Poinsettias & Fundraising

With a successful Poinsettia Festival & Candlelight Event in our rear-view mirror its time to start shipping out the plants that have been sold through the 34 different groups that we are partnering with to raise funds.  It will be a very busy few weeks.... two greenhouses full (well, still partly full) of plants have to head out our laneway in the next 3 weeks.  Exciting times.  If you are one of those groups, we hope it has been a big success for you to earn some money for your organization.
Information about caring for your poinsettia plants can be found on our website.  care of Christmas plants

3 tips on how to Grow Garden Mums

One of the questions we are asked most frequently when folks are buying mums to do fall decorating is, " Are these the hardy mums that will come back next year?"
The answer is "these are the hardy garden mums, but whether they come back next year is dependant on a number of things"
1. they need to be planted early in the fall - no later than Oct. 15th, and even then it depends on how soon freezing weather sets in.  The plants need opportunity to root out into the surrounding earth & get established before it freezes solid.
2. they need to be planted somewhere where they will have good snow cover in the coldest part of winter to give them some insulation.  In other words, on the lake bank where the snow is swept away, or on the south or west side of a building where the sun melts the snow in the daytime, but it freezes solid at night are not places to try and winter over a garden mum.  The lack of snow and the thawing & freezing conditions in those settings will ruin chances of a garden mum surviving.
3. leave the dried stems of the plant intact.  Don't trim them back until next spring when you see the new growth appearing.  The tall stems will help catch leaves, and accumulate snow that will also help to insulate the plants roots from the cold Ontario winter.
Some growers will say there's no such thing as a "hardy" garden mum in our area, but with a bit of special care, you will probably be able to winter some over for next year.
For more information on growing garden mums, visit our website
http://www.huronridge.ca/growingtips_chrysanthemum.html

Thanksgiving is on its way!

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and with it the desire to decorate our homes for fall. We have lots of fabulous mums, pots of ornamental cabbage and kale, fall planters and lots of ideas!! Come visit us!

Time for a makeover!

These flower beds were full of tired annuals so we decided to add some fall decor! Annual purple fountain grass, ornamental cabbage and bright colored garden mums complete the ensemble. Thanks Anneka and Kalli!

Fall sale

On September 14 and 15, we are having a 2 day fall sale. From 9-7 on Friday and 9-5 on Saturday, we are offering our perennials at buy one get one free! Lots of other in house specials including 6" mums! Check out our yard sale tables and early birds can enjoy coffee and homemade cookies!

Fall color

Back to school means Fall is just around the corner! Hardy, garden mums are a great way to add colour and a fresh look to the front porch or deck.
Icicle pansies can be planted with the promise to come bouncing back with early spring brightness!
Pumpkins add the most amazing orange hue that makes us think of warm fires, yummy pumpkin pies and that amazing sweater bought that can't wait to be worn!

Back in the Routine

For a lot of families, it's back to a routine after a beautiful warm summer.   Well, according to the forecasts, the summer looks like it may continue for a little while.  With kids back to school you'll have time to be thinking about decorating the front entrance to your home for fall.  The garden mums are starting to show off their colors, the planters are ready, and we have a nice assortment of gourds & pumpkins to add to an autumn look.
This weekend, Dave & Carol will be at the Blyth Steam Threshers event with carts full of perennials and mums to sell.  Make sure you stop by & say "Hi" if you planning on attending that event.  At 1:00 p.m. on Sat., Carol is doing a presentation "Fall Fashions in your Garden" in the Lifestyles tent at the show.  Looks like a fun weekend while working too!

Lazy Days of summer

Where has August gone?  Days are getting noticably shorter and a lot of the autumn season perennials are displaying their beauty.  
Did you know that is what causes garden mums to start to flower?  The shorter daylength actually also triggers the maples leaves to start to colour too!
We "trick" some garden mums into flowering earlier by placing them into 'beds' that we can cover in the evening with a black-out fabric.  Every night they get put to bed at 8pm and uncovered around 9am the next morning to create a 13 hour night.  By doing that we can have garden mums in colour by late July & early August.  The 6" pot size are the ones that get that special treatment, so if you are looking for something to replace a tired looking annual in some of your pots, they are perfect to tuck in & give the planter a new fall look.

We do these in 6 different time frames, so they begin flowering in consecutive weeks.  Below are mums from an early group, and the picture showing the cover (above) is of the last group that will be ready in a couple of weeks.

Fashions for September

For 3 weeks, our team has been dressing up pots with fall fashions including garden mums in the latest colours! Flowing fountain grass, lacy kale and frilly coral bells add to the ensemble. These gorgeous decorations will replace those tired spring fashions and add pizzaz where you need it most!

What's happening around here?

Sunflowers are being cut and bunched! They are measured, cut, bunched together in 5 stems and placed in a bucket with flower preservative. These are shipped to OFG, the flower auction in Mississauga. The rest are sold locally.

Summertime

Summer has arrived with a vengence! This time of year is a season to enjoy the out of doors, puttering around in flowerbeds and gardens and soon enjoying the fruits of our labours!. From zucchini and lettuce to squash and pumpkins, this is our reward for a job well done. The weeds try and take over but we must be diligent and watchful!! Keeping the spent flowers regularly cleaned from the perennials will keep them healthly. Mulching helps reduce weeds and watering while faithful fertilizing the annual flowers will keep them blooming until frost. Even a "haircut" once in awhile helps the plants to grow fuller.  All things to keep you busy over the summer season! Have fun!

Hats off to women!

This weekend includes a special day... Mother's Day. Whether you're celebrating or remembering, moms are amazing women. I have lots of women who speak into my life but 3 in particular come to mind. My mom of course, is a very special lady because of all she's done and still does for me! My mother-in-law is amazing and my older sister was like a second mother to me while growing up. Being a mother is no easy task! It takes alot of wisdom, energy and strength to be a mom! Take some time this weekend to honour your mom or a woman in your life who has been like a mother to you.

Frost Tolerant Vegetables

The preview of spring that we had in mid-March put some of us "off-track" when it comes to what we can be planting in our vegetable gardens.  Our calendar needs to regulate what we plant rather than the thermometer, which as we've seen in the last 2 weeks, can change very dramatically.  In this part of Ontario, we can expect hard frosts until mid-May & some years even later.

There are some frost-tolerant vegetable plants that actually thrive in the cooler temperatures.  Lettuce, peas,  onion, & asparagus roots  sets are examples of what can be planted now. Potatoes can be planted but are a little risky.  If the plants have emerged and there is a hard frost, they will take a hit.  Cole crops like broccoli & cabbage are also quite safe to plant now.  All of the above will do well in soil that the sun has not yet warmed up.

Probably the most popular vegetable plant that everyone is keen to get started - the tomato- is the one plant you definitely should not plant until mid-May, and then with some extra care.  Cold winds can destroy tomato & pepper plants just as quickly as a frost.  Peppers are a warm weather crop, and should never be planted before mid to end of May.  These plants need a warm soil temperature to grow, and will actually be stunted if planted too early.


Now is a great time to be planting some small fruit plants.  Strawberry & raspberry canes will do well if they get an early start.  There's also some other fruit bushes, blackberry, rhubarb, blueberry, currants & grape vines that can be planted now.

I'm getting excited about getting the tiller into the garden to work up the soil, getting some fertilizer on & planting some lettuce seeds & onion sets.  Nothing like a fresh salad, straight from the garden.

Save on groceries...

Plant your own! Seed potatoes, onions, peas, radish, lettuce, and carrots all safe to plant now! You'll be amazed at how less your grocery bill is and you will feel great!

Pest Control in our Greenhouse

Several years ago, we adopted some pest control practices that are minimizing the use chemical pesticides. We have begun to introduce predatory bugs that eat the pests that do harm to our plants. It's an interesting concept, since the predatory bugs don't feed on plant material, only on other bugs. Greenhouse whitefly is one insect that is extremely hard to control. It thrives on the bottom side of plant leaves and when we used spray, was very hard to get good coverage. However, the encarsia formosa that we release among the plants will search out whitefly even in the most difficult spots to get at. Fungus gnats live in the soil and multiply quickly in humid, moist conditions. The nematodes that are applied, work in the soil and feed on the little gnats & thrips before they become a problem. In either case, once the prey for either of these applications is depleted, the predator bug will die and your plants are bug-free.

Easter flowers

Our Easter lilies are here! Next weekend is this sacred holiday that we enjoy with family and friends.

Cut flower bouquets

Something new at Huron Ridge! Cut ranunculus bouquets. These flowers are sometimes called false roses because of their similarities. A beautiful array of colours, these are "pretty awesome" blooms (as Danielle, one of amazing employees describes them).

It's started!

Yesterday all of our planting/shipping crew returned and the place is buzzing again! With this abnormal weather, our shipping crew has been busy loading pansy pots of all sizes and primula to a number of stores. Pansies and primula don't mind the cooler weather and will bloom quite happily through the spring especially if spent blooms are clipped off. Today we are celebrating the first day of spring by offering any size pansy or viola container "Buy 2, get the 3rd one free!" Primula are also on special today only for $1.25! We're open until 6 to accommodate those who can't make it out before 5. Hope to see you!

Spring Temperature Swings

When temperatures swing from +13 to -10 in one day, we know it's spring-time in Ontario. Pansies & Primula are up for it though, and actually perform best in cool weather. Most daytime temperatures this time of year are perfect for the bright faces of a Pansy container to greet everyone coming to your door. If the temperature is going to get much below freezing, you may want to set it indoors for overnight. Forgetting to do that won't cause the end of it, but will set it back a week or two until it blooms again. What better way is there to Welcome Spring ?

Fresh herbs

We have a few fresh herbs ready- sage, oregano, mint and cilantro. Mint makes great tea after a meal and cilantro flavors fresh salsa or quinoa salad. Yum! And who doesn't love oregano in pasta sauce!

Happy first of March!

Back to our regular hours Monday-Saturday 9-5
Only 20 days until spring!

Pretty pansies

Our pansies are beginning to bloom! The weather may not be wonderful outside but the colour and fresh air in here are amazing! Come on out and see the primula, pansies, violas and some of our new products!! We're back to our regular hours Monday-Saturday 9-5!

A perfect Pick-me-up!

A potted primula is the perfect anecdote for the winter blues. Or if you choose, it could be given to that someone who watered your houseplants while you were gone on vacation! Or buy two....keep one and give one away. :-)

At just $2.49 each, it's a wonderful way to bring happiness to a special someone!

Show times: now until April

Sunshiny day!

On Friday, the Community Care Access bus arrived. They enjoyed to flowers and the sunshine!

This lovely lady arrived to meet her mother who came on the bus after a lovely lunch at Maplewoods Apartments Common room. Checking out the seed rack.

Let's grow roots!

Last week we had 4500 unrooted cuttings arrive from Mexico. They are swaddled in plastic bags, each labeled with colour and type of plant, inside cardboard boxes with ice packs to help keep them fresh. (if anybody needs some for their lunchbox, let me know and we'll hang on to them!) Trays with many individual cells are filled with special soil for seeding and growing those wonderful roots that keep a plant alive! The unrooted cutting is dipped into a pink powder that gives it a boost of energy, placed in the soil then watered gently every few hours until roots begin to grow. Now the cutting is able to suck up the moisture through the roots and grow it's little heart out! In a few months there will be flowers on these New Guinea impatiens the size of my palm! Grow roots grow!

Last week we had some wonderful family members come help plant the rest of the violas into hanging baskets. We needed a few extra hands to get the job done. The day started off rather stormy but by lunch time the sun came out and the sweaters came off for a while! It's amazing the difference the sun makes in a greenhouse environment! In a span of 4 hours (not including our yummy potluck chili/salad lunch) we planted 1600- 8" hanging baskets each containing 7 plants.

For now they will stay on the ground, getting watered until roots are long and winding through the entire basket. As the weather warms, hangers will snapped into place and the baskets will be hung on pipes with a water dripper in each one.

Spacing Primula

Today we are bringing some potted primula into our warmer greenhouse. They get loaded onto our steel greenhouse carts like this. They are set in solid rows the whole length of the bench.

Every other plant is pulled back to create a diagonal spacing that allows the plants room to grow and the water to flow around the pots on the bench. In about a months time, these little plants will be blooming profusely, brightening up the atmosphere with their rainbow of colours!

Saturday, January 14

Today we're planting violas into little pots. They come in a variety of colours from yellow to dark purple and we plant 3 per pot. These cheerful fellows are bright, a sure sign that spring is close when they begin to bloom. My favourite is the yellow/purple mix!

This is what they will look like in a couple of months. Add a fancy little planter and it's a lovely little gift for someone!

Did I miss winter?

Things are looking green outside and the little primula hoping for spring is a little confused! I love the contrast of snow and colour, watching this sweet plant dare to poke it's flowers out in the temporary spring weather.

This is one tough parsley plant! It has survived the freezing temperatures and snow cover while staying crisp and green. I might just pick myself a few pieces to munch on and savour the taste of "fresh". :)