Prairie Originals
27 Bunns Rd R1A 2A8 East Selkirk, MB, Canada

Is anyone else wondering what the heck happened to September?? We are keeping busy with fall activities over here - seed harvesting, seeding trays to leave out for the winter to germinate in spring, seeding shrubs in the ground, seed cleaning, a bit of planting, preparing for winter, and there's always weeding to do! We are now closed on weekends. The shop will continue to be open on weekdays, but please give us a call before visiting. We will be hustling to clean and inventory our seed harvest and make up seed mixes over the next few weeks to send out seed orders in time for seeding before the snow falls. If you are on our seed waitlist we will contact you as soon as orders are ready to go! #prairieoriginals #nativeplantnursery #wildflowerseeds #seedproducer #manitobaflora #fallseeding #manitobagrown

Nature is so neat! Closed gentians are one of the last flowers to begin blooming in late summer and the flowers don't open without the help of pollinators like this big bumblebee. Check out how long the bee's tongue is! Did you know that bees can be classified as short-tongued or long-tongued? The length of their tongues determines which types of flowers they are able to drink nectar from. Planting flowers with a variety of shapes, sizes and bloom times is a good way to help support a diversity of bee species. For more information about pollinators and tips on ways to support them, check out @beebettermb ! #closedgentian #gentianaandrewsii #bumblebee #pollinator #plantnativeplants #plantahabitat #wildflowergarden #prairieoriginals #manitobaflora #neature

Monarchs + Meadow Blazing Star = Magic Planting milkweed is essential for supporting monarch populations, but late season nectar sources are also very important for the migratory generation that are preparing for a long journey to Mexico. Meadow Blazing Star is a monarch magnet! #monarch #meadowblazingstar #manitobaflora #nectarplant #butterflygarden #endangeredspecies #prairieoriginals #plantnativeplants #plantahabitat

Thank-you very much to everyone who purchased plugs in July and participated in our fundraising initiative in support of the Manitoba Burrowing Owl Recovery Program! We were delighted to be able to donate $3630 to this wonderful program that is doing critical work to conserve burrowing owls in Manitoba! And a big thanks to program coordinator Alex and her family for bringing education ambassador owl Bindi to Prairie Originals for a visit! It was really incredible to spend some time with such a special animal and learn about this fascinating species.

Tomorrow will be our last Saturday at St. Norbert Farmers' Market for this year. I can't believe how fast this summer is flying by! We will be closed on Monday for the long weekend, but we will continue to be open with regular hours (Monday-Saturday 9-5, Wednesdays by appointment) through the summer and fall. There are lots of flowers blooming and the warm season grasses are starting to head out, so Prairie Originals is a lovely place to visit at this time of year!

Seed plots planted mostly from plugs last July and August at the new place are coming along very nicely! The plants in the pictures have only received rainwater this year, we have not provided any supplemental irrigation. Have I mentioned recently how awesome native plants are? We have started preparing many more beds to plant over the next couple of weeks and it is going to be a lot of work, so I am going to take this weekend off! This means that we will not be at the St. No...rbert Farmers' Market this weekend, but the shop will be open 9-5 on Saturday and I will be back at the farmers' market next weekend. We will also not be taking any appointments and the shop will be closed on Wednesday, July 29 so the whole team can come help with planting. I'm so excited about putting more native plants in the ground at the future home of Prairie Originals! P.S. If you are interested in participating in our fundraising initiative in support of Manitoba Burrowing Owl Recovery Program, there is one week left! For each plug pack purchased in July we will donate 1$ to MBORP #prairieoriginals #nativeseedproducer #plantnativeplants #plantahabitat #mborp #prairieplants #wildflowergarden #savewater

Have you ever seen a burrowing owl in the wild? I have not. Like many other grassland species, their populations have plummeted in the face of habitat loss and fragmentation. The Manitoba Burrowing Owl Recovery Program is doing really important work to conserve these special prairie birds and prevent them from becoming extirpated from Manitoba, however, they need some help to keep the program running. For the month of July we will make a donation for each plug pack that is purchased. We recommend planting plugs by the end of July, so now is a great time to fill in gaps in your garden! We have a good selection in stock and the shop is open Monday-Saturday 9-5 (Wednesdays by appointment only). @kokoandbindi #prairieoriginals #conservation #burrowingowl #speciesatrisk #prairie #manitobabirds #gardenforgood #mborp

We are closed for Canada Day. Our opening week for in-person shopping has been wonderful - thanks very much to everyone who has stopped by the shop or visited our booth at the St.Norbert Farmers' Market on Saturdays! We will resume our normal hours tomorrow: Monday-Saturday 9-5, but Wednesdays by appointment only, closed Sundays. There is still plenty of time for planting this summer, although with this heat wave it would be a good idea to be diligent about watering establishing plants regularly. July goals around here: tame the weeds in the stock beds, lots of potting, and prep/plant more seed plots at the the new property!

Today felt like a good day around here and I have some great news I am so happy to share! This Saturday, June 20th I will be back at @stnorbertmarket and on Monday, June 22, six wild weeks later than usual, we will open for in-person shopping! We will be open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 9-5 and by appointment on Wednesdays (closed Sundays). Prairie Originals is one of my favourite places in the world and I am delighted to be able to open up to welcome ...visitors here once again! This spring has been a blur, and while there have been some long days and stressful moments, there have also been some silver linings and small victories - successes with growing experiments, a song sparrow has taken to hanging out near the shop and singing all day because there are fewer people around, we managed to grow nearly 4000 crocuses which felt like a lifetime achievement, snuck in a bit of time planning and working on projects at the new property, monarch butterflies and hummingbirds are back, and now we are nearly caught up on the last of the pick-up orders and it will be wonderful to return to the normal of Saturdays at the market and connecting with customers in-person at the shop! I want to make it very clear that people of all colours are welcome and invited here See you soon! #prairieoriginals See more

June Update: We have been overwhelmed by the support of gardeners this spring (thank-you!) and we are still working our way through a backlog of orders. For now, we have decided to put a pause on accepting new orders until we can send out all existing orders so we can open for in-person shopping and resume attending the St. Norbert Farmers' Market. We will let you know as soon as we have an opening date/protocols in place! This spring has posed some challenges - a slow, cool ...start that suddenly turned hot and dry, space constraints that limit the amount of plants we can grow and the number of staff who can work here while maintaining appropriate distance, navigating the logistics of a new model for selling plants, changes to the postal system (we are working on creative alternative solutions to start sending out mail orders soon) and trying to effectively communicate individually specific information to hundreds of people with limited office time and the recently added element of poor phone reception. Trying to find the balance between growing/maintaining more plants than ever before, preparing orders for wholesale, pickup, shipping and delivery, answering calls and emails (dwelling on the many unanswered emails in my inbox gives me a bit of anxiety in the form of slight nausea - calling is better if you need a quick answer), ensuring none of the germination trays dry out in the hot wind, weeding (containers only for now, the seed plots will have to be neglected a little longer), monitoring experiments, invoicing, paying bills, payroll, scheduling, website updates, etc., has me feeling like a juggling conductor - trying hard not to drop anything while also not missing a note and keeping the train barreling down the tracks. On the bright side, the plants are growing really well this spring and I am excited to welcome folks here to have a pleasant shopping experience, hopefully soon! I am so grateful to my awesome, hardworking staff who have been flexible and supportive in adapting to a new way of doing things and have managed to organize as many orders in the last two weeks as we would normally process in a year. I am so lucky to work with them every day! See more

Marsh marigolds are usually in full bloom by Mother's Day. This year they are just starting to bloom now. We have barely heard any frogs around here yet this spring. It has been a cool, dry spring so far, so trees and shrubs will be slow to leaf out and warm season perennials will wake up when the ground is nice and warm, and not before. The plants are growing slowly, but also at exactly the right pace according to the conditions they are experiencing. As much as it is great ...to be excited about spring, it is also smart to pay attention to these clues. Right now, nature is saying "don't rush", and we are listening. Normally we would bring our indoor started plants outside to begin hardening off several days ahead of our normal opening day, and this year we just brought them out yesterday, the day after we would normally open. We are very grateful to have received many orders and we are looking forward to sending out the plants as soon as they are ready and in good time for planting. If you have placed an order we will contact you to let you know when it is ready and make arrangements for pick-up or delivery. If you sent me an email in recent weeks and haven't received a response, chances are very good that I did receive it! Last week I toasted a bagel for breakfast on Monday and I finished eating it around noon on Wednesday. Replying to emails is going similarly, but I am working away at it! Feel free to give us a call if you have pressing questions or concerns. Leave a message if you get the answering machine - we are most likely already on another call, but we will call you back. See more

Spring Update - Our plans for opening this May have changed: Yes, we are growing lots of awesome plants No, we will not be open for in-person shopping in May this year We are currently taking orders by phone (204-785-9799) or email ([email protected]) If you have emailed me in the last couple of weeks and not received a response I apologize - we lost our internet connection for a few days last week and I am still catching up on the backlog, thanks for ...your patience! We will offer curbside pickup We will offer delivery -$10 to Selkirk, Winnipeg and communities in between. For other destinations please get in touch and we will try to work something out. We are accepting orders for shipping, but COVID-19 may impact shipping timelines Orders will be filled in the order they were received and we will begin sending plants out on May 12 With a higher than usual volume of orders, we are sold out of some items this spring - check our website for updated availability We do not have a date set for reopening for in-person shopping, but we are looking forward to seeing folks at a later date, after we get through the critical part of the spring growing season! Stay tuned for updates! Additional Important Spring Update: The crocuses are blooming! #prairieoriginals #prairiecrocus

It seems like the weather finally realized that it's spring! Some of the staff have started for the season and I'm so happy to have them back! In the last week we took plants out of winter storage and organized them, rearranged our workspace for ease of social distancing, began potting up plugs that were started in the basement, mailed out a bunch of seed orders (check out my previous post for more details - seed sale is still on until tomorrow!) all while being serenaded by... birds that are equally excited about spring and between visits our crocus beds to see if they are blooming (not yet, maybe this weekend ). For the most part it feels like things around here are going smoothly this spring, all things considered, although our internet connection wasn't working for a few days this week, which was really terrible timing, but it's fixed now Plans for this weekend: respond to many emails and messages (thanks for your patience if you have tried to contact us recently!) #prairieoriginals #bigbluestem #itsgrowtime #nativeplantnursery #manitobagrown