In this episode of Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing provide some tips and tricks and do’s and don'ts for your September garden.

Here are some of the topics covered in this episode:

• Plan your fall bulb display. Buy now for the best selection.
• Continue deadheading your summer bulbs.
• Plant cool and cold-tolerant vegetables.
• What to look for at perennial plant sales.
• When to bring in your tropical plant material.
• Now is the time to apply nematodes and repair your lawn.
• How to treat your crab grass.
• Caring for your deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs.
• How to add fall interest to the landscape.

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.  

You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne and Matthew via their websites:  

Joanne Shaw: down2earth.ca 

Matthew Dressing: naturalaffinity.ca

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

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. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe to be notified of new content. You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.

In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss a popular and sometimes controversial topic in the garden: mulch.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• What is mulch?
• The different kinds of mulch
• What are the benefits of adding mulch to your garden?
• Ways to use mulch correctly
• Ditching the landscape fabric

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.  

You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne and Matthew via their websites:  

Joanne Shaw: down2earth.ca 

Matthew Dressing: naturalaffinity.ca

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

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. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe to be notified of new content. You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.

In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing show you how to keep your garden and landscape thriving during the August heat with tips and tricks and do’s and don'ts for your August garden.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Plan what fall bulbs you’d like to plant for your spring garden. Order now and buy early for the best varieties.
• Source garlic bulbs from a local farmer or reputable seed company to have them ready for fall planting.
• Continue to trim herbs like mint, chives, dill, etc., to encourage flavourful new growth.
• Cover ripening fruit to protect from birds and critters.
• Sow seeds of beans, beets, spinach, and turnips for a fall harvest.
• Check fruits, vegetables, annuals, perennials, trees, and shrubs for pests and diseases and remove, as necessary.
• Use Japanese beetle traps to control populations. Remember, 1 is enough for urban landscapes.
• Apply nematodes in mid-August, or sooner, to control white grub populations in the lawn.
• Continue to deadhead annuals and perennials to promote new blooms.
• Continue fertilizing containers, window boxes, and hanging baskets with a water-soluble fertilizer once every two weeks until Thanksgiving or you dispose of them for the season.
• Apply a new layer of rich compost to garden beds.
• Continue to weed your lawns and hardscapes.
• Remove small errant shoots from topiaries, shrubs, and hedges.

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.  

You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne and Matthew via their websites:  

Joanne Shaw: down2earth.ca 

Matthew Dressing: naturalaffinity.ca

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

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. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe to be notified of new content. You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.

Summer has just begun, and forecasters predict it will be one of the hottest summers in recorded history. In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing show you how to keep your garden and landscape cool and colourful in the summer heat with tips and tricks and do’s and don'ts for your July garden.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Pros and cons of the recent hard fast rain and things to consider with your garden and containers.
• Lawns
  • The importance of watering deeply but less frequently
  • The best type of fertilizer for your lawn situation
  • The best time to fertilize
  • Staying on top of weeds
• Perennials/Annuals in the Garden
  • Deadhead perennials to clean up or encourage new growth 
  • It may be time to clean up your annual containers and replace individual plants if there is a dead or poor-growing one.
  • Make sure the annual containers are not being over under or overwatered
  • Time to fertilize containers as well
• Shrubs: Pruning spring bloomers after flowering
• Trees: Fertilizing shrubs and trees, the best timing depending on the weather.
• Best ways to deep-water trees; do not rely on rain only
• Matthew and Joanne’s vegetable garden
• Don’t miss Matthew on Global News Morning this Friday!

After nine seasons and over 340 episodes, Down the Garden Path Podcast is ending its live broadcast on Reality Radio 101.

Although it was the last live broadcast, listeners can find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast. 

You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne and Matthew via their websites:

Joanne Shaw: down2earth.ca 

Matthew Dressing: naturalaffinity.ca

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

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. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe to be notified of new content. You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.

After nine seasons and over 340 episodes, Down the Garden Path Podcast is ending its live broadcast on Reality Radio 101. In this episode, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing look back at Down the Garden Path through the years and recount some of their favourite episodes, topics, guests, and moments since the show first aired on Monday, November 17th, 2014.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• How did Down the Garden Path start nine years ago?
• Where can listeners tune into past radio show episodes?
• Why did Joanne and Matt enter the world of podcasting?
• Why did they decide to leave internet radio?
• What’s next for Down the Garden Path Podcast?
• What are some of Joanne's favourite topics?
  • Straw Bale Gardening with Joel Karsten
  • Hellstrip Gardening with Evelyn Hadden
• What are some of Matt’s favourite topics?
  • Author’s month – great books on several great topics.
• Who are some of Joanne's favourite guests?
  • Repeat guests Jan Johnsen, Julia Dimakos (Gardening Girl), Lisa Steinkopf (The Houseplant Guru) Stephanie Rose (Gardentherapy.ca) Dawn Golloher (Gardens Plus)
• Who are some of Matt's favourite guests?
  • Julia Dimakos (Tea Gardening for Beginners): Their first official, and only other, ‘co-host.’
  • Katie Dubow (Garden Trends Reports).
• What are some of Joanne’s favourite episodes?
  • Plant-specific shows where they do deep dives
  • Month-in-the-garden episodes
• What are some of Matt’s favourite episodes?
  • Launch Party: They announced that they’d published their book based on their month-in-the-garden series.
  • Ask Us Anything and month-in-the-garden series: Matt loved getting questions from listeners, hearing where they’re from, and what’s exciting in their gardens.
• Other favourites included:
  • From Joanne:
    • The beginning of the radio show with Gary.
    • Recording in the studio
  • From Matt:
    • Finding out about their birthdays.
    • Matt’s first episode.
    • The first episode of Down the Garden Path.
• Where can listeners tune into Down the Garden Path Podcast after the last episode airs on June 26th, 2023?
• Can listeners still send in gardening questions? Yes! Let’s continue the discussion on Facebook!

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

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. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their new book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.

In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing are joined by Tamara Urben-Imbeault from Plantzza Hut to discuss how to select, care for, and grow carnivorous plants.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Tell us what inspired you to found Plantzza Hut. 
• How are carnivorous plants different from what we might consider a traditional plant?
• What do carnivorous plants eat? 
• If we don’t have insects to feed them, how can we keep them healthy?
• What are some of the common carnivorous plants people find in garden centres?
• How many different species are there and where are they native to? 
• In Ontario, we know carnivorous plants to be tropical indoor plants. Are there any that are hardy here?
• What are some of your favourite carnivorous plants?
• How are carnivorous plants produced? Is it the same way annuals and perennials are started in the nursery?
• Carnivorous plants indoors: How do we care for them? Is it easy?
• Carnivorous plants outdoors: How do we care for them? Is it easy?
• What are some of the common pests and diseases that affect carnivorous plants?

Where can you find Tamara and Plantzza Hut online?

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @plantzzahut

Facebook: Carnivorous Plant Club Toronto & GTA

Carnivorous Plant Society of Canada

California Carnivores  

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

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. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their new book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.

Cannabis and its use have historically been a hot topic in North America. But on October 17th, 2018, subject to provincial and territorial restrictions, the Canadian government legalized its use across the country. In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing welcome Sarah Osterlee of Empress Gardens to share her knowledge on the art of cultivating cannabis.

About Sarah Osterlee

Sarah owns a gardening company called Empress Gardens that offers consulting on all plants, including cannabis. Sarah has a red trade seal and diploma in horticulture and a grad certification in cannabis production.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Tell us more about Empress Gardens. Where do you operate and service? What services do you offer?
• Cannabis anatomy:
  • Why is this important and what do casual growers need to keep in mind?
• What species of cannabis are there?  
• What is a cannabis strain and how are they produced?
• What is the life cycle of cannabis?
• What growing conditions does cannabis require?
• What pests and diseases do casual cannabis growers have to be aware of? How do we treat these issues?
• Indoor vs. outdoor growing:
  • How does each method differ?
  • What do we need to consider when deciding which is better for us?
• What are ‘cannabinoids’ and why are they important?
• How can someone increase the cannabinoids of their plant?
• Where can our listeners go to learn more about growing cannabis?

Website: www.empressgardeningservice.com

Instagram: @empress.gardens

Facebook: @empressgardeningservice

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

Down the Garden Path: Growing Cannabis

Down the Garden Path: Cannabis, Part Two

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. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their new book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.

With the hustle and bustle of May behind us, the month of June promises warmer weather and time to relax. But don't let that keep you out of the garden; there's plenty to be done. In this episode of Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing share their do’s and don'ts for your June garden so you can spend less time working on it and more time enjoying it.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Lawn care for June: grubs, fertilizing, and mowing
• Preparing for Japanese beetles
• What vegetables we can plant in June
• Growing, fruits, vegetables, and other hardy plant material in containers
• How to amend troublesome soil
• Best watering practices

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

Growing Exotic Apples with Susan Poizner of Orchard People

Water Garden Trends with Ernest Williams

Aquascape

When people think about native plants, they often think of a wild meadow or an unkept urban lot. But natives offer many design opportunities and benefits to our gardens and landscapes. On this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss how to design with native plants and strike a balance in your garden between natives and the foreign ornamentals we love so much.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• How do you define native?
• Where to look for native plants?
• How should I start going about designing with native plants?
• Using nativars.
• “Hedges make edges.”

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

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. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their new book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.

In this encore episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing wrap up their month-long discussion about shrubs with a look at nativars.

Here are some of the topics covered in this episode:

• What is a nativar?
• How are nativars produced?
• Substantial differences between cultivars and nativars and what to avoid:
  • Some attract and sustain the same populations as their native parent
  • Others do not attract as many pollinators as their native parent.
  • Some nativars do not have the same quantity or quality of pollen and nectar resources.
  • Avoid nativars whose leaf colour is different than its parent.
• Reasons for planting as close to the native species as possible.
• Some popular North American nativars you might find in your local garden center.

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. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their new book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.