Down The Garden Path Podcast

This week on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw continue their month-long discussion on lawn care by looking at the different lawn fertilizers and what works best when.

Joanne and Matt answer your questions on lawn fertilizer.

• What times of the year do we put down lawn fertilizer?
• How do I apply lawn fertilizer?
  • Can I apply it by hand?
• Synthetic vs. organic fertilizer
  • What are the pros and cons of each?
• Which is best? Why?
• What should you do if you burn your lawn with synthetic fertilizers?

Matt and Joanne discuss the importance of renewing the "good" organisms in your lawn by using good quality top dressers, compost or manure. And how that helps organic fertilizers succeed. They also answer a listener's question about if we should mix fertilizers with grass seed when spreading it.

Tune in to hear Matt's success stories about revamping a lawn with synthetic fertilizer and once established, successfully transitioning to organic fertilizers.

More Down the Garden Path Lawn Care episodes

Lawn Care Q&A

Lawn Care: Lawn Alternatives

Lawn Care: Artificial Turf

Lawn Care 101

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path podcast, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

Thanks for listening! Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe!

This week on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw kick off their month-long discussion on lawn care by looking at where we are now with our lawn care and answering your questions.

Joanne and Matt answer your questions and discuss where the lawn care season is so far.

• • How did your lawn make it through the winter?
  • What lawn issues do you have to address this spring?
  • Matt recommends Viva Lawn Repair as it is a one-step seed and compost mix.
  • Joanne recommends Eco-Lawn Grass Seed.
  • They discuss where to start if you need to repair your lawn.
  • Now is the time to use Corn Gluten for weed control. Corn Gluten is not a one-and-done solution, you need to use it both spring and fall for best results.

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path podcast, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

Goodbye March and welcome to April! This week on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw discuss what NOT to do in your garden this month.

Tune into this week's podcast to learn what you shouldn't be doing in the garden in April.

Matt and Joanne covered four of their top "don'ts" for April:

• • Rake and take away leaf debris
  • Walk on soggy parts of the lawn and garden
  • Aerate and dethatch your lawn
  • Prune spring flowering plants

They also answered listener questions about:

• Aeration. Shouldn't there be a certain depth of the tines on the aerator? Someone told me a lot of consumer aeration equipment does not go down into the soil far enough. How deep should the cores be?
• Bees. What are good plants to put into our garden to attract bees?
• Moving plants outside. When is the best time to transplant my tomato plants outside? I live in the GTA and started them already from seeds.
• Raking. When we are able to rake our lawns, should we use plastic or metal rakes? Plastic seems to be a lot harsher on our grass, whereas metal rakes tend to bend easier with less damage to the lawn.
• Timing for grass seed. Is it too early to put down grass seed?

Great Grow Along Check out this virtual Garden Festival to help gardeners learn. There are 40+ sessions and six months of access. You can find this wonderful resource at greatgrowalong.com

Edible Garden Makeover Want to learn more about growing an edible garden? Check out Steven Biggs' course Edible Garden Makeover here.

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path podcast, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

This week on Down The Garden Path, we wrap up our month-long talk about hardscaping with a look at water garden trends. Joining us is returning guest Ernest Williams from Aquascape.

Ernest Williams is the Territory Sales Manager at Aquascape for Eastern and Northern Ontario. Aquascape is a manufacturer of water garden products and connects people to water the way nature intended. Homeowners have been enjoying professionally installed Aquascape water features or doing it themselves for close to 30 years. Ernest has been with Aquascape for over 15 years, and in the horticultural industry for 22 years. Ernest has been involved in many aspects of the water feature business including warehousing, purchasing, sales, installing, training, and consulting. He encourages everyone to take the "plunge" into the water feature lifestyle.

"When the water feature is done right, they'll never look back!"

Join us this week for our conversation about water garden trends with Aquascape's Ernest Williams.

Ernest answers our questions and tells us about the upcoming trends:

• What's changed in water gardens over the last three years?
• What are the current and emerging trends in water gardening?
  • Pondless water features have increased in popularity. New for the 2021 season are many water features that also incorporate fire, like Basalt columns that include propane torches.
• What's new and exciting at Aquascape?
  • Aquascape has products like a rain exchange system that can help with stormwater management. They also have an assortment of water treatment solutions for your pond.
• Ernest answers a listener's questions about the pros and cons of a prefab pond liner vs a rubber liner. He explained and walked us through the many benefits of a rubber liner in our climate here in Ontario.
• How do you determine the pump size that you need for your pond?
  • Ernest does the math for us!

For more great insight on setting up your water garden feature, be sure to listen to our past shows featuring Aquascape: Podcast

Water Features for the Garden with Aquascape

Radio Show

More About Ponds with Aquascape

Water Features for the Garden

Find Aquascape online

You can find Aquascape online here.

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe!

This week on Down The Garden Path, we speak with Connie Cadotte of Garden Retreats about pool design.

Since 1997, Garden Retreats has been creating residential gardens across the GTA. Their philosophy is to create a garden that will reflect a family's lifestyle and provide years of enjoyment. Their goals is to achieve a balance between the client's wish list and the actual implementation of the garden; to create a sustainable garden, one that will work the existing site and minimize the environmental impact.

Join us this week for our conversation about pool design with Connie Cadotte of Garden Retreats.

Connie answers our questions and tells us about the work she does:

• Tell us more about yourself and the work you do at Garden Retreats.
• What should people consider before purchasing a pool?
• What are the main differences between vinyl, fiberglass and concrete pools?
• Is there an ideal size or shape of pool?
• What are the new trends in pool design?
• Is a landscape design recommended before a pool installation?
• What permits or rules do homeowners need to be aware of when considering a pool?
• What should homeowners look for in a pool installer?

You can find Garden Retreats online here.

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe!

This week on Down The Garden Path, we speak with Aquatech Irrigation Systems' Paul Kostka about lighting and irrigation.

Paul Kostka has worked in the irrigation business for 18 years with Aquatech Irrigation Systems. For the past nine years, he has specialized in landscape lighting with the creation of the lighting branch of the company, Lightech.

Join us this week for our conversation about lighting and irrigation with Paul Kostka of Aquatech Irrigation Systems.

Paul answers our questions and tells us about the work he does:

• Tell us more about your time at Aquatech Irrigation.
• What are the different types of lighting systems you install?
• We discuss "low-voltage lighting." (The energy efficiency, and bulb longevity.)
• What should homeowners consider before when choosing landscape lighting?
• What are the benefits of installing landscape lighting?
• How easy is it to install? What does it take to have a properly set up system?
• What is the difference between DIY light kits/box store lights and a professionally installed system?
• Can you install it in an existing landscape? How much disruption does it cause?
• In a brand-new install with a brand-new landscape, when is the best time for you to get involved? At the design stage or after everything is installed? Installing irrigation at the same time?
• Is there an estimate based on the size of the back yard how many lights you should have?
• Can you speak to the low maintenance features? How you control lights, and timing, can you change to Christmas lights? Do you offer maintenance packages?

You can find Aquatech Irrigation Systems online here.

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

This week on Down The Garden Path, we speak with The Growing Season's Matt McFarland about landscape design.

Matt McFarland grew up in a Landscape household and after 32 years in horticulture, he still gets excited about plants. Matt's father Jack ran Glen Echo Landscaping and Blue Jay Landscaping for 20 years. He instilled in Matt a love of the outdoors and the elegance of working with rocks and plants.

Matt attended Humber College's Landscape Technician Program. Graduating top of his class, Matt ventured out and took over the family business. Currently, Matt consults, designs, and installs many of his creations. His design services are now being requested internationally.

Join us this week for our conversation with The Growing Season's Matt McFarland.

You'll learn more about Matt and the work he does:

• tiny gardens but quickly grew to involve landscape designs and installs of all shapes and sizes.
• Matt walks us through his design process: his garden designs start with a colour scheme, taking cues from the homeowner and from the house itself to create a wonderful plant palette for his clients.
• For designs and installations, Matt tries to get ahead of the trends and strives to give his clients unique designs with both interesting plants and other features.
• When asked why he believes homeowners should invest in a landscape designer, Matt used a great analogy: creating a successful landscape without a plan is like putting IKEA furniture together without the instructions.
• Matt's company The Growing Season is based in the Bolton/Caledon area and Oakville is the farthest west they will go.
• His radio show and podcast 'The Growing Season' can be found at SAUGA 960. It airs live Saturday mornings at 10 am with podcasts that can be found here.

You can visit Matt McFarland online here.

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

Goodbye February and welcome to March! With spring just a few weeks away and warmer weather creeping into our forecasts, we're looking ahead to landscape design projects. This week on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw answer your (many!) hardscaping questions.

Tune into this week's podcast and get Your Hardscaping Questions Answered.

Matt and Joanne fielded a record 22 questions during their hour-long show.

They start by answering the basics:

• What does "hardscaping" mean?
• And by contrast, what does "softscaping" or landscaping mean?
• It is all about the base! Are limestone screenings a good base to put down under paving stones?
• What are some of the other base options?
• Is there a best way to put sand in between patio stones? Is there "better" sand to use?

Matt and Joanne also answered listener questions about:

• the use of plastic, fabric and mulch in gardens
• low voltage lighting best practices
• the best trees you can choose for privacy
• fruit trees and their suggestions for choosing one for your garden

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path podcast, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

This week on Down The Garden Path, we speak with author and blogger Jennifer McGuinness about her new book Micro Food Gardening, hitting shelves in April 2021.

Jennifer began regularly blogging as Frau Zinnie in 2011. You can find Jennifer's writing, photography and personal gardening experiences in her Connecticut garden on her website, along with interviews with garden experts.

Jennifer follows organic gardening methods growing both ornamental and edible plants. She likes to experiment with growing compact and dwarf edibles in containers. When Jennifer is not in the garden, she works in the communications field as a writer and editor. She is also a professional photographer and available for gardening lectures.

What is micro food gardening? Here's an excerpt from Jennifer's book Micro Food Gardening:

WHAT IS CONSIDERED A MICRO VEGGIE, FRUIT, OR HERB? Generally speaking, it is any plant that is approximately 18 inches (46 cm) or smaller when the plant has reached harvest size. Some plants, such as vines, may grow a little larger but still produce mini-size fruits. Veggies, fruits, and herbs all offer an edible component, which makes them different than a plant considered ornamental, which does not feature any edible parts. There are even some micro edible flowers, which can add a splash of color to salads, ice cubes, and cakes.

Join us this week for our conversation with author and blogger Jennifer McGuiness.

Jennifer answered our many questions:

• What inspired you to write Micro Food Gardening?
• In the book, you talk about setting up your small space and the considerations when doing so. Can you share with our listeners what they need to start micro food gardening?
• Is it best to start from seed? Do garden centres carry these dwarf vegetable cultivars?
• If growing from seed, where do you recommend looking for micro food varieties?

Jennifer advises to search out dwarf plant seeds at any seed company paying particular attention to the plant size. Garden centres may carry dwarf plant varieties as well; now you know to look for them.

Containers are an important feature in growing micro plants. Micro Food Gardening covers different types of containers and their pros and cons. Many of the projects featured in the book use common containers in really creative ways.

• You have so many inspiring DIY projects in the book: what is one you hope readers will try?
• Which project do you think would be most successful on a balcony?

Jennifer's favorite project from the book? The Strawbery Cake Stand project (shown on the book's front cover).

You can find Jennifer online here.

Micro Food Growing: Pre-Order Special

Micro Food Growing will be available to order April 6th. Click here to order your copy.

Pre-Order Special: Order your copy of Micro Food Growing by April 5th and Jennifer will send you a collection of recipes. All you have to do is email her a screenshot of your order ([email protected]).

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

This week on Down the Garden Path, we continue to explore ways we can have a positive impact on our environment with a discussion about electric cars with Tim Burrows. We enjoyed learning more about the topic and realize it is an important discussion to have. Change is coming but will be happening slowly.

Tim has owned and driven battery-electric cars for the past seven years and has logged over 250,000 kilometres without the need for gasoline or diesel fuel. He now enjoys sharing his EV experience with others and breaks down many myths and misconceptions about electric vehicle ownership.

Tim is a member of the Electric Vehicle Society, a non-profit organization that works to promote the understanding and adoption of electric mobility in Canada. In his role there, he chairs the EV Society's Mississauga Chapter.

Join us this week for our conversation with electric car enthusiast Tim Burrows.

Tim fielded a lot of questions from our radio audience in this popular episode and answered some of our own.

• What made you buy your first electric car?
• Electric cars have been around for a while; what are some new developments?
• What are some of the concerns and objections about electric cars (like the expense -- we can't all afford a Tesla).

Despite the high upfront cost involved in purchasing an electric car, there are many factors that contribute to you saving money in the long run. A lot of the concern seems to surround the batteries. Tim discusses the length of the charge, and how the cars actually work to conserve the energy they have in them. He also points out that you start with a full charge every morning.

• We learn about the issues surrounding the materials in the batteries: cobalt and lithium. Some of these concerns centre around the environmental and humanitarian factors impacted by those components.
• Electric car companies and other electronics companies like Apple are striving to find ways to remove cobalt from their batteries.
• We discuss how in Ontario and Canada our electricity is very "clean" energy and despite possible rate increases for electricity, the per km rate of electricity will still be on par or lower than what we are paying per litre for gas

Tim is an enthusiast in the electric car industry and has no affiliation with any company. You can check him out at TimTalksTesla.com

Join us next week for our final February podcast:

• February 28th: Micro Food Growing with Jennifer McGuinness

About Your Hosts

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.