Do the first dandelions of the season feel like a cheerful sign of spring? Or the start of a botanical invasion? Ecological gardening offers a perspective that gives us a more effective — and less adversarial — way of managing these unwelcome visitors.

Fallen leaves and spent plant stems are vital habitats for beneficial pollinators that maximize blooms and keep garden pests in check. In this post, we introduce you to some of these overwintering friends, and ways you can support them while keeping a tidy garden.

Nurturing and supporting healthy soil is the cornerstone of organic horticulture, and at the heart of it lies a vibrant community of soil microbes. These microscopic organisms, including bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes, play a pivotal role in maintaining soil fertility and supporting plant growth. Without them, soil would be little more than lifeless dirt.

Once a Boxwood has succumbed to leaf miner and tree moth, they are virtually impossible to eradicate. At Toronto Horticulture, we usually recommend our clients replace their deteriorating Boxwood shrubs with a native variety that is more resilient against pests. This post introduces a few native Boxwood-like shrubs that provide a similar type of growth and can be shaped either into a formal hedge or a rounded informal shrub. Here are a few of our top recommendations.

Clover is a hardy self-seeding perennial that springs up everywhere across the GTA. Usually considered invasive and an unwelcome visitor in urban lawns, there’s actually a lot to love about this little plant and it’s easier to control than you may think.

We heard about an article that’s been making rounds these last two weeks telling people they should never reuse the same planter soil twice, as it would be robbed of all nutrients. This article encourages people to replace their potting soil every year. This is not only incredibly wasteful, but it also seems there’s some misinformation here that we wanted to clear up.

Over the past year, I’ve been getting a lot of requests to diagnose and treat poorly performing Lilacs. I thought I’d share a few important care tips to help promote more of these amazingly fragrant blooms in the city.

If you’ve never put deliberate care into your grass, it’s likely your lawn is just a mix of wild grass. Wild grass consists of seeds that blow in from the area around you. They are not necessarily selected for your soil, light, and water types, and chances are they dry up and die really easily. Signs of a wild grass lawn is if your lawn is patchy, yellow, or prickly to walk on.

It’s a common misconception that organic gardening is more time-consuming, expensive, and complicated than what is seen as “ordinary” gardening. In reality, commercial gardens are typically more difficult to keep thriving.