Beginner Gardening Tips Blog

In the past, without really understanding what my soil needed for my plants to thrive, I would spread a few bags of top soil on my gardens in spring and call it a day. But I’ve been reading about pH levels and the importance of composting and mulch that I don’t know where to begin. So I turned to Anne Marie to seek advice on how a budding gardener should prepare her soil.

Here is Anne Marie’s advice:

• For most plants, pH is less of a concern than the type of soil present. Most plants are fine with soil that is slightly alkaline all the way to slightly acidic. It is only when soils are very acidic or very alkaline that some plants will struggle if they’re growing in a type of soil that is not suited for them.
• For example, acid-soil loving rhododendrons growing in very alkaline (limestone based) soils. Most plants are tolerant of a relatively wide range of soil pH values.
• Test your soil for its pH level if you are curious. Horticultural lime or garden sulphur are the most often recommended products applied to alter the soil acidity level.
• PH aside, compost is excellent to add to the soil. Make sure it is from a reliable source.
• Three to five centimetres of compost added each spring is a great soil enrichment program.
• Then place a layer mulch on top of the compost.
• An undyed organic mulch is great if only a small layer of compost can be added or if compost is only added every other year. The organic mulch (shredded pine bark, pine needles, cedar mulch, etc.) will break down over time and become part of the soil. Therefore it should be topped up every year.
• My advice is to leave the existing soil alone and work on adding compost to it each year, with the addition of a mulch topping. This is a much easier task to build a “raised bed” than dealing with clay, for example, and fighting the battle to change the soil composition.

So with this helpful advice, my next step is to apply a layer of compost to my beds.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a President’s Choice Lawn & Garden event in Toronto’s historic Distillery District. I get my plants and garden products from a wide variety of nurseries and stores each year, but the PC brand is always very convenient because there is a nursery set up at my local grocery store. The plants are also exclusively from Canadian growers, which is an added bonus.

Besides the lovely plant selection, there were patio vignettes set up by interior stylist Janette Ewen showcasing some of the neat pots and solar lights that will also be on sale at Loblaw stores.

Here are some of the plants that will be on my spring shopping list!

Bourbon Clematis: This lovely climber will grow three or four feet and has brilliant red and fuchsia blooms.

These gorgeous grasses, "Hakonechloa macra Aureola," will become infused with pinks and reds in the fall.

Attract butterflies to your yard with Lo & Behold, this mini breed buddleia--or butterfly bush.

I wish I knew what kind of butterfly this was!

A week ago today I was in Las Vegas and amid all the casinos, glitz, monuments and fountains, I managed to find a botanical garden at the Bellagio.

This cute ladybug was made of carnations! Or were they roses? It was hard to tell...

With “140 horticulturists on staff,” the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Gardens changes its exhibits about five times a year and I have to say their current display was one of the highlights of my trip–and best of all, it was free!

These watering cans were really cool!

I had to tear myself away from the butterfly exhibit–they were magnificent and so much bigger than the butterflies you see here in Ontario. My pictures certainly don’t do this imaginative space justice, but I thought I’d share some anyway to give you a peek.

Take a look at the website linked above for more fab photos. You can even see past exhibits.

Yesterday was a beautiful and sunny day, so I took a stroll around my yard with my camera to see if anything was growing yet. My irises and tulips are peeking through the leaves in my garden and I snapped this little crocus poking up on my neighbour’s lawn! In the backyard I found these sweet little blue flowers growing against my fence. I started dreaming of finally being able to get outside and preparing my yard for spring.
And then this morning, alas, it was snowing. I knew there had to be at least one more storm before we were allowed to enjoy spring, but things were looking so promising I thought we might escape winter’s last gasp.

Luckily, I purchased daffodils last week to support the Canadian Cancer Society, so spring still exists in my kitchen. They were certainly a welcome sight this morning when I woke up to a raging storm!I just hope those little flowers survive this frosty weather.

Last year's gorgeous tulips!

This Budding Gardener has never been to Canada Blooms before. I know, I know… what a gardening sin! This is the 13th year of the show and I have to make up for lost time! I was going through the website to plan my day and was overwhelmed with everything there is to see—from the feature gardens to the shopping to the seminars. I will definitely be there on Wednesday shooting some video for CanadianGardening.com and checking out the booths, but I also want to see some of the presentations.

These are some of the reasons I’m excited to visit Canada Blooms:

• Creating an organic perennial garden of continuous bloom
  (Speaker: Lorraine Roberts)
  Because perennials are my best friends—they come up every year no matter what—and in my quest to be greener, this should be a very helpful seminar.
• Gardening with Mother Nature the natural way
  (Speaker: Marjorie Mason)
  Because I want my garden to be an eco haven. Marjorie has written a great book called Ecological Gardening: Your Path to a Healthy Garden. It’s trade paperback-sized, perfect for the subway, except I also need a pad and pen to take notes while reading!
• Vertical vegetables
  (Speaker: Kenneth Brown)
  Because I’m planning on planting a square-foot garden and I need all the advice I can get to ensure I actually have something to eat at the end of all my hard work.
• No more chemicals in the garden
  (Speaker: Jeff Lowefels)
  Because I need to know how to keep my ant population down without grabbing for a can of Raid.
• Dramatic containers
  (Speaker: Paul Zammit)
  Because I need some fresh ideas for this year’s pots. I will be filming a step-by-step video next week of Paul planting his gorgeous containers at the Toronto Botanical Garden! Stay tuned!
• Since I love to travel, I’m looking forward to checking out the VIA Rail Garden Route and Tourism Ireland’s Garden Travel area. Aldona did a portion of the Garden Route out west last fall and it sounds amazing!
• The City of Toronto’s 175th Anniversary Garden – to celebrate my city’s birthday.
• The Heart and Stroke Pulse Garden and the Canadian Cancer Society: Cancer Connections urban gallery for inspiration.
• Pick Ontario Avenue because I can’t resist shopping!

A few years ago I went to PEI and bought a packet of lupin seeds. When I got home, I put them in a “safe” place and couldn’t find them for two years. I now try to keep everything gardening-related together in a little desk drawer, but this sweet little box turned up on my desk recently and I just had to share.

The Kitchen Garden Box from Quirk Books is like a recipe organizer, but the “recipe” cards not only hold veggie recipes, there are other helpful seed-planting tips and tricks, as well. There are 10 reusable seed envelopes, but you could also file your own in there and keep everything together in one place.

How do you keep your seeds organized? Post a comment below and you could win a Kitchen Garden Box of your own. I’ll randomly pick two winners next week.

Note: Open to all residents of Canada, except those in Quebec. Not open to any Transcontinental Media employees, their families, or any other persons with whom they reside.

My sister and I chose our seeds from the heirloom seed house and plant nursery, The Cottage Gardener in Newtonville, Ontario. It was important to us to choose heirloom and organic varieties.

It would have been easy to go crazy and pick one of everything, but we had to realize that we can’t start everything from seed. I simply don’t have the space, and as Anne Marie said, not everything does as well from seed. So, I’ll be hitting the nurseries, including my usual spots–the heirloom vendors at the Evergreen Brickworks Farmer’s Market and Richters–for the seedlings of the veggies I’m not starting early.

But back to my seeds. My choices include cosmos, one of my favourite flowers, and experiments like white-stemmed pak choy and Detroit dark red beet. My sister chose a lot of herbs, which I’m game to try out, as well. Here is a list of what we’re planting:

•    Dill
•    Florence Fennel
•    English Thyme
•    Black Calypso Beans
•    Common Chives
•    Roman Chamomile
•    Cilantro
•    Champion Collards
•    Black Hungarian Hot Peppers
•    Arugula
•    Cosmos
•    Detroit Dark Red Beet
•    White-Stemmed Pak Choy
•    Mesclun mix (a gift from Canadian Gardening writer Lorraine Flanigan)

I have never started my seeds indoors before. Sure, I’ve thrown a few in the ground over the years to see what would come up, but I always worried I didn’t have enough space or light to sow them inside. I had varied success with my veggies last year, but my sister and I both realized that the long wait for our peppers and tomatoes had a lot to do with planting them too late in the season. This year we’re determined to get a head start.

We decided to order seeds together, but plant in our own respective homes. I’m going to sacrifice the windowsill in my home office and the space around it. My sister’s apartment is a virtual greenhouse—her lemongrass is a tree!—and her husband built her these awesome shelves for her seed pots. I figure my odds of fresh herbs and veggies increase with both of us planting the same thing. If one of us fails (most likely me), we have backup.

But where to begin? I find seed catalogues so overwhelming–especially when looking at 10 tomatoes with the same description. Cross-eyed and confused, I turned to Anne Marie for some advice in choosing what to plant.

Here are her helpful tips:

•    Look for flowers and vegetables listed as award winners. These are some of the best ones to grow.
•    Good plants to start from seeds indoors include tomatoes, marigolds, sunflowers, squash, geraniums, lettuce, sweet peas, cosmos, morning glory and basil.
•    Sunflowers, squash, lettuce, sweet peas and morning glory are also good to sow directly outside, too.
•    Not all plants are worth starting from seeds. Some are better divided or started by cuttings. (Good call, I’ll reign in my list!)
•    Buy the size of package you can use in one year.
•     If packets contain less than 10 seeds then expect to pay premium prices because they have to be collected by hand, the plant is rare, or the plant only produces a small number of seeds.
•    Beware of packets that contain 1,000 seeds for a low price such as $2.49.
•    After your seed list is assembled a little time searching on the Internet can give you the specific details about how to sow them–when to sow i.e. days before planting them outside, to cover or not to cover (light vs darkness), ideal temperature for germination, days until germination, etc.

Someone recommended a seed company to my sister, so we both compiled a list and our seeds are in the mail! I just have to buy my little seed starting pots and I’m good to go!

Elaine working her magic

Sunday morning it was almost as though Mother Nature was mocking me by throwing snowflakes every which way as I headed into the Distillery District in downtown Toronto. How dare I think about spring! But despite the wintry day, spring awaited me inside Tappo Wine Bar & Restaurant. I was there to attend “A Cabin Fever Breakaway: A festival for gardeners longing for spring.” I was invited by Elaine Martin, owner of Vintage Gardener and the organizer of the event.

Brilliant yellow forsythia branches and daffodils, multicoloured primula, deep purple hyacinth and candy-coloured tulips surrounded a table filled with the amazing vintage pots and vases that Elaine sells in her store. I was feeling inspired already!

So what were forsythia branches, one of the first signs of spring, doing inside when it’s clearly still winter? That’s what Elaine focused on for the first part of her talk—how to force branches (forsythia and magnolia work best) into thinking it’s spring. This is something I’m definitely going to try—I have two forsythia bushes in the backyard. And it seems so easy!

With this planter, Elaine explained how to gently bend the pussy willow branches to create a handle!

According to Elaine, all you have to do is wait for a sunny day when the temperature goes up by 10 degrees. Cut some branches—longer than you need—and bring them indoors. Once inside, trim about six inches from the bottom and then take a hammer and crush the bottom or make cuts up the stem. Then place them in room temperature water and wait for the magic!

Make sure your branches are in indirect light. Elaine says it can take anywhere from three days to two weeks for blooms to appear.

The next part of Elaine’s presentation involved creating planters with the rainbow of flowers she had brought. I took some pics because they were so beautiful and definitely the perfect way to bring spring inside your home during the last days of winter.

Elaine has lots of great workshops coming up in her store. Stay tuned to our events page for details!

We had a faint whiff of spring a couple of weekends ago–it was sunny and mild, the snow disappeared and there was that amazing dirt smell you get when the ground is wet and things are ready to bloom. I felt so hopeful, but alas this budding gardener had to talk some sense into herself. Spring does not begin in February in Southern Ontario. I will not be able to head outside in my old clothes and new Gloveables to spring clean my garden.

However there is lots still to do indoors–I need to order my seeds already (which I’ll be doing with my sister), plant those seeds and start planning what I’ll do in the garden when spring finally does arrive.

Looking for planting inspiration? Our shutterbug forum members have been busy posting photos in their annual Alphabet Soup. Started a few years ago by forum members Patty and Jean, users can post up to three photos that correspond to a new letter every other day. We are currently at the letter “N” and you can even go back and post on the other letters if you want to share your snaps.