Green sanctuaries

Resilient gardens that quietly thrive in beautiful backyards across the GTA help offset at-risk ecosystems

Resilient gardens in backyards across GTA assist fragile ecosystems,

It’s enough to make a green thumb blue: trees toppled by gale-force winds, parched posies begging for water while others wilt from wet feet or relentless rays.

You need look no further than your garden or balcony to see the effects of climate change and severe weather systems.

“There’s a lot going on,” observes Frankie Flowers (a.k.a. Frank Ferragine), a gardening expert and weather specialist on Citytv’s Breakfast Televi

sion. A landmark UN global assessment released this month reported Earth’s species are declining at an alarming rate and that Canada is warming at twice the global rate.

You can, though, make a difference — just by getting your hands a little dirty, says Ferragine, spokesperson for In the Zone, a new program partnered by Carolinian Canada and WWF-Canada to promote planting native species. The Carolinian Zone is a huge swath of land between Toronto and Windsor that’s home to one-third of Canada’s at-risk plants and animals.

“By planting a single native oak, a patch of milkweed or growing an entire native plant garden, you’ll be taking the first step to creating an ecosystem in your yard that offers food and shelter to a diversity of bees, caterpillars, butterflies and birds,” says In the Zone’s website, which provides tips and how-tos. With garden tours springing up in the city and surrounding areas, the time is ripe to root around for some down-toearth advice. Check out the list of tours below.

“Be a steward,” encourages Ferragine. “But make it fun; don’t overdo it.”

He offers practical suggestions, such as matching the plant to the environment. For example, coneflowers (Echinacea) are a proven perennial that tolerate heat; purple coneflowers are a draw for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

For wet areas, Joe Pye weed — a tall, mauve late-bloomer — is “awesome,” Ferragine notes.

When it comes to weathering climate changes, the Royal Botanical Gardens, on the Burlington/Hamilton border, is no babe in the woods. Home to the most species of wild plants in the country, it

DREAMSTIME PHOTOS “Collectively, gardeners can have a huge ecological impact,” says a report by RBG and the Greenbelt Foundation.

Spring and summer blooms invite fans to get up close and personal on garden tours spanning the next six weeks.

“Be a steward” by supporting the environment, gardening expert Frank Ferragine says.