In this week's episode of Down the Garden Path, we reach the end of our month-long discussion on deciduous and evergreen shrubs. Each week in July, we discussed a variety of shrub-related topics including how to prune your shrubs and new and noteworthy deciduous and evergreen shrubs. On this week's podcast, we continue the discussion about shrubs with a look at nativars.

Tune into this week's podcast as we discuss nativars.

Here are some of the topics we cover this week:

• 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.

Tune in each Monday in August on the Down The Garden Path podcast as we shift our focus from growing deciduous and evergreen shrubs to trees. Join us on August 3rd for our first episode featuring native trees.

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. You can follow Joanne on Facebook and Instagram for daily inspiration for your home's landscape and garden all year long.

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.