Echo Native Plants

I Spy....a Pale Beauty moth, an American Lady caterpillar and a sleepy bee and a Snapping Turtle laying eggs in my laneway!

What have you spied in your gardens this week?

Come join us at Fletcher Wildlife Gardens this Saturday, June 10th from 10am - 2pm for their Pollinator Appreciation Day!

The theme this year is "Start with a Tree". Come chat with lots of great experts who will be sharing their knowledge about trees, pollinators and native plants. There will also be native plant vendors, like Echo Native Plants!

Don't miss out!

It's turtle season! Today we spotted a Snapping Turtle and Painted Turtle laying eggs on our land bridge at one of the wetlands in our forest.
Unfortunately at an evening walk we noticed one nests already dug up by a predator. 😫
So, we spent the increadibly hot sweaty evening building a couple turtle nest cages to hopefully stop the rest of the nests being dug up. A little shotty and all I had was some big logs from cutting firewood to weigh them down, but hopefully it's enough to protect the eggs until they hatch!

Canada Anemone is in it's fully glory right now. Definitely a plant for larger spaces as it does like to creep around, but boy is it a show stopper! 😍

It can tolerate a wide variety of conditions and its growth can vary quite a bit depending on those conditions. I have one patch, about 7 years old, in clay soil with full hot sun. It is about 18"-24" tall and spreads quite happily with stunning blooms. My second patch is in dry shade under a couple conifers. It is only 2 years old, but has spread quite slowly, keeps to about 8"-10" and blooms are more spread out but it seems to be making a nice ground cover.

I have a new resident in the greenhouse keeping me company. He helps with pest control...and cuteness. 😍🐸

What should I name our little Tree Frog?

*Happy Dance*
The best surprise when taking a stroll in the Echo forest today - I've never had Large Flowered Bellwort before!

It was right off the path and when I ventured in a bit more a found a few more. Growing from seed has been slow and/or unsuccessful so I'm very excited to start having a wild source to be able to pot up in a few years!

We are in full swing at the nursery! Despite the cooler cloudy spring and plants being a few weeks behind schedule, the nursery is open for appointments! We have limited stock available at the moment, but more is being added each day. New season stock and new species (winter germinated plants) are expected to be out early June.

Now is also the perfect time to schedule in your Garden Designs or Garden Consultations! I can help you with your garden prep, design you pollinator garden of your dreams, install your garden.
Not ready this year? That's ok! We get your design and prep done now, so your garden can be customer grown over the winter and installed next year!

Plan a Visit — EchoNativePlants Plan a visit to come view our wide selection of native plants, get in-person advice on what plants will grow in your space and view our ever-expanding demo gardens. We're only a 45 minute drive from Ottawa.

Busy busy busy! We've been hard at work potting and prepping plants for the Friends of the Farm plant sale this weekend on Sunday May 10th, and the nursery open on Monday May 11th.

Come out and get your spring bloomers, spring ephemerals and even a limited selection of warmer season perennials (that I was able to fit in the greenhouse and wake up a bit earlier)!

The days will be getting warmer again, but just a reminder that our pollinators will still be mostly hibernating and needing that leaf much and those stems for a few more weeks.
If you feel you really need to get in the garden because say you don't want to do heavy gardening once all the black flies and mosquitoes come out (*ahem*...guilty) here's what you can do to tidy up, while helping out our pollinators:

* snip or snap stems 8"-24" high and lay them in a tidy pile near the plant. This way any pollinators or eggs that will be hatching will be right near their food source when they emerge. With things in tidy piles, once summer has moved on and our pollinators have emerged, it only takes a couple minutes walking around with the wheel barrow to gather everything up.
* Use your fingers to loosely break up dense leaf mats and falllen grasses. This way emerging plants aren't as likely to be smothered, but pollinators still have protection.
* Light weeding. Any missed dandelion, clover or other unwanteds get pulled (and tossed to the chickens).
* Prune or trim shrubs. Before they leaf out is a great time to do this for most of our native shrubs. Less stress on the shrub and it's easier to see what shape you're working with.
* Sometimes I'll remove or move plants at this time as well. It's easier on the plant to move it when the temps are still cool and it is still dormant. Plus you're not fighting to work around all the other garden growth.

Some more pretty spring ephemerals from the last few days! 😍