LANDSCAPE NATIVE

The Will

It seems pretty easy; create beauty by marrying appealing design, native plants, and carefully engineered water accents. It is that easy...

Getting to this page must mean that you have found the 'artist inside'. Taking on a pond building or a major landscaping initiative also takes solid will, not just for the physical work but to get the information (use our site); then all that is left, is to take action (if you have to, invite some friends over to dig - see photo of pond dig party at left)! Thanks for helping the world 'bring nature home!'

 Supply & Demand

Looking around, listening and talking to people, you will hear and read more and more about people 'getting into' native plants.

While this is what we think would create a lot more beauty while helping out our troubled ecosystems, if everyone all of a sudden decided that they wanted to 'go native' there's no way supply could meet the demand. Even today, with the interest in native plants starting to peak, it is still a challenge to get the species and the numbers of plants that you might be looking for. 

Below Left: Sweet Oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides)

"While experts are great and really important to help inspire us, what the world needs so much more is a whole lot of experimenting 'do it your selfers' for all of us to make a difference on our landscape in time.'  - Ben Porchuk

Reliable Native Plant Nurseries

While there are more of them out there, these are just a few that have provided quality, reliably 'guaranteed' native plants and seed, with excellent customer service and great ecological knowledge:

- Nith River Native Plants (519) 780.1816

- Acorus Restoration (519) 586.2603

- St. Williams Nursery (866) 640.8733

Of course, there are many more plant nurseries that are exclusively 'native' or those that sell a mixture of native and non-native plants. 

See Carolinian Canada's listing on their web site for more information on native plant growers. 

Calling All Reputable Native Plant Nurseries:

If you are a nursery that specializes in native plants or a good nursery that has a 'line' of reliably sourced natives, then please contact us and we will post you with the above list.

Calling All London Area Schools:

We are looking for at least 25 schools in London to participate in a two year Tallgrass Prairie Planting Project to help counter the impacts of climate change. It's fun, it's educational, it's meaningful and it's only the size of half a parking space! Let's get as many schools as possible - see our 'Landscape Your School' page for more details.

Tallgrass Prairie (for schools) installations for schools are packed with beauty and huge carbon sequestering, deep roots. 

It doesn't take much to do your part to help out!

Find Native Plants

I wish we could say this was easy, and very accessible, but we can't just yet.

 The problem we face (some would say it is good) is that there is no regulation.

Any nursery can put a "Native" label on a plant, but is it really native and if so, is it native to Yellowknife (which is in Canada) or S. Ontario?

So, you can see it isn't that straight forward.

Above, a friend alerted me that he bought an "Ontario Native" at a big box store. I know the plant as 'Wild Geranium' or Geranium maculatum but there is no scientific name or no way to talk to anyone to find out where this 'Ontario Native' seed source came from (it could be from Missouri).

While we and others applaud the embracing of native plants into the mainstream, we must and will devise a better system to ensure that native plants are native plants and that using them will actually help the local ecosystems in the long run.

 Tools/ Materials   Even for the somewhat large projects, we like to keep things simple. The shovel, and wheel barrow are among our closest friends.

For general advice on landscaping tips, there are over a million references and books at your disposal (go to library, 'Google Landscaping Help'), not to mention the helpful neighbour just over your fence. 

Below: "Herm", our helpful and expert gardening 'over the fence' neighbour').

Overwhelmed? If you are finding you don't want to do it yourself, check out our Garden Menu - we can make your landscape native once again! 

Above: Swamp Rose (Rosa palustris).