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All Outdoor Plants All SPRING Spring Blog

Creating a cut flower garden

Who doesn’t love to receive a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers? Their exquisite fresh blooms and glorious scents add a touch of elegance to your home and are a perfect accent for any season.

 

With the right plants and a sunny spot in your garden, you can grow a cutting garden to create your own unique flower arrangements. The most versatile cutting gardens are usually a mix of repeat blooming annuals, perennials, nursery, and bulb plants.

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All Outdoor Plants All SPRING Spring Blog

Spring bulbs for summer blooms

Do you want a garden full of big, beautiful colourful blooms this summer?

 

Then you may want to consider getting started with summer flowering bulbs.  They can easily be started in containers indoors to give them a head start for glorious blooms this summer. Once the risk of frost has passed, your established plants can be moved to a sunny location outside in their existing containers or transplanted into your garden beds.

 

Summer blooming bulbs enhance the beauty of your landscape with bright colour and are perfect for fresh-cut bouquets.

 

Summer bulbs start blooming in late June and continue until autumn frost.  To maximize bloom time in your garden, they should be started indoors in the late winter or early spring.   Here are some of our favourite bulbs to get started right now.

 

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All Outdoor Plants SPRING SUMMER GROW YOUR OWN Blog

INDOOR SEED STARTING

 

The days are getting warmer, and Spring is finally here! Get a head start on the growing season by starting some of your favourite flowers, fruits, and vegetables indoors from seed. The risk of frost will have passed in no time at all, and you’ll have strong and healthy seedlings ready to transplant once the regular growing season begins.

 

Tomatoes are by far the most popular choice that Canadians grow in their home “vegetable” gardens, but there are so many other easy options that you may want to explore.

 

Here are some helpful hints on how you can start sowing the seeds of your summer garden right now.

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All Outdoor Plants SPRING SUMMER GROW YOUR OWN Blog

YEAR OF THE GLADIOLUS

The gladiolus, also known as “glads”, is a beautiful symbol of summer’s arrival. These impressive flowers look stunning in the garden or as an elegant arrangement in a vase.

 

Easy to grow, gladiolus are ideal for novice gardeners. The corms are planted in the spring and within a few weeks, their orchid-like blooms will quickly fill your garden with colour.

 

The gladiolus originated in Africa and Eurasia, finding its way to North America in the mid-1900s. Their impressive size prompted experts to deem them the Latin term Gladius or “sword”, leading to their appropriate nickname, the sword lily.

 

Standing on stems that can reach upwards of five feet, gladiolus come in a variety of striking colours, with each flower adorned with smaller blooms. These blooms reach a width of about 3 to five inches across.

 

Here are some helpful hints on how you can grow delightful gladiolus in your garden.