The Bright Side of Spring

Wake Up on the Bright Side It is the bright side of Spring today.  With such an early Easter, the greenhouse nursery growers have retail operations open. We saw Sunshine Express last week, and today we see the growing greenhouses of Seaway Gardens.  They are located on Lakeshore Road, on the east side of the canal.  I mention this for those of you who want to check out the bargains at Seaway. Flats of pansies are 3 for $30.00 or $10.99 each. This first picture shows you just one of the many greenhouses of hanging pots.  In the second picture, I want you to notice the top photo of the lavender-coloured chair in the lavender field.  This is a picture by Marjorie Wallace, an artist I know from redbubble.  You can see the picture on her site here.  I've seen it in all the garden centres, so this is a great licensing sale for Marjorie. You may be asking the question:  When will the orchards bloom?  When should I drive to Niagara to see the blossoms?  Here is what they look like now, as you pull out of the Seaway parking lot and look towards the Lake.  The colour is showing on the branches.  My guess is we'll see our orchards in bloom for our normal Mother's Day celebration.

Grimsby Gardens - Cole's Nursery

Hi everyone,

I am lucky to have an old-fashioned garden centre in my neighbourhood in Grimsby.  This means that it still has summer perennials, annuals, and trees and shrubs for sale.  They actually get new plants in so I can spruce up my planters.

This is in contrast to the other greenhouses - Seaway on Lakeshore has cleared the greenhouses out of summer stock and has started the Poinsettias.  Sunshine's is 3/4's empty with gift pot plants, herbs, etc in the front section.  Almost all the perennials disappeared just over a week ago, probably to the hoop houses for repotting.  Of course the big box stores have eliminated the summer plant section.   I was at Valleybrook Nurseries, the wholeale perennial growers in the spring, and there were oceans of Superstore pots going off to delivery - what a lot of plants must be sold by the Supercentres.  

Cole's has a mass show of colour out front, including a lovely garden in front of the Christmas Cottage.  I took pictures on the weekend of the gardens, as they are recipients of a commercial Trillium award for 2014. I realized how big the beds are, and how many interesting plant selections there are in the beds this year.  Walking along the beds brought the realization of the care and creativity that went into the designs. 

Here's an extract of this history of this wonderful florist/greenhouse operation, including a picture of the original greenhouse:

Providing Fine Flowers For Over 100 Years In 1891 Albert Edward Cole erected a 1,000 sqft greenhouse on the former sawmill property in Grimsby, and grew violets and vegetables. A.E. Cole’s three sons were involved at an early age selling vegetables and later delivering flowers by foot, horse and buggy or the street car that ran along Highway 8. By 1930 the greenhouse was expanded to 25,000 sqft of the property! Cole’s three sons, John, Gordon and Norman, purchased the business in 1932 and more expansion followed as the floral industry grew. The children and grandchildren all worked to make it Cole’s a success! In 1957 Norman Cole & Elizabeth became sole owners of the business and they ran the business together for 29 years. After 95 years of family ownership, Cole’s Florist was sold to Harry DeVries in 1986. See more at: http://www.colesflorist.ca/history.php Here we are in 2014, enjoying the wonderful gardens.