St. Thomas and District Horticultural Society

05/09/2023

NOTICE: New Page!
This page will no longer be an active page of the St. Thomas and District Horticultural Society.
We invite you to like and follow our new page:
St Thomas and District Horticultural Society "The Hort"
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092626927461&mibextid=LQQJ4d

Our Meetings are held at 7pm on the fourth Wednesday of the month, @ The Caso Station.

05/04/2023

Earth Day Community Support.

Local business, Beamish Landscape Services continues to be a great support to the St. Thomas Elevated Park project.
Although our Spring kick off on Earth Day Saturday April 22 was postponed due to heavy rain Beamish Landscape and their employees committed to coming back this past Saturday April 29th to volunteer their time, resources, and expertise on the Eastern Approach Naturalized Trail at STEP.
18 large garbage bags of invasive garlic mustard were removed along with the wrenching out of over 45 yards of invasive Honeysuckle. Both the Scree area and the Stumpery Trail were cut back and raked, additional logs were moved and placed into the Stumpery, and invasive orange daylilies were also harassed!
A huge step forward enabling us to now introduce more Carolinian species, Native shrubs, and plantings without future disturbance.
An awesome, productive day.

Thank you, Beamish Landscape Services and Crew. Your support is very much appreciated.

Make Everyday Earth Day!

04/15/2023

Have you ever lifted up a rock and found lots of little "rollie-pollies" living in the moist, dark soil underneath? Those humble pill bugs may be one of the most interesting creatures in your garden!

Pill bugs (also called rollie-pollies) and their relative sow bugs (which do not curl up) are more closely related to shrimp and crayfish than insects. They are the only crustaceans that have adapted to living their entire life on land.

Sowbugs and pillbugs are scavengers and feed mainly on decaying organic matter and are important to the regeneration of healthy soils. They are very important decomposers in contaminated soils that many other species cannot tolerate. They rarely damage garden plants.

The next time you lift a rock and see pill bugs, know that they are garden friends doing important work to help keep our soil healthy!

04/13/2023

Join us at the Friends of the Civic Garden Complex - Greenhouse Tour & Open House - Sunday April 23, 2023 from 12 - 3. Entry is Free!

04/13/2023

04/08/2023

when I see dead trees in the forest, I have come to realize that they're usually full of life

03/15/2023

New to native plant gardening or know a novice pollinator gardener who could use a little guidance? NANPS' new guidebook, How to Create a Pollinator Garden, is designed to help someone without previous native plant experience to plan, design, solarise, plant, and maintain a successful pollinator garden, from start to finish. NANPS is grateful to TD – Friends of the Environment Foundation for the grant that made this Guide possible and for the partnership of the David Suzuki Foundation.https://nanps.org/wp-content/uploads/NANPS-How-to-Create-a-Pollinator-Garden.pdf

03/13/2023

Want to attract birds to your backyard during the fall? These four native shrubs are great choices because they produce an abundance of nutritious fruit exactly when migrating and winter-residing birds need them. 🌳🍒🐦 Read more: https://www.yourleaf.org/node/2487.

Read more on how you can support birds and improve : https://www.yourleaf.org/node/2005

03/13/2023

Our Seed Map has been updated for 2023! We created this map a year ago to present the company information found in the Canadian Seed Catalogue Index (CSCI) in a way that lets users easily find Canadian seed companies located in their neck of the woods.

You can find the map here: www.seeds.ca/seedmap

And the CSCI* is here: https://seeds.ca/sources

*The CSCI is the perfect tool for sourcing specific varieties of food plants; give it try!