New Hours

Beginning March 1, we will be open Monday to Friday 9-5 and Saturday 10-3. This is for the month of March only. Once April arrives, I'll post those new hours. Those who desire can still come walking on Tuesday and Fridays until the end of March! The weather is still not great for doing much walking outside!

Bursting forth with colour!

The beautiful, bright and cheery Primula, also know as Primrose.

With the beautiful sunshine we've been having, they are bursting into bloom!

Inside Sunshine!

This picture says it all! Bring in some sunshine with these sweet little plants! Once the ground is thawed and warmed, they can be planted outdoors for spring colour in your gardens next year!

Lots of colours from white to dark purple...my favourite is the yellow for it's wonderful perfume!

What is "sticking cuttings"?

Today we were trimming Mini-Cascade geraniums. Above are the rooted plants that we took cuttings from.

Here is one that I took out of the flat so you can see the roots.

Here is the cutting that we nipped off the top of the rooted plant.

The box is full of unrooted cutting and we are dipping them into a special rooting powder and then into a tray of 72 individual squares filled with Pro-Mix, a high quality soil-less potting mix.

When the tray is full, they are run through the watering tunnel and end up on this roller bench until they are loaded on a cart and taken to our rooting greenhouse.

And that's what we did for 2 hours of our day today!

Everyone I see asks if this is our slow time. In answer I say in some ways yes, but there's always something to do. In January, I packed up Christmas which took a few days. There's always inventory to take after a season.

Unrooted cuttings start coming towards the end of January and we finished planting the early pansies. Kevin seeded last week (more pansies) and we are awaiting some geranium cuttings that will need to get stuck into fresh soil and placed in our warm rooting house.

The label order for spring annuals gets done and I start to think about and work on signage. This year there are some changes in the pesticides that will be available so I have to do my homework and know what we can and can't have in our Garden Pharmacy.

Spring Fundraisers need to be organized and other office work caught up on. During the Christmas season, some of that falls behind! And this winter, Kevin has been blowing and shoveling snow almost everyday!

Our Retail greenhouse is open for walkers on Tuesday and Friday in January thru March so we enjoy seeing the regulars come in to exercise and get some sunlight. Even if it's a cloudy day, the greenhouse is still bright!

Have a great weekend!