You may be wondering how local flowers are different than what you pick up at your grocery
store.
Currently, most flowers purchased in Canada are imported from countries in South American such as Columbia & Ecuador. These flowers are most often grown with the heavy use of fungicides, pesticides and herbicides, and under pretty poor labour conditions. By the time you purchase them they may be as much as a week old, not to mention the carbon footprint of importing the flowers.
In our gardens we use no pesticides. We use natural practices like companion planting and encouraging beneficial insects. Early summer it was hard to watch the ants herding the aphids over my yarrow, but I knew it would draw the healthy beneficials and indeed soon the ladybugs and soldier beetles arrived. The perennial yarrow is now thriving and will bloom next year. I can be patient (sometimes). In my morning walk through with a bowl of soapy water, I hunt for lily and Japanese beetles and drop them in. This has salvaged both my lilies and zinnias. Mesh bags cover my dahlias as soon as they start to bloom, protecting them from all of the bugs that like to munch on their petals.
We try and grow unique and beautiful blooms that you won't find at your grocery store. Double tulips, white & variegated sunflowers, stock, sweet peas, Icelandic poppies that last in a vase, dahlias and specialty snapdragons that actually smell like bubblegum. Growing & buying flowers locally opens up a whole world of beautiful, delicate blooms that can't be shipped. And honestly the smell of local flowers is out of this world. I never realized that snapdragons smelled so good because the ones you buy at the grocery store, simply don't. They have been bred for sturdiness not scent and their journey has been too long and they have spent most of it in refrigeration. Our flowers are fresh, clean, beautiful and you are safe to bury your face in them.
The bees, butterflies and birds really enjoy the diversity too. We have transformed grassed lawns into a smorgasbord for them. My best mornings are when the hummingbirds come to join me as I harvest the sweet peas. Or when I look out across the field and see bees and butterflies dancing off of the blooms. The birds love to eat all of the bugs and I am thankful to them for helping me with the slugs. I try to be thankful when they take my specialty millet I am growing for fall bouquets. We are learning to share in the gardens. :)
There are many local flower growers around Ontario and you can find them on a map here.
Just enter your postal code and set your search radius. Beautiful, local blooms at your fingertips.
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