Growing Community

My office is excited to offer Tomato Starting Kits and Pollinator friendly native wildflower seeds (Sourced from: Native Plants in Claremont) to individuals and community groups interested in growing community and community greening projects.

Pollinators are insects and small animals that transfer pollen from one plant to another, allowing plants to produce seeds.
Many plants rely on pollinators to reproduce, but pollinators are rapidly declining and some face extinction!
A recent UN global biodiversity assessment estimated that about 1 in 10 insect species face extinction.
1 out of every 3 bites we eat is directly thanks to a pollinator!
By helping plants, pollinators help make sure we receive many of the other benefits that nature provides, which are often impossible or too expensive for us to recreate. For example, by keeping plants in our natural landscapes, pollinators ensure that we have clean air and oxygen to breathe.

Supporting pollinators is a win-win for everyone - pollinators, plants and people!

Click here to find out more about Hamilton's Pollinator Paradise program.

Check out our inventory below and request your seeds at [email protected]

	Tomato Starting Kit Grow your own tomatoes at home with this starter kit! Growing Instructions: Place planting pot into cup or flat saucer. Place seed puck in bottom of pot Very slowly, pour 1/3 cup (80 ml) WARM water onto puck Allow 5 minutes for puck to expand slowly, then drain excess standing water Fluff puck with fork until crumbly Push all seeds into the puck until they disappear (less than 10 mm). Smooth soil over the holes Place the pot in a warm, sunny spot until you see sprouts (14-21 days). Water only the soil surface lightly when it looks dry When seeds have sprouted, place in full sun and keep damp Once the sprouts have grown 2" - 3" in height choose 1 or 2 of the best growing plants and remove the rest Plant the seedling pot in a larger indoor pot or plant in sunny garden deep enough to cover the pot completely. (Do not plant in outdoor garden until all danger of frost has passed). Keep the plants watered and enjoy!
	Common Milkweed Light Requirements: Sun Soil Texture: Clay, Sand Moisture Requirements: Normal, Moist Fun Fact: Monarch butterflies cannot complete their life cycles without milkweed. (Kershaw) Provides nectar for butterflies such as: pipe-vine swallowtail, black swallowtail, tiger swallowtail, gray hairstreak, summer azure, great spangled fritillary, aphrodite fritillary, silvery checkerspot, Baltimore, American painted lady, red admiral, little wood satyr, wood nymph.
	Wild Bergamot Light Requirements: Sun Soil Texture: Clay, Sand, Loam, Humus Enriched Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal, Moist Fun Fact: Provides nectar for butterflies such as: tiger swallowtail, great spangled fritillary, wood nymph, monarch. Ruby throated hummingbirds are attracted to this plant.
	Black-Eyed Susan Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil Texture: Sand, Loam Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal, Moist Fun Fact: Drought tolerant, the yellow orange flowers appear from June until frost, and the dark brown seed heads provide bird food throughout the winter. This plant is unlike its horticultural counterpart in ornamental nurseries, as it is partially annual. If it likes where it is, it stays, otherwise, it will self seed in new areas each year.
	Boneset Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil Texture: Clay, Sand, Loam Moisture Requirements: Moist, Wet Fun Fact: This plant is extremely tolerant of cold temperatures. This plant is a great choice in a wet garden, full sun or part shade pond garden, at the outflow of a residential downspout, or for use in bioswales or stormwater ponds, where water is captured and held to create periodic or constant wet conditions.
	Cylindric Blazing Star Light Requirements: Sun Soil Texture: Sand Moisture Requirements: Dry Fun Fact: Provides nectar for butterflies such as: tiger swallowtail, clouded sulphur, orange sulphur, gray hairstreak, aphrodite fritillary, painted lady, red admiral, wood nymph (Wildtype)
	Hairy Beardtongue Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil Texture: Clay, Sand Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal Fun Fact: Bees attracted include: large carpenter bees, small carpenter bees, and bumble bees.
	Gray-headed Coneflower Limited Quantity Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil Texture: Sand, Loam Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal, Moist Fun Fact: Birds will feed heavily on the seeds. This plant is one of the more popular plants at more ornamental nurseries, because of its quite showy flower, clumping habit (not as tall, and not as self seeding and aggressive as the larger green headed coneflower) great for prairie and meadow gardens.
	Lance-leaved Coreopsis Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Sand Soil pH: Acidophile Moisture Requirements: Dry Fun Fact: This plant will tolerate most soils as long they are mixed with sand (i.e clay/sand, loam/sand) and also rocky soil. It should be deadheaded throughout the summer to encourage blooms.
	Wild Columbine Out of Stock Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Sand, Loam Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal, Moist Fun Fact: The upward tubes contain nectar that attracts insects, such as hawk moths, and hummingbirds that have long tongues. It is reported that Native Americans rubbed the crushed seeds on the hands of men as a love charm.
	Blue Vervain Limited Quantity Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Clay, Sand, Loam Moisture Requirements: Normal, Moist, Wet Fun Fact: Even though it is a wetland plant, it is very drought tolerant, and seems to do fine in a variety of environments, seeding itself well, popping up in cracks in the pavement even. Provides nectar for butterflies such as: orange sulphur, wood nymph. Seeds are attractive to cardinals, swamp sparrows, field sparrows, song sparrows and slate coloured juncos. Rabbits eat the leaves.
	Spotted Joe-Pye Weed Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Clay, Sand, Loam, Humus Enriched Moisture Requirements: Normal, Moist, Wet Fun Fact: According to folklore, an Indigenous man named Joe Pye used this plant to cure fevers and that the early American colonists used it to treat an outbreak of typhus. This plant provides nectar for butterflies such as: giant swallowtail, tiger swallowtail, orange sulphur, variegated fritillary, pearl crescent, Milbert's tortoise shell, painted lady, red admiral, viceroy, and eyed brown. The plants can be divided in spring or fall, or grown from seeds sown on the surface of the soil.
	Swamp Milkweed Light Requirements: Sun Soil: Clay, Loam Moisture Requirements: Moist, Wet Fun Fact: This widespread plant works well to rehabilitate and restore habitat. This plant provides food for other insects such as lady bugs, which feed on the aphids, and can also be seen with a dangling chrysalis of the monarch butterfly. Great for educational purposes, since kids and adults alike observe the life cycle of the monarch on this plant.The furry appendage that is attached to seed is many times more buoyant than cork, and much warmer than wool. It was grown for use in lifejackets during World War II. (USDA Resources Conservation Service)
	Golden Alexander Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Clay, Sand, Loam Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal, Moist, Wet Fun Fact: Golden Alexander is good for planting in conservation mixes and wildflower gardens. It easily adapts to garden soil but can also naturalize and be tolerant of drought. Its blossoms are similar to Queen Anne's lace.
	Butterfly Milkweed Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Sand, Loam Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal Fun Fact: Milkweed is the only larval food for the monarch butterfly, and this is one of only a few species of milkweed that occur in Ontario. Their nectar attracts many butterfly species including Grey Hairstreak, Monarch, and Queen. Despite being poisonous, the root was chewed as a cure for pleurisy and other pulmonary afflictions, hence, Butterfly Weed was given its other common name, Pleurisy Root.
	Tall Cinquefoil Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Sand, loam, clay Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal Fun Fact: This perennial wildflower can grow up to 1 m in height. It is drought tolerant and displays small, 5 petal white flowers that are particularly attractive to smaller pollinators such as native bees and flies.
	Evening Primrose Limited Quantity Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Sand, Loam Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal, Moist Fun Fact: Flowers open at night and close by noon the next day. The oil from the seeds is one of the few plant sources of gamma-linoleic acid an essential fatty acid. Clinical trials with evening primrose oil suggest that it may be help to treat a number of disorders. Because the seeds are hard to extract, evening-primrose capsules are expensive but popular as a dietary supplement.
	New England Aster Limited Quantity Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Clay, Sand, Loam Moisture Requirements: Dry, Normal, Moist Fun Fact: This tall specimen is an important food source for a host of native bee species for winter. It can get to around 5 feet tall. It can be staked or cut to produce lower flowers. This plant produces volunteer seedlings quickly, although it can also be divided in the spring or grown from seeds that mature in late fall.
	Great Blue Lobelia Limited Quantity Light Requirements: Sun, Partial Shade Soil: Loam, Humus Enriched Moisture Requirements: Normal, Moist, Wet Fun Fact: Contains a toxic alkaloid called lobeline, which has same effect as nicotine. North American First Nations used the root with other plants as a dusting on ulcers. Some tribes also believed it was a cure for arguing, and if the root was added to their food, they would continue being happy together again.
	Sunny Butterfly/Pollinator Mix Contains: Black Eyed Susan. Butterfly Milkweed, Grey Headed Coneflower, Hairy Beardtongue, Spotted Joe Pye Weed, Yarrow, Lance Leaved Coreopsis

Sandy Shaw MPP, Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas

Growing Community

Check out our inventory below and request your seeds at [email protected]

Tomato Starting Kit