The Toronto Congress Centre on Dixon Road offers a million square feet, eight acres, of exhibition activity. Every January, Landscape Ontario, the country's premier professional horticultural organization, conducts its annual congress and trade show there. Those in the business discover the shape of things to come. What is heading our way this season is going to be different ... very, very different.
Interest in natural culture, seeing and doing things the green way is in the ascent. Given this, Landscape Ontario's new initiative, dubbed Green for Life, will encourage and assist gardeners, new and old, across the province. Their goal is to inspire you with the beauty and benefits of horticulture. Central to Green for Life is a revitalized website,
www.landscapeontario.com, due to open next month. This will assist you to find products and services while providing extensive and appealing information on all things green. Way to go, L.O.
Your humble horticultural hack walked aisle after aisle of the trade show, speaking with old friends, making many new ones. Those introduced here have been condensed to the very essence only. Every one of these products begs for a full 500- or even 750-word article. If your interest is piqued, visit the website listed for each. Then contact your local garden centre ... the real, genuine thing with that green LO logo.
Nincompoop looks like earth, works like mulch. Made from sterilized organic farm by-products, it is wood-free, weed resistant and eco-friendly. Made in Canada and retailed in two- and three-cubic-foot bags, it is the official mulch of "Canada Blooms."
www.thisisNincompoop.com.
Freeman Herbs now offers its organic herbs and vegetables in 4.5-inch biodegradable pots. Vegetables are raised in pots made from rice hull while herbs, which require more time to raise, are offered in coir fibre pots.
www.freemanherbs.com
Rittenhouse manufactures compost tea brewers from 10- to 500-gallons in size. Compost tea is one of those old, old ideas that are reemerging. It nourishes poor soil, protects against pathogens and can be sprayed on any time during the growing season.
www.rittenhouse.ca.
Rittenhouse also offers the 'Electro Weeder.' A chemical-free option for spot weed control. Electricity heats a ceramic plate and metal spike that, applied to an obnoxious invading weed, can kill it in just seconds. For professionals there is also Green Steam for sidewalks, driveways and other access areas, superheated steam wallops the weeds but is somewhat more expensive.
www.rittenhouse.ca
EcoClear Herbicide is a safe, effective, natural answer to eliminating weeds in just 24 hours with a synergistic blend of acetic (think vinegar) and citric (think lemon) acids. Scott Horsburgh from Plant Products tells us that golf course managers are using it to keep their bunkers immaculate the natural way and reassure golfers concerned about chemical exposure.
www.plantprod.com
Natural Know How is another feature at Plant Products that gardeners will enjoy visiting online. For example, just how do parasitic nematodes destroy white grubs is answered by biocontrol specialist Ann-Marie Cooper.
www.NaturalKnowHow.com
Plant Products have long been a valued name in Canadian horticulture. Amongst many other established items is Skoot®, a repellent that is highly distasteful but harmless to rabbits, mice and deer to deter them from taking another nibble on treated plants.
www.plantprod.com
Using flames to destroy weeds in access ways and along crop rows has long been known. Now new technology makes it even more effective with appropriately named Red Dragon torches from Flame Engineering of LaCrosse, Kansas.
www.flameEngineering.com
Grub control with parasitic nematodes is increasingly familiar to gardeners. Not all strains of these minute worms are created equal, however, or successfully applied. Paul Goodspeed is a long-established, respected expert in this field. He has a new website
www.nematoclo.ca to provide information only, no selling. In fairness his Koppert Biological Systems is a leader here.
This is not to denigrate Sandra Mitchell's Natural Insect Control (NIC), with nematodes and very extensive other offerings of just what her company's name signifies. Worth checking all out at
www.naturalinsect.controil.com.
Nemasys supplies nematodes to control European chafer, Japanese beetle, Oriental beetle, thrips and even fungus gnats with an ever-expanding line.
www.beckerunderwood.com
Organic does not always mean expensive! So says Biofert Manufacturing of Scarborough, Ontario with 100% organic fertilizers for lawns, flowers, vegetables, bulbs and more. Better still, this is a source of fish emulsion and meal, kelp and even neem oil.
www.organique.com
From Quebec comes Acti-Sol, the chicken poop people whose composted product of blended lawn and garden natural fertilizers are both efficient and easy to use in both small and larger properties, coming in 1.5 to 20 kg containers
www.acti-sol.ca
It only remains to note that Environment Canada's predictions of less precipitation in 2009 have already received a severe battering. The bright side is that continuous snow cover makes excellent insulation for perennials and low shrubs. Not so good: the claim by Ontario farmer Charlie Farquharson, a.k.a. Don Harron, "Snow; son tries to write his name; gets halfway."
