can be used, and teach you how to grow them. We’ll start off with a look at one of the most versatile herbs there is – […]

Bring some Electric Love to the cottage

Does your garden need a little love this summer? How about a little Electric Love? Electric Love has been named as the Plant of the Year by Canada Blooms, the annual garden and horticultural industry show that takes place each winter in Toronto. It’s the first weigela ever bred with deep red blooms and dark […]

Excited about annuals

Every year plant breeders release new varieties of annuals, which landscapers and homeowners eagerly snap up. There are fresh colours, bloom configurations, and growth patterns, all giving designers some exciting new options. Here are some of the ones we’re excited about. Angelface Snapdragons It’s hard to believe that breeders could do something new with such […]

The landscape effect

We all know that a lovely landscape makes you feel good, but researchers in the US have shown it does more than that: turning vacant lots into low-maintenance green sites caused depression rates in the area to plummet. The study was done in Philadelphia. Researchers selected 110 vacant lots around the city, focusing on sites […]

Summer blooms

August is one of the loveliest seasons in the garden. This is when the last of the early-summer flowers are still in bloom, but we start to see blossoms emerge that hint at the fall to come. Whether you love perennials or annuals, exotics or wildflowers, there’s lots of action happening in the garden. The […]