Common Ninebark
$42.00Physocarpus opulifolius
The shrub we named the place after. Nearly unkillable, and the bark peels in winter.
ORO-MEDONTE · ZONE 5
We grow it here, so we know how it does here.
A working market farm with a garden centre attached. Most of what we sell was propagated on this property, which is why we can tell you honestly whether it will survive your driveway.
ON THE BENCHES
Four that will not let you down
Native, tough, and genuinely suited to Simcoe County soil and winters.
Purple Coneflower
$14.00Echinacea purpurea
The workhorse of a pollinator border. Flowers for two months and feeds goldfinches all winter.
Serviceberry
$145.00Amelanchier canadensis
A small native tree that earns its space four times a year — and the berries are worth eating.
Little Bluestem
$16.00Schizachyrium scoparium
Blue-green in summer, copper and mahogany from September until you cut it down in April.
WHY BUY HERE
A box store cannot tell you this
Grown in this soil, in this climate
Around 70% of our stock is propagated here from cuttings, division or seed. It has already survived a winter on this property before you buy it — which is not true of a plant trucked up from a greenhouse in the Niagara region in April.
We will talk you out of things
If you want a hydrangea for a north-facing wall in Coldwater, we will tell you it won't flower there. Selling you the wrong plant costs us a customer and gains us forty dollars.
No neonicotinoids
Nothing here has been treated with neonicotinoid insecticides, which is the whole point of buying a pollinator plant. A lot of big-box 'bee-friendly' stock has been.
One-season guarantee on woody stock
Trees and shrubs are guaranteed for a full year. Bring the tag and a photo. We will not argue about whether you watered it.
WORKSHOPS
Come and get your hands dirty
SATURDAY 28 MARCH
Spring Pruning Clinic
Bring your secateurs. We work through the shrub beds here — hydrangea, ninebark, dogwood, spirea — and you cut, not us.
$553 places left
SATURDAY 11 APRIL
Planning a Vegetable Garden That Feeds You
Succession planting, spacing that is honest about our season, and what genuinely is not worth the ground it takes.
$456 places left
SATURDAY 6 JUNE
Designing a Pollinator Border
Plant selection for April-to-October bloom, in groups that actually work, on a real plan you draw for your own garden.
$4513 places left
Free advice, whether or not you buy anything
All guides →- SPRING & FALL · 5 MIN
How to plant a shrub so it survives its first winter
Most shrubs that die in year one die from how they were planted, not from cold.
- FALL · 6 MIN
What to actually do in the garden in October
Less than you think. Most autumn tidying does more harm than good.
- YEAR-ROUND · 7 MIN
A pollinator garden that works in zone 5
Bloom from April to October, using plants that will still be alive in five years.
- SUMMER · 4 MIN
You are probably watering wrong
Ten minutes every evening is worse than an hour once a week. Here is why.