Ontario Flora

This is wonderful and so beautiful. We need to see this happening and becoming law all over the world. Nature needs and deserves as much help, support and encou...ragement that we can give it, it is our duty and priority as care-takers of this planet to give back what we have taken. See more

Our nursery is opening to the public on May 15th! Stop in to our open house to purchase native plants sustainably grown in Grey County. We have 150 local plant species grown without chemical pesticides or fertilizers. We have sun and shade loving plants that will attract pollinators and turn your property into an ecological haven for wildlife! https://www.ontarioflora.ca/plantsales/... Open house runs every Saturday from 11am - 6pm starting May 15th through to the end of spring. Located 10 minutes from Markdale, ON: 585538 Sideroad 10A, Markdale. (Please approach from 9th line, as sideroad 10A does not reach all the way to line 12). We accept Cash, E-transfer and cheque payments.

Yes, got to look out for these cute little bugs now coming out of the leaves.

Read more here about native ladybugs. HERE: http://www.lostladybug.org/data.php

We are looking for a bookkeeper, and a chartered accountant! A barter for native plants that we grow here at the nursery butterflies say would be a happy arrangement, but not completely necessary. Please send on to those who may be interested in helping Ontario Flora. Remote work for us is fine (so the candidate doesn't need to be local to us). Please email us for more details, to [email protected].

Birds eating native plants in action:)

So nice.. looks a bit like Bonsai. I will definitely try it this winter...

We love and appreciate mason bees here today! Can we plan to provide these wild ones with habitat in our native plant gardens this next spring! Look how valuable they really are!

Would you like to see what a well kept looking garden that leaves the leaves on looks like? For more info see the benefit of leaves for overwintering insects post Oct 13, or April 6 post about leaving the leaves on in spring until temps warm up. This garden is a hybrid native / exotic one that we consulted to plant about 30 native species in (front and back yards and move plants around). The residential work we usually do does sometimes involve maintenance for a little while ...to ensure the garden we design gets underway well, although we usually only maintain our own designs in this way. Eco gardeners of course know that leaving leaves on keeps incredible, fantastic, ethereal and magical little creatures like the Luna moth from dying out in busy places like Toronto. By leaving the leaves on, you can sustain these fragile beauties. Are you not sure they exist in Toronto? Trust me, I have seen a Luna Moth caterpillar in Toronto! Mounding leaves under all shrubs, squirreling them in areas throughout the garden and making sure you keep them on until insects start reviving in the spring (when temps are consistently above 10 degrees Celsius) will aid in bringing overwintering beneficial insects back to our gardens. It will ensure seeing a Luna moth will be a life event in big cities for years to come for children and adults alike. Worried about things being ‘well kept’ in appearance? We have also done things in this garden such as removed them in direct way and close to paths, removed them from tops of shrubs so you can see them, and taken some to be stockpiled in the back where there is more space if really needed. If things look like they need a bit buffer from the wind, try a thin layer of bark mulch to keep them down, however most will compress during winter conditions coming soon. All but 3 bags approx. were taken off this year from this garden instead of about 20 taken to curb and all the beneficial insect habitat therein. If there are too many leaves in spring, they can be used for many purposes such as compost as leaves are among the most nutrient dense sources. Happy leaving the leaves this fall!

Creating 'only native species' winter pots yesterday (Ontario Flora as a business service usually don't do much of this, but have done workshops on this for charities, please let us know if you would like to learn more). Using only native boughs feels to me all the more subtle and artistic, I guess because it uses a more restrictive pallet, but not so challenging when you know what species to use. See below for the list. They also may not need to look so wild to the average p...erson walking down the street even though they are quite local and eco-friendly. Do they feel a bit more earthy? A good way to have a sustainable, local life and winter season to me. These pots have White Pine, White Spruce, and Eastern White Cedar for evergreens, and for the ornamental boughs, the popular Red Osier Dogwood, White Birch, Winterberry Holly, and Tamarack were used. Tamarack branches were used just because they were reclaimed from a logged tree scrap pile... but could be substituted for more smaller diametre dark birch twigs or just cultivate some native shrubs in your garden for that purpose-- cut off a few of your wild shrubs branches at this time from your garden to use. All but Tamarack can easily be found at garden centres for sale now.

Darkness fell early on the hoop house during November's heat wave. We just finished revamping the back wall. Our main duties are finishing sewing seeds for next year now, but there is always lots to do! Are any of you or your community looking for native plant based landscape design this year? We will be offering a sale to these customers, and to schools, charities, community groups on plants... for anyone who starts and finishes a landscape design with us during the off season. This would be from November 15th to April 1st... we will be letting you know the details shortly!

Some 'messiness' in our yard is important to sustain our birds in the winter. And luckily we see more homeowners becoming aware of the value of leaves, seed hea...ds and native berry- and nut plants. Let's try to convince our landscapers to offer us help to prepare our yard for the winter rather than than offering only, the often so damaging, 'Fall Clean Up' service. See more

Hey sharing what my nephew has just posted. Yeah, it might run in the family!!!!

Today is our weekly open house from 11-6... come on by as the plants are blooming their best at this time of year! Visit ontarioflora.ca for directions and deta...ils! Alsowhat a wonderful time of year to see ecology in action here! Beware the giant scourge of Monarch Butterfly caterpillars this year at Ontario Flora nursery! Just kidding.. it is a wonderful sight! And there is a lot of action at this time of year by us to manage their voracious appetites. Helping the monarchs although they may just decimate our nursery stock is very obviously a win win for us! Our nursery usually has at least 40 flats of three species milkweed at this time of year and counting butterfly milkweed, common and swamp milkweed right now. If given a week or less 1/4 of this stock has been know to be completely ravaged by monarch catarpillars if we are not looking! Monarch butterflies have noticed how many milkweeds we have here, and to help support and not hinder the caterpillars just born and now looking for food, we have grown many common milkweed nearby for a relocation effort. After we see them on our nursery stock, we can transfer them to this nearby healthy patch. Last week there were about 50 or more we counted and transported to these other plants. Please help promote milkweed in gardens everyone and also have some fun with these wonderful creatures at this time of year! See more

Just a bit of fall fun at the nursery this time, not about native plants, I thought I would share... happy fall!

Hi everyone, here is me just trying to get a picture of the Dense Blazing Star, and other flowers that are a bloomin away at the nursery.. but I guess shows you a rare picture of myself, and our newer infrastructure (screens on greenhouse, off grid water totes). It is getting organized here thanks for Sean Dejung our intern. More to come on his background, what he is doing perhaps this week... lots of eco- restoration work going on too! (Flowers pictured here in some kind of order are are Me with Hairy Vervain and Dense Blazing Star, Oxe Eye Daisy, Blue Vervain, Slender Vervain, Dense Blazing Star, Square Stemmed Monkey Flower)

The World’s First International Online Short Film Festival Dedicated to All Things Fungi Premieres October 16-30. Tickets $15 US

Here are just a few of the lovely plants that are blooming this season, or are just around their peak at the nursery. Come by and see us tomorrow at our open house day from 11-6... Here are Lance Leaved Coreopsis, Canadian Anemone, Pokeweed (a southern u.s. favourite edible), Wild Yam (edible), Crested Wood Fern, Bulblet Fern (and a few still needing to do some growing stll-- Polypody Fern in front).

A nice public service announcement...

The wet shady areas in forests close by the nursery are steaming in the heat these days. Here is a tapestry of some huge colonies of ferns in nearby Hoggs falls (Eugenia Bruce Trail) and just south of Kimberley, ON. These are Maidenhair Fern, Lady Fern, Sensitive Fern, Male Fern and Ostrich Fern. Such large fronds this year in these forests. They are at their peak right now.

Amazing art with nature... my favourite!

City of Toronto.... such a shame.

Hi there, just a shout out to local and non local gardening community, we are Ontario Flora Native Plant Nursery, and we are having an open house today and every week on Saturdays 11-6 thorughout the summer! Come by and get some info about how to grow wild plants and visit the over 100 lovely species we have! We are having an open house every Saturday, (otherwise by appointment), to meet our local community. Our website and plant list is here: https://www.ontarioflora.ca/pl...antsales/ And our directions are 585538 Sideroad 10a, Markdale, ON. make sure you access our street from the east (via 9th line) as the 10a becomes an unmaintained road. Hope to see you out here today!

Here is an interesting Ted Talk worth watching--how plants can teach us about neuroscience, and how some move and even count. https://www.ted.com//greg_gage_electrical_experiments_with

I would like to make sure that I share this with all of you. Real Eguchi just sent me this video he has created. Speaks to me about keeping my own sense of awe, vulnerability and holding space for calm reflection during uncertain times. Enjoying my own transformation. I love his use of the word equanimity, such a therapeutic word. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VCvdA8lC8s&t=2s

Hi all! Last week was a very busy week for Ontario Flora. We have 2 helpers along with Kevin Post our design associate getting large orders of plants out this week. We hope they sell out and buy more of course! We would like to give a big shout out and advertisement to the sellers below. Plus, if you arent near us, you might want to buy our plants from these sources... always a good idea to support the local retail nurseries who sell our plants! Meadowville Nursery in Guelph... has a huge amount of plants from us now- they said it was the biggest order of native plants they have ever made (congratulations to them and us us! Yeah!). Fiesta Farms has taken us up and bought some rare beauties from us (Fiesta Farms the excellent west end Toronto community grocery store and Fiesta Gardens nursery are famous...they have a wonderful buyer there who bought very interesting plants last week-- picked like a fine wine!). Davenport Garden Centre (sold out our plants in 2 days last order, is also a long time customer right in the inner city of Toronto!) Folmer Garden Centre has bought some as well in Grey-Bruce! Please request Ontario Flora plants from them and other nurseries local to you, in the future! https://davenportgarden.com/ https://meadowvillegardencentre.com/ https://fiestafarms.ca/ http://www.folmergardens.com/ Sorry we didnt take pictures of the mountains of plants going out this week (really too bad!), but, here are some of the plants we were selling just a short time in our history ago at Bloor Borden Farmers Market in Toronto--as we did farmers market circuit for quite a while-- nice times!

A wild plant gardeners reminder! We are have our open house on Saturdays,11-6 at Ontario Flora Native Plant Nursery! Our plants look amazing! You can preview the catalogue here at www.ontarioflora.ca Our nursery address is 585538 Sideroad 10a, Markdale, ON N0C 1H0... (access is via 9th line otherwise unmaintained road to west of property). ... You can make an appointment at other times. Here are some of the over a hundred species we have! Have a great Saturday!

Crown shyness in trees!

Hi there all, here is the newest version of our plant list for September on our website! https://www.ontarioflora.ca/plantsales/ Pictured here is Sean (our intern this year who came from famous Michael Schmidt's farm for the summer), and Ryan (local high school volunteer). They are especially busy in the nursery in the summer... we are potting up new plants one year in advance. This time of year we have a lot of variety that we are continually growing throughout the summer, and being potted up, and many are quite mature now. Please check out our pond plants for your pond side and wet meadow restoration projects.

Want something eco-friendly to do this weekend? Get up close and personal with lots of native plants! Visit our over one hundred wild species from 11-6 at Ontario Flora Native Plant Nurserys 2nd Saturday open house tomorrow! Make a day of it and enjoy a picnic or hike in the Beaver Valley! Here is our newest plant list: https://www.ontarioflora.ca/plantsales/... Heres how to get to us: https://www.ontarioflora.ca/contact-us/ Hope to see you and have a wonderful day!

This last Saturday was a success-- our first open house to the public this year! We are open for retail business not by appointment from 11 to 6. We are allowed about 10 customers at a time, in our large, usually mostly wholesale nursery on Saturdays through spring for now! We will take some other shots as most of our plants grow according to natural climate! Lots of room to social distance as you can see. Come and join us next Saturday, or make an appointment for another time! See you then!

At this time, it seems like we cant do things fast enough here at Ontario Flora with the landscape trades, and horticultural industry opening up suddenly as of May 4th... we are looking for interns and volunteers! Here are the work descriptions. We will accept calls or emailed resumes for suitable candidates for: -A marketing and grants volunteer (asap) The positions can be work at home, and non local. One person may do marketing or grants, if the interest is there for only ...one aspect of the position. Being in college or in your senior years is o.k. with us--all demographics are accepted and welcome. This position, considering our needs, and the success of the next months may become paid in the future. -We are also looking for local hands on nursery help! We are accepting local casual volunteer help and interns. The candidates would learn a lot about wild plants working along side us as an exchange. Flexible according to hours you are free. Possible pick up to get to the nursery for those who do not have a car. There is no room and board or stipend for this internship currently. Please email [email protected] or call 519 387 7668 for more information.

Yeah! Landscape and Horticultural trades are up and running as of May 4th, so congratulations to us! Our nursery is accepting orders, and we are allowing curbside pick up and delivery, with social distancing. Here is our newsletter link, with our updated plant list-- and happy gardening to all! https://mailchi.mp//ontario-flora-whats-new-february-48787

I remember in May 2017 that we moved all of plants from Ontario Floras last location to the permanent one, in the Beaver Valley, close to Flesherton, ON. Here are my crazy sisters trying to get some landscape cloth down so we could move the plants in. Happy to have a record of this! We have come along way...must show a before and after soon-- best end of May when the plants are mostly up!

Nice website about spring woodlands and their importance to early bugs! Yeah Spring Beauty, Trout Lily, May Apple, Trillium, Toothwort! I going to need them this year... finally!

Here is a great outdoor learning site-- for cooped up adults with children, and those who try amid COVID 19 to make plans for childrens outdoor learning, take a look! https://rhythmsofplay.com/forest-school-outdoor-learning-a/

Another reason to leave leaves right where they are-- fungus which is the cornerstone of growth for many plants, starts to come up from the soil and enter the leaves, if left undisturbed. Fungus (mycorrhrizae) exists in a symbiotic relationship in many plants, they live within them and in the soil, almost like blood vessels, for the purposes of nutrition for the benefit of both. Studies show plants like Silver Maple grow 10 times less fast without this fungus everywhere- so leave leaves (and perhaps listen to the audible sound of worms crunching through them and eating them in spring instead!), and leave hollow stalks or perhaps move them so they dont need to be cared for somewhere else at very most. By end of June at least many leaves will be eaten by worms.

As per last post, here are the first 2 ideas for how to continue with your plant sales here, and for continuing to work on school events throughout the summer and into fall through social distancing!-- hope you can chime in if you have any further ideas. DELIVERY TO PLANT SALES If you order usually our minimum of 300.00 or more we provide delivery to you in Toronto, and will drop off curbside to you. Then, I suggest that you could perhaps drop off plants to peoples doors if ...you are doing a sale. LEAF (Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests) a charity in Toronto has done so for years in spring with their orders. They get a large shipment, and distribute flats. SCHOOL AND CHARITABLE EVENTS: Here is another idea for programming with native plants... What about, say, dropping a plant (s) off at participants (school kid or otherwise) doorstep to keep and care for during the season, then have them plant them out in the fall? (This because I did a project with a charity that allowed volunteers to take their plants and grow them up there-- very successful, and just as engaging as with others in real time maybe, over the summer). It does require some responsibility on the part of parents and child to care for it, but, with some hardy plants, they are easier than most to care for... perhaps on a balcony or in a larger pot for the season. Then, they bring them back to school to plant in the garden they have planned to grow. Lots of entertainment for a long time watching them grow and to care for them, and increased time with the plants, always a good idea! There could more varieties on that them...just a thought- as some I have talked to are coming up with very creative ways to get plants to gardens and into projects this year, I will be posting more ideas! (Below is the The Riverwood Conservancy Greenhouse where we started off plants, which were then taken home to grow some more by volunteers, then brought back to Riverwood... great program!),

HEY! GREAT NEWS, A COVID 19 PROMOTION FOR OUR CLIENTS! There has been lots of delays by schools, and charities, due to not being sure what is going on with their events. Less so for other customers but just to appease that concern at the moment, we are creating some changes. Here they are: - DEPOSIT TO HOLD PLANTS WAIVED! We are offering a no deposit situation for all customers!... - PLAN YOUR EVENT, REGARDLESS OF WORRY, WE WILL HOLD YOUR PLANTS! For schools, charities and community groups to order their plants, we can hold them for this year, until there is definite certainty you will not want them. Delays happen-- dont worry!... so it is fine to make an order at any time, and postpone weeks before end of season, i.e. November for this whole year! - CURBSIDE DELIVERIES! We are doing curbside drop offs come May 15th when our nursery opens for deliveries.*Note that we are considered essential business, currently, however every precaution for social distancing will be managed if anything other than curbside delivery is done. - 1/2 PRICE DELIVERIES! We are offering 1/2 price delivery (so 50.00 in Toronto) for all clients, 50.00 or less based on distance for elsewhere. Any further changes to government policies and we will post here and on our website. **My next post is just a few ideas for school or community events such as plant sales, that may not need to be postponed during social distancing! Coming soon and be well everyone! Please us a shout out if any of you have any further ideas you think would be good for schools or charities doing work with schools, we would all like to hear! *** Pictures are of Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea, and Bracken Fern Pteridium aquilinium), taken on a trip with the Field Botanists of Ontario.

We are able to continue to operate as a business during this time, as per an email received yesterday by Canadian government, just to let everyone know... and will be ramping up our deliveries I am sure when May 15th comes around. Meanwhile,Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum, left) and Dutchmens Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) are about to come up in the woods, some of the first spring blooms! I am very interested in growing these... sometime soon.

Just cutting and pasting our note just published on our website about COVID 19 measures and I thought it might be best to address here as well. We are open for all online and phone commerce as this is allowed for all businesses in Ontario. Give us a call or email about your project! As of May 15th, our nursery is of course, set to open, and we are set to do landscape installations as soon as climate and delays due to Covid, allows. We are waiting on status of school and char...itable projects but are confident many will go as planned or will be nimbly moved to another appropriate time. We are continuing to set aside plants for customer orders of all kinds, regardless of cancellation possibilities. We are working on landscape designs and projects for clients by phone. We are confirming our essential business status for certain sectors we work in, and we will give word of this status as soon as we receive it. Currently this appears favourable to us with regard to our nursery, under section 21-25, agricultural food production supply, and Section 1, associated supply chains of essential services. It also appears favourable under landscape design and installation (as construction contractors), however we will let you know as soon as we hear. All the best! Claire

David Suzuki Foundation is ramping up their Butterflyway program. Hopefully more to come on this soon!

BECO... more posts about these guys very soon here I hope! Their website has gorgeous short video on Bobolink nest success research. Their work with farmers in Ontario is very interesting! https://www.beco-birds.org/portfolio/bobolink-nest-success/

This is a another perfect ode to bees, on the nature of things-- an excellent trailer, I will be checking this doc out soon!

Oh the though of spring and looking at orchids on the Bruce. Naturalists getting out from under the snow!

They are so photogenic!

Even though out here we just got 3 feet of snow, spring is in the air, I can feel it!! Here is an email newsletter with a link to our spring plant availability list on our website. Feel free to spread the word by sharing with colleagues, and friends! Ontario Flora - Whats New February 2020 - https://mailchi.mp//ontario-flora-whats-new-february-48044

From a wee gal of 22, living breathing and working with plants and... soil...its power and mystery has always been the a part of the answer to my happiness!!

Coming in next few days the 2020 spring catalogue for Ontario Floras Native Plant Nursery! Hope you can tell your friends. Also stay tuned for the newsletter at same time!

As some of you may know, earth worms are not a part of our native ecology and do disrupt our ecosystems quite a bit. But these new guys are really quite invasive, and quite different than our garden variety earthworm we have come to know... sounds quite disgusting unfortunately! The long and short it seems, is to try to minimize the moving of any horticultural materials that arent treated to kill organisms. As they say, a best practice used by companies is to heat up the m...aterial (wood chips, mulch, compost etc.). Transplanting garden plants up to the cottage for instance has never been recommended for the ecology as it moves all the bugs (maybe even Emerald Ash Borer), critters (maybe these types and other worms) as well as invasive species plants (Dog Strangling Vine comes to mind) up to those nice wild habitats. I would recommend trying to use what is on site in our own gardens for mulch and compost-- our old backyard compost and leaves as mulch has never sounded better. Hope this helps! See more

It is amazing to imagine our luck, the earths oldest fungi, in our own back yards *so to speak... so cool.

Plants and animals are on the move. Check out the expected migration movement in this article from Yale University:

Yes I love this, such a nice short film that appears to be quite a simple message. What you do counts.

Yes why arent we as clever as these folks! Lets not reinvent the wheel and try to make this happen in our cities as well!

Here is another visitor last week to the nursery, a Grey Tree Frog. Apparently its tear drop shaped marking under its eye is how to distinguish it from other similar species. So cute.