Break out your green thumb
March 17 to 21, 2010
14th annual Canada Blooms celebrates the gardens of Canada in all their blooming splendour
March, 2010 – Toronto, ON – From March 17 to 21, 2010, Canada Blooms returns to Toronto to transform its new location – the Direct Energy Centre into Canada’s largest flower and garden festival. This year the Festival celebrates the best of Canadian gardens and explores the tradition of gardening and horticultural excellence from across the country.
Canada Blooms 2010 will feature a paradise bursting with six acres of glorious gardens in full bloom, more than 100,000 square feet of green-thumb shopping, over 200 hours of seminars, workshops and demonstrations, a special children’s area and more.
“For 14 years, Canada Blooms has been one of the first signs of spring for Canadian garden-lovers,” says Gerry Ginsberg, General Manager, Canada Blooms. “And because the official first day of spring falls in the middle of the
Festival, we’re planning to welcome it in style.”
Canada Blooms is a not-for-profit volunteer-driven event which promotes awareness of horticulture and offers a platform to showcase outstanding floral and landscape products and services. To date, over $500,000 in Canada Blooms’ show proceeds have been reinvested into community horticultural projects. This year’s proceeds from Canada Blooms will benefit charitable horticultural organizations across Ontario.
The 2010 Festival features:
{ Outdoor Living Central Gardens from presenting sponsor, The Home Depot. This garden includes a private retreat and patio. Home
Depot will also host a series of speakers providing great ideas for home and gardens on the ‘You Can Do It’ stage.
{ Jackson-Triggs and Inniskillin return with the ‘Niagara Wine Garden’ where visitors can experience the ambiance of Ontario’s premier wineries in an urban setting.
{ Produced by the Garden Club of Toronto, Canada Blooms guests will have the opportunity to show off their green thumb in Canada’s
largest open flower competition taking place throughout the festival.
{ The popular Canada Blooms Marketplace is back this year and bigger than ever. Discover new treasures for your garden as you
shop along Pick Ontario Avenue and choose from designer innovations, including outdoor living accessories, the newest plants and the latest in gardening gear and décor.
Canada Blooms 2010 Festival information
Dates: Wednesday, March 17 to Sunday, March 21, 2010
Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Wednesday to Saturday); 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Sunday)
Venue: The Direct Energy Centre, Toronto Ontario
Tickets: Available December 1st, 2009– online at www.canadablooms.com and at participating garden centres for a special advanced discount price of $16
At the door $18; Seniors $16; Students $16; Children 12 and under are free
Spring Gardening Tips
Canada Blooms board member and celebrity gardener, Mark Cullen, recommends the following March tips to prepare your gardens for a lush
spring:
{ Get a head start: plant your vegetable seeds and slow germinating flower seeds indoors. A sunny window works great.
{ Bring home some colour: plants such as cyclamen plants are great options and they last a long time indoors too.
{ Show some skin: near the end of March you can start taking some of the winter protection off of your evergreens and removing the soil that you used to cover up your roses. However, if you live on the Prairies you may want to leave this job for another couple of weeks.
{ You’re never too young: get your kids involved in some indoor gardening projects like seed starting, making seed tapes using folded over toilet paper and starting an avocado pit indoors. Or consider taking a ‘March Break’ trip to Toronto to let your kids explore the children’s garden at this year’s Canada Blooms festival.
{ Turn on the bulbs: purchase your tuberous begonias and canna lily bulbs in March and start them indoors. The begonias will root best in a seeding tray full of damp peat moss on the top of your fridge, where the low ambient heat that comes up the back of it will kick-start your begonia tubers into putting down roots. The canna lily bulbs are
best started directly in one gallon sized pots in a sunny window.
About Canada Blooms
Canada Blooms is a not-for-profit organization that gives back to the community throughout the year by funding community garden projects around Ontario. Canada Blooms is also dedicated to providing the community with horticulture expertise, education and resources on an ongoing basis.
Now in its fourteenth year, Canada Blooms was founded by Landscape Ontario and The Garden Club of Toronto. Each year it is supported by a committed group of partners, sponsors and volunteers. In 2009-10, Festival sponsors include: The Home Depot, Royal Bank of Canada, Grey Power Insurance, Scotts Canada, Miracle-Gro, Canadian Cancer Society, Sinclair-Cockburn, Tourism Ireland, Nestle Canada, Vincor Canada and Via Rail.
