Ontario Nature Blog

After retiring from teaching, Jeanne McRight found herself back in the classroom to earn a horticulture diploma from the University of Guelph. Among her assignments? Create an urban sustainability project connected to her own garden. But what started as a school project would soon grow far beyond the classroom. McRight was already an avid gardener. ...

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How do you picture the perfect lawn? For most, an image of a well-manicured, freshly mowed yard comes to mind. With hot weather approaching, many Ontarians are starting to wake up to the sound of the neighbors’ mower and sprinkler systems. However, while lawns can be visually attractive, they are monoculture ecosystems that rarely support ...

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Growing native wildflowers from seed is fun and rewarding. It beautifies your backyard in an ecologically-friendly way and can be done for little start-up cost and maintenance! Here are five simple steps you can take to turn your native wildflower seeds into a backyard oasis for yourself and the wildlife that visits.

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Imagine you are relaxing in your beautiful garden, enjoying the natural beauty, the sounds, the colors, the scents. Now imagine you could do all of this and contribute to the protection of native biodiversity at the same time. You can make this happen by adding native plants to your garden.

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Much of the discussion around neonicotinoids focuses on agriculture, but the horticulture industry also uses these chemicals. In a 2014 Friends of the Earth study of flowers for sale at garden centres in Canada, more than 50 percent of the tested plants contained traces of at least one neonicotinoid. Most shocking was that many of ...

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