Winter Is Cool—Warm It Up!

February 1, 2011
February begins with a snow storm. How fitting. (Photo: Lea Anne Armstrong)

February begins with a snow storm. How fitting. (Photo: Lea Anne Armstrong)

During the month of February (the shortest but coldest) Evergreen wants you to get outside and find the funshine! Whether it’s a lovely walk with your dog, snowshoeing in the park, or a majestic icicle on your stoop, we want to see how you’re connecting with nature.

Post your “funshine” photos to our Facebook wall from now until the end of the month and the image with the most “likes” will win a prize! Make sure to include captions.

So bundle up, get outside and good luck!

1 Comment | How to Love Winter | Permalink
Posted by jessicamnagy

Staghorn Sumac: A Sentinel of Winter

January 10, 2011

Staghorn Sumac (Photo: Bill Moses)

Holding onto its familiar fuzzy red berries throughout the winter, Rhus typhina is an significant shrub on the winter landscape in Ontario and eastern Canada.  Part of the cashew family, Staghorn Sumac is an important winter food source (high in vitamin C) for foxes, squirrels, cottontail rabbits,white-tailed deer and a number of bird species while being an emergency winter food for about 300 species of songbirds.  This shrub which favours upland sites is drought and salt tolerant and grows in a range of soil types including gravel, reaching up to 8 m high.

To find out more about Staghorn Sumac and other native shrubs in our native plant database.

Comments Off | How to Love Winter, Native Species, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Christine from Volunteering

Craft Corner: Making a Simple Bird Feeder

March 11, 2010

The finished product, waiting for visitors! (Photo: Evergreen)

Watching the birds come and go from a backyard feeder can be fun and stress relieving. Enticing them to your lawn or shared space doesn’t have to be complicated either. With a few simple steps, you can create a low-cost feeder using found materials and a few other basic household items.

This is a great activity to do with children, or to bring out the child within!

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Craft Corner, Gardening, How to Love Winter | Permalink
Posted by Jenn from Communications

How to Love Winter: Colour

February 23, 2010

Colourful blooms can brighten up your February. (Photos: Erin Elliott)

This week, I asked Evergreen Learning Grounds’ Debby Morton how she is surviving the drab winter months without her garden. She takes her inspiration from colour, colour, colour!
Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments | Gardening, Green Tips, How to Love Winter | Permalink
Posted by Erin from Communications

How to Love Winter : Gardening

January 20, 2010

It’s cold. It’s grey. It’s slushy. It’s winter in the city.

But if you find some spicy tea and curl up in a big woolen scarf, there is lots to love about this cozy, reflective time of year. There are plenty of ways to connect to nature too.

We’ll help out by posting tips and tricks for surviving winter, starting with some of Evergreen’s most avid gardeners and how they get their fix during these long, cold months.

Leave a comment and share your strategies!

Winter kale. (Photo: Rebekka Hutton)

Tip #1 Keep Gardening
I asked Evergreen’s Rebekka Hutton, an avid urban gardener who runs community gardens around Toronto, how she makes it through. Not surprisingly, she is still gardening. “I’m still eating kale, thyme, sage and oregano from outside,” she says. “If the leaves look good, I just brush off the snow and bring them in.”

She says that these hardy species just pull through on their own, without much help. Just leave them in the fall and let them be. She has even used a pickaxe to liberate carrots from the frozen ground. “They thaw out at room temperature and taste great.”

Tip #2 Read and Learn More
Rebekka also says that winter is a great time to read all the great gardening books she doesn’t have time to read during the growing season. “Right now I’m reading Eliot Coleman’s Winter Harvest Handbook. It’s really inspiring and is giving me lots of ideas for next season.”

Tip #3 Reflect and Plan
Doing a seed inventory in preparation for seed exchanges is another way Rebekka connects to her garden and plans for the season.

And with the new year just beginning, Rebekka says it is the perfect time to start a fresh garden journal. When the season begins she’ll be ready to jot down her thoughts and experiences to review this time next year.

Comments Off | Gardening, Green Tips, How to Love Winter | Permalink
Posted by Erin from Communications

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