By Jenn Watt

Published April 18 2017

You have until Earth Day to order your native plants from Friends of Ecological and Environmental Learning.

From shrubs to trees flowers to ferns there’s a wide variety of plants that grow well in the local climate and provide shade food and shelter for area wildlife.

“A lot of people buy plants down south to plant up here and not realizing this is a different region and plants that are native to the southern part of Ontario do not thrive up here” says Norm Thomas president of FEEL.

Orders must be in by Saturday April 22 and the plants will be delivered to the Beer Store parking lot in Haliburton on May 13 the day before Mother’s Day.

Botanists will be available at the pick-up location to give advice about taking care of the new plants.
Thomas says the experts can help with which trees shrubs flowers or ground covers work well together and where on your property different plants will work best.

“The majority of our plants are genetically local with plant stock derived directly from Haliburton County. This is an extremely unique characteristic of our plants” the information page on FEEL’s website reads.

The plants come from Bark Ecological Gardens Nursery and Botanicals and a percentage (between five and 30 per cent) of the purchase goes to FEEL which runs the Children’s Water Festival a two-day educational hands-on event that instills the importance of water with children from across the school board.

To find out more about native plants check out the selection and make your order go to haliburtonstewardship.ca .