Mr. Earth Friendly needs a name! Can you help?

Last year Danielle, one of our talented team members, created this logo for us to help you, our customers, identify our earth friendly products. We'd like to give him/her a name and need your help! If you have any ideas, click on "leave comment" and let me know. We are offering a $25 gift certificate to the winner! So get your thinking caps on and get creative! Green fingers are the extension of a verdant heart. Russell Page

Can you taste it?

Ryan seeded an early batch of parsley and basil in January and here are the plants after I potted them last week. Aren't they beautiful? The basil was very aromatic making my mouth water and my mind was envisioning my large basil plants that grew in my garden last year. Give these plants another couple of weeks and they'll be ready to use. A bright kitchen window and some water should do the trick.

There is so much going on here that it's hard to keep up. We're still shipping to Ontario Flower Growers in Mississauga on Monday and Wednesday, Wednesday and Thursday are our potting days(hanging baskets, pots and other containers), Ryan is seeding bedding plants at least one day per week and every week for the past 3-4 weeks, we've had cuttings come to be "stuck". (see my Feb.2 blog) The last two weeks were big batches of around 25,000! We are getting ready for spring!

One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides.

W.E. Johns

Roots of our business

If you refer back to my blog on Feb.2, you will see I was showing a geranium cutting that had just been stuck into new soil. This is the cutting today! Isn't it amazing how these branches are cut off of their life support, can stay alive and regenerate themselves into beautiful, new plants? I feel it's something we can never tire of and must be careful with. What a gift we've been given! Plants give us oxygen for the lungs and the soul. Linda Solegato New Guinea Impatiens - Sonic Red Dahlia

Mandevilla and Hibiscus pics

In the next blog, I talk about mandevilla and hibiscus so I thought I should post some pictures. The first one is mandevilla which is a beautiful vine. The second is hibiscus

which most people recognize.

Just around the corner

I hope everyone had an eventful Valentine's whether it was with a spouse, partner or family members. One radio station we listen to was playing all love songs for 3 days before and another station we came across was playing songs about how love stinks....that was their theme! Yesterday was Family Day and I was off for the day. Sounds like this new holiday is catching on...lots of families doing fun activities together. We went swimming and the pool was packed! I told the kids that we were cleaning together "as a family" (they didn't think that was a fun family activity) and then we'd go swimming! It worked wonderful...talk about good motivation! :) We got pizza for supper and played a rousing game of Clue. I never win this game...I keep asking for the same things! Oh well, it's still fun seeing the kids work at figuring who did it. Anyway, enough about me. I'm back to work today and had fun opening boxes of new plants that came this morning. Euphorbia, trailing petunia, and Tuberous Begonia. These will most likely be planted into hanging baskets. Another batch of plants will come later and those will be planted into pots. Kevin placed an order for Hibiscus and Mandevilla plants. They will arrive late April fully grown and in bloom so if you're looking for something tropical for your pool deck, these will look perfect! Hibiscus and Mandevilla can be brought inside in the fall but might not look quite as lovely as they did outside but with some special care and patience, they should live through the winter in your home. It's not too late to plan your garden for the spring. There's lots of magazines and books out there with information and pictures so I encourage you to research and think ahead. Spring is just around the corner! (maybe I just feel this way because of where I work but it really isn't that far away!) If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. Anne Bradstreet

Rest Home

On Friday morning, we welcomed the Bluewater Rest Home bus. There were approximately 10 residents on board. They enjoyed wandering around, breathing in the scents of earth and plants, as well as the vibrant colours of primula and more. The cats are always a highlight and seem to like the residents as much as they love the cats. As you can see in one of the pictures, Princess was up on the walker, soaking up all the attention. She's a great cat. We are glad that the weather improved and wasn't so cold so the bus could come. It has been too cold or stormy for them to come so far this winter. Today (Monday) is gorgeous! Sunny with temps at around -3 and rising. If this was a month from now, I'd be yelling "Hurray!" Our snow is going down rapidly much to the disappointment of my son. He had some great jumps on our tobogganing hill built by his uncle which will disappear in the next few days. As a mother, I'm relieved in a way. I had to close my eyes everytime he went over the jumps and even then I was picturing broken bones! Have a great week!

More Plants!

On Wednesday Jan. 28th, a new shipment of unrooted cuttings arrived by Purolater. Over the next 2 days, approximately 25,000 plant cuttings were dipped, by hand, into rooting compound and stuck into transplanting soil. That's why we call it "sticking cuttings" because that's what we do! :) Some of the plant varieties that we "stuck" were Bidens, Calibrachoa (also known as Million Bells), Sweet potato vine, trailing petunias and phlox, scaevola and lots and lots of Bacopa...that little white trailing that everyone loves! The first picture is Bacopa. These are Bidens, the ferny, tiny yellow flowered plant we use in hanging baskets mostly.

Geraniums, a more common plant that some of you like to take cuttings of yourself and overwinter. There is such satisfaction in growing and keeping alive a plant in your home!

Here is a picture of the cutting without roots. This is Monday and it was probably stuck Friday so obviously no roots starting yet. The plants have perked up though and are crisp from the timely mist of water they receive each day. I will try to keep tabs on these and take another photo in next week.