If you would like to convert your driveway in a similar way, BCLH’s Rewilding service is available during the April – June migration and planting season.

If you’re considering making your driveway a green one, converting over a portion of your yard and garden to no- or low-mow native plants, or you’d like to take practical action to save the birds, contact me.

Due to the popularity of this post (the fact that you’re reading it), I’ll be doing an annual blog post as soon as the information is available on when the plant give-away weekends take place across various parts of Montreal. I’ll do my best to find out when it is at least by the first weekend in May — which is when you might want to go shopping for seedlings, anyway.

2019’s event announcement is here.

Jane, april 2019

If you like gardening, there’s always a weekend in May that’s our big gardening weekend. It’s like a coördinated extravaganza to get people motivated to get their plants into the ground at the best possible time. Events usually happen the same weekend, including native and ornamental plant sales such as at the Botanical Garden.

If you’ve had a frustrating spring with all this rain and insufficient heat, or just a lack of inspiration so far, don’t despair. You can still have a garden this summer. Here are some resources to help you — especially those of you in Montreal, Quebec, and eastern Ontario, where most of these resources can be reached.

If you’re francophone or able to read French, download the Guide potager urbain, written by the couple from Drummondville who were given a legal hassle in 2012 about having a front yard full of vegetables. This 240-page e-book is a handy guide to having a very attractive and productive garden. You might not be able to do so as extensively as they had it, but set yourself a goal of one small project.

While deciding what it is you want in your garden, double-check your zone (Montrealers: we are in Zone 5). Look for vegetables that can be planted in the middle of June for a harvest in a short timeframe, up until October. 

Vegetables

Here are the next steps: Vegetable seedlings are now well past their prime at the greenhouses where they’re sold. You’ll be able to buy a few on sale. Get them into the ground or into wicking or standard pots as quickly as possible. Make sure that compost and peat are part of the soil mix, and water them every day if the rain doesn’t come.