Ontario Plants
Perennials and Ground Cover
It’s possible to plant native flowers so that you get a constant display of gorgeous bloom three seasons a year (four, if you plant evergreen bushes with little red fruits). Plants are fun. What’s even more fun are all the native perennials that will just do all the work for you without you having to do more than given them dirt and water.
What’s not fun are invasive plants that can escape from your garden and wreak havoc on the landscape. Nobody likes invaders, and we don’t like invasives, so we won’t grow or sell them.
Ground Cover Options
Alternatives to Lawn
We believe in creating opportunities to do something with soil other than planting lawn. Lawn is sterile, bad for ecological diversity, and hard to maintain, as well as boring.
Moss – Sagina Subulata
Slow growing but steady. Multiple plants make for a solid carpet. Maturity: 2″ tall, spreads. Plant in groups. Native; water if intensely sunny; Z 4-7.
While not native to Ontario, these two species of moss can handle full sun as well as partial shade. Animals tend not to eat it, it last throughout the winter (it’s evergreen), and can be stepped on to some degree. Not only that, it requires almost no maintenance.
Low – only 5 cm at most – it makes a perfect ground cover for in-between spaces, and when it spreads in great mats, it looks and feels luxuriant. Even better, it produces tiny, tiny 2 mm white flowers in the summer.
These make great cover for almost everything.
Both of these plants are the same; they just have a slightly different colour. It’s nurseries that have given them different names, for marketing purposes. Don’t be fooled: They’re the same plant, in very mildly different genetic varieties.
“Irish Moss” – Sagina Subulata / Rich dark green, this moss is has a great colour and cushiony mounds.
“Scotch Moss” – Sagina Subulata “Aurea” / This is a lighter green, almost yellowy variety.
BUNCHBERRY – Cornus Canadensis
Ripens fall; multiple plants make for a solid carpet. Maturity: 4″ tall, 4″ around. Plant in groups. Native; Partial Shade; Z 3-6.
Ontario Native Plant
In a shady area, the bunchberry is the perfect ground cover plant. It gets about 15 cm tall, and eventually forms a wonderful wavy carpet. They’re fantastic in mass plantings.
A shade-loving native plant, the bunchberry was a common plant in Ontario’s forests until they were all cut down. If it finds a spot it likes, the bunchberry will spread out and cover as much as possible. They spread by runners. They like shade, but can grow in sun if they’re very wet, but they dislike boggy land.
The best thing is that they produce unique berries that make the most amazing jam. Their taste isn’t super special – not bad, not too intense – but they have incredible levels of natural pectin, so they can thicken things like jams and jellies and add substance to preserves. Since easier but less interesting fruit appeared from Europe, the Bunchberry has been almost forgotten, but this is a true natural gem in Ontario. No garden should be without bunchberries.
For urban gardens, Bunchberries are exceptionally hard to find. We put a lot of effort into these guys. They also reward planters, because once they develop big carpets in shady areas, they require little to no maintenance. They just do their thing – look beautiful, and make delicious berries at the end of the summer.
They need part shade to shade.
BEARBERRY – Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi
Kinnikinick, Hog Cranberry
Ripens fall; great carpet plant. Maturity: 4″ tall, spreads. Plant in groups. Native; Full Sun or partial shade; Z 3-6.
Ontario Native Plant
A classic Canadian plant, the Bearberry gets its name honestly. Bears do, in fact, eat the berries. But it’s also beautiful, too – a wonderful evergreen ground cover plant. Even better, the berries are edible; Lots many can cause kidney failure in people with kidney problems, but the berry and leaves are used in herbal medicines. Mixed in with other berries, they add a lot of flavour to jams.
But the plant itself is also a bit of a marvel. They make great cover, and smell nice, and forest-y. They’re good for rock-gardens, too. Like Thyme, they’ll crawl all over everything.
Bearberries are super-tough. They can take full sun or partial shade, can take dry conditions, and are evergreen – green year-round. They do well on roadsides, beside driveways, along paths and in other places like this – and elsewhere where conditions are tough. They grow slowly, but surely. Best of all, they basically need you to do nothing but plant them and leave them alone.
TEABERRY – Gaultheria Procumbens
American Wintergreen, Canada Tea
Ripens fall; multiple plants make for a solid carpet. Maturity: 4″ tall, spreads around. Plant in groups. Native; Shade; Z 3-5.
Ontario Native Plant
With its evergreen leaves, this wonderful winter cover spreads under trees. Its berries and leaves are edible, and have been used for hundreds of years for medical purposes. The leaves can be used to make tea, and when they’re fermented for three days, the essential oils can be extracted.
The leaves and little red berries have a strong mint or “spearmint” flavour, from the same spearmint chemical- methyl salicylate. The berries are actually dry capsules that last all winter, and they can be eaten (chewed) straight or used in cooking and tea. Traditional native societies used it for “headache, colds, stomachaches, increasing energy and breathing, and the oil was used topically for muscle aches, arthritis, and rheumatism.” Taken in large quantities, though, methyl salicylate is potentially toxic; it has to be a lot, but you can poison yourself. It’s not good for children or pregnant women.
This wonderful ground plant only spreads about 10 cm a year, but it’s very tenacious. It does, however, need shade.
THYME – Thymus Serpyllum
Multiple plants make for a solid carpet. Maturity: 4″ tall, spreads slowly but relentlessly. Plant in groups. Full sun. Z 4-8.
Thyme is a classic ground cover. It trails over rocks, gets into crevices, and hangs over gaps. Thyme is tough, too: it can take stepping, so it’s great for in-between pathway stones, and it drapes off of rocks. Mats of thyme are perfect for rocky gardens and even planters. Once established, it can go for a while without lots of water, and even when it seems to die back, it’s often just dormant. It may start slow, and take a seasonto get going, but once it does, it gives any garden a regal, almost luxurious feel, with scented carpets draping over all available surfaces.
The best thing is that you can use it with food too – thyme is a classic herb.
There are lots of kinds of thyme, more than can easily be counted. We grow a few really tough, really tasty, really tough varieties, each of them different. They’re great when they’re mixed.
Thyme tends to be evergreen – green even in winter – and, in general, animals don’t eat it.
Thyme Varieties
Thymus Praecox ‘Elfin’ / Thymus serpyllum ‘Elfin’
This has tiny leaves, for a tiny version of Thyme. Its little hairy leaves are perfect for walkways and gaps in between paving stones. It has little pink flowers that come out in the early summer.
Mother-of-Thyme / Wild Thyme – Thymus Serpyllum
Taller than the smaller varieties (25 cm), wild thyme spreads fast and is a really strong grower. It has pink and purple flowers in the middle of the summer, and the leaves turn a bit purple in the fall.
White Mother-of-Thyme – Thymus Serpyllum ‘Alba’
This is similar to mother of thyme, but it has white flowers.
Variegated Lemon Thyme – Thymus x citriodorus ‘Aureus’
With a scent of lemon, this classic thyme forms little mounds. The early summer flowers are purple and lavender. It’s one of the better thymes for seasoning. It’s also good dried, and smells wonderful.
Woolly Thyme
Fuzzy and deeply scented, wooly thyme can take foot traffic, and dry conditions, and keep on going. It has a greyish-blue appearance, and a fuzzy texture.
HENS AND CHICKS – Sempervivum Tectorum
Multiple plants blend together. Maturity: 4-5″ tall, spreads slowly but relentlessly, like a tide coming in. Plant in groups for dramatic effect. Full sun. Cold-tolerant. Z 4-8.
Ontario Native Plant
A super-tough garden classic, Hens and Chicks are a succulent native Ontario plant that expands into the space you give it. Its colours mix greens, bluish tones and purples. It’s the perfect perennial for rock gardens, surface cover and areas with stressful environments. It tolerates lack of water and some shade, too. In general, animals won’t eat them.
Sedums and Sedum Mats
Huge variety make good mixes. Maturity: 4-5″ tall for most, some very large, spreads slowly. Plant in groups for dramatic effect. Full sun. Most varieties cold-tolerant. Z 4-8.
There are dozens of kinds of sedums, all of them fascinating in their own way. There are so many kinds, it’s hard to keep track of them. These little succulents all have unique qualities, almost like unique plant personalities. Purple, orange, red, green yellow, variegated and multicoloured, … bulbous, long, squat, tiny, hard, soft, flowery – they’re spectacular in groups and make fantastic replacement cover for grasses and lawns. The best way to use them is to mix them up for spectacular displays.
What’s most amazing is that you can actually mow them if they get too big. Many of them can take foot traffic, too.
Sedums and Sedum Mats
Sedum Plugs
These small sedum plants will grow, but they are perfect for fitting in to rock gardens and other spaces where they need to fill out.
They’re succulent, and can survive winter. They can also crowd out weeds.
Pre-Grown Sedum Mats
Another way to use sedums is to use one of our mats. These are large mats of sedums, all grown together, with a dozen or more varieties all integrated. They make a fantastic ready-to-lay-down carpet for walkways and rock gardens, or anywhere else. They can easily replace whole lawn segments, act as edging, and cover points in a garden.
Living roofs and walls
Because sedums have shallow root systems, survive wet and dry conditions well, and need little care, they are perfect for “living roof” and wall placement. Sedum mats make this extremely easy.
Perennials Plants
Foam Flower – Tiarella Cordifolia
Ontario Native Plant
A well-known Canadian favourite, this pant spreads with suckers from its rhizomes. It has 10 cm heart-shaped white flowers that come from pink buds, and the leaves turn bronze-coloured when the weather changes. The plants are about 15 cm tall, and the flowers about 30 cm.
It’s great for shady places, and for general ground cover.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit – Arisaema Triphyllum
Ontario Native Plant
This magical looking flower has purple stems and hooded flowers, with berries later on (which you can’t eat).
It’s a woodland flower, and quite rare – a real specimen to keep in the garden. The flowers appear in the spring, and the plant might go dormant in the later summer.
Canada Anemone- Anemone Canadensis-“Roundleaf Thimbleweed”
Ontario Native Plant
Lobed, green leaves and a tough plant produce white flowers with yellow middles in the spring and early summer. A beautiful flower to add to a garden.
Canada Violet – Viola Canadensis
Ontario Native Plant
Heart-shaped leaves and purple stalks produce white flowers with a bit of purple, and yellow centres. They bloom for a long time, too – from spring to July. This is a classic addition to any Ontario garden. It’s pretty, and very well-behaved, too.
Dwarf Goat’s Beard –
Aruncus Aethusifolius
Ontario Native Plant
A low mound of leaves pushes up short stems and produces creamy-white flowers, which look beautiful along borders, in the spring and summer.
Woodland Sunflower – Helianthus Divaricatus
Ontario Native Plant
Broad, dark green leaves surround 5 cm yellow, daisy-like flowers, from the summer through the fall.
Harebell – Campanula Rotundifolia
Ontario Native Plant
Heart-shaped leaves surround the centre. From the middle come small, bell-like light blue flowers on upright stems. Sometimes, they’re white.
The flowers are about 60 cm and come in the middle of the summer.
Cardinal Flower – Lobelia Cardinalis
Ontario Native Plant
Toothed, narrow, tall 70 cm dark green leaves produce tubular flowers on 125 cm tall stalks. These flowers arrive from the summer to the early fall, scarlet-red and striking. The flowers are favourites of butterflies and hummingbirds.
False Sunflower – Heliopsis Helianthoides – “Scabra” – “Summer Sun”
Ontario Native Plant
This has oval leaves with serrated edges. The 7.5 cm flowers have an orange eye around petals like a daisy, and the flowers atgtract butterflies and birds.
Trout lily – Erythronium Americanum
Ontario Native Plant
The leaves are shiny and either green or purple-brown. In early spring, bell-shaped flower emerge, yellow with purple or brown anthers inside.
Purple Coneflower – Echinacea Purpurea
Ontario Native Plant
Similar to the species in Europe used for medicines, this gorgeous Ontario flower blooms later in the season. No native harden is really complete without this gorgeous flower.
Milkweed
Ontario Native Plant
A critical foodsource for Monarch butterfly caterpillars, milkweed blooms in the late summer. You can help monarchs butterflies. There are several varieties; each is slightly different, but they all add a wonderful touch to a native garden.
You can help monarchs while bringing the scent of vanilla to your yard!
This variety can handle some shade, but it really wants direct sunlight. The more sun it gets, the better.
Butterfly Milkweed – Asclepias Tuberosa
Ontario Native Plant
This variety is bright orange and striking, for several months. One of the best ways to plant, given its colour, is to mix it with other more basic colours.
Swamp Milkweed –
Asclepias Incarnata
Ontario Native Plant
It comes up slowly in the spring, but its flowers linger and then the seed pods come. As its name suggests, it loves wet soil and valleys where water collects.
New England Aster – Aster Novae-angliae
Ontario Native Plant
Very late to bloom, this flower is common in meadows in Ontario. It’s great along edges and borders, where it likes the open area. It can get up to 1 metre tall.
Wild Bee Balm
Ontario Native Plant
It smells like oregano, but it’s not actually edible. Tall (1 metre), it has a unique flower with lots of thin petals that give it an otherworldly look.
Yarrow – Achillea millefolium
Ontario Native Plant
Used to make teas for medical conditions, and used to stop bleeding. It mostly spreads by seed, and if it likes an area, it will colonize it. The leaves are delicate, and easily recognized, and almost more beautiful than the flowers. It gets about 50 cm tall.
Culvert’s Root – Veronicastrum Virginicum
Ontario Native Plant
Tall and majestic, this spear-like plant reaches right up. It can take some shade, but it needs a lot of water to reach the sky. This variety is purple; it’s a bit shorter than the standard one. It needs moist soil, but otherwise can be left to its own devices.
Fireweed – Epilobium angustifolium
Ontario Native Plant
It’s found throughout the Northern hemisphere – from Canada to Asia and Europe.
It grows fast and makes for great cut flowers, with a deep purple radiance.
Lance-Leaved Tickseed – Coreopsis Lanceolata
Ontario Native Plant
Blooming in late spring and early summer, this flower likes rocky soil and heat, and can withstand lack of water. It gets to about 50 cm tall. The “lance”- shaped leaves go right up to the flowers, which are like colourful crowns.
Poppies
Ontario Native Plant
Poppies aren’t native to Ontario, but many people love them. We have just a few interesting varieties. They tend to vary. The best thing is to ask if we have the variety you’re looking for, as we might, or if we have any interesting varieties this year.
Iceland / Arctic Poppy – Papaver miyabeanum ‘Pacino’
The blue-green leaves are compact, in a mound, and in the middle of summer to the end of fall, yellow flower cups emerge.
The seed pods are pretty, and stay on. The leaves get up to about 15 cm, and the flowers on 30 cm stalks.
Phlox
Ontario Native Plant
Phlox is often used for ground cover. It creeps along bright, sunny areas and trails over rocks and other objects, to create mounds. It only gets up to about 12 cm, but a singe plant can eventually spread out about half a metre.
Woodland Phlox – Phlox divaricata
Ontario Native Plant
20-30 cm tall, this native Ontario phlox builds huge colonies. They sport 4-cm flowers in pink and blue.
Phlox Subulata
Almost an evergreen, in spring, bright pink flowers emerge. If the winter isn’t very cold, or the plants are sheltered by an insulating later of snow, they often jump right back up in the spring. They look really fantastic in masses.
Garden Phlox – Phlox Paniculata “Peppermint Twist”
A tall plant, about 50 cm, this phlox has strong stems and spearpoint-like leaves. The two-coloured flowers, looking like something from a flag design or a fantasy flower, burst out in the summer and fall. They also smell wonderful. This is a genuinely fun and happy-looking flower.
Shade Plants
One of the toughest jobs for a gardeners is finding plants suitable for shady areas. Without direct sunlight, most plants find these places much less than ideal. Some won’t grow at all, true for most food plants that humans use, and others may grow, but either bide their time until they get sun, or shift into some other, limited growth pattern. Understory trees may sit and wait for ages until a break appears in the canopy, and then they rocket up to take the spot in a savage competition for the sky’s real estate.
This is why shade plants have to be appreciated. They help round out a garden and complete it. They also make neglected areas, like the north-facing sides of houses and structured, or the forest floor, or areas under structures, much more interesting.
Bleeding Heart – Lamprocapnos Spectabili
Maturity: 1.5m tall, 0.5m around. Native to Korea, Japan, China. Patial shade to full shade; dislikes intense heat. Z 3-7
This plant is native to Korea and Northeast Asia. It used to be called “Dicentra Spectabilis”, a name which some people might still use. While this very strange plant isn’t native to Ontario, it’s not particularly invasive, because it requires very specific growing conditions for survival. It makes for a good plant to have indoors, too, or in containers, so long as the conditions it’s grown in are precisely calibrated.
The truth is that this is one of those mystery plants that seems to die back and disappear, seemingly at will, sometimes without warning. People often think it’s dead, or gone, and then, like a brilliant burst of energy, it rushes back next spring. It can tolerate very cold climates, too, which is helpful in Canada, with sometimes longer winters. The foliage is very beautiful, big-lobed leaves and long stems, but the flowers are truly spectacular in a simultaneously showy and subtle way.
One of the disadvantages it faces in terms of competing with other plants and in surviving touch conditions may, in fact, be an advantage for gardeners.
This weird plant doesn’t like hot temperatures, and like a few others, it can seem like a “Spring Ephemeral” – up for a cheerful few months, and then gone in the middle of the summer. What’s happening is that in super hot temperatures, without water, and with intense sunlight, the plant sometimes goes dormant.
But what this means is that it can tolerate shade, and actually prefers it to direct, intense, hot sunlight. This makes it ideal for sheltered shady areas where other plants struggle to get by, and for areas with moisture. In other words, it can grow where ferns can grow, and it will complement them.
The true beauty of this plant is in its flowers. They droop like red, pink or white jewels from a string, extending out and up from the central area. They’re spectacularly showy. The neat thing is that it often re-blooms when it senses an opportunity or appropriate weather.
A single plant can get about 1.5m tall and 50 cm wide, and it spreads like a fern – by rhizomes. It can establish (fragile) colonies where it’s sheltered.
A woodland area is the preferred habitat, alongside ferns, mosses and other plants that like to hide from direct sun. The tricky thing about them is that they can take several years to get established, so getting already-established plants is a very good idea. They can survive to Zone 3.
Hostas
Hostas are part of a large group of plants that originate in Korea, Japan, and Northeast Asia. They’re mostly forest plants, growing in moist, shady conditions. There are a large number of species, maybe as many as 45 or more, and they cross-breed from time to time. This means that there is an ever-growing (pun intended) collection of varieties that have different properties. Not only are they great shade plants, that can grow in areas where the sun can’t shine directly, they’re also, believe it or not, an edible plant. When the leaves are young, they can be eaten. As the leaves get older, they get bitter, but the young leaves taste slightly like asparagus. This makes a lot of sense, because they’re distantly related to asparagus. Not that you should go out and eat them, but theoretically, depending on the variety, why not?
Hosta Albomarginata
Size: maturity, 80 cm
Leaves: Soft, green with white
Bloom: July-August, purple flowers
Zone 3-8
Hosta Mouse Ears
Size: miniature, 20 cm tall, 30 wide
Leaves: Tight, thick, curly, blue-green
Bloom: July-August, purple flowers
Zone 3-8, need some light
Hosta Mojito
Size: Huge, 80 cm tall, 1.5m wide
Leaves: Huge, wide, dark green
Bloom: July-August, white / lavender flowers
Zone 3-8
Hosta Blue Angel
Size: Miniature, 30 cm
Leaves: Large, gray/blue
Bloom: July-August, white / lavender flowers
Zone 3-8
Hosta Cherry Berry
Size: Huge, 30 cm tall, 1m wide
Leaves: Thin, green and white
Bloom: July-August, purple / blue flowers, red seed pods
Zone 3-8
Hosta August Moon
Size: maturity, 40 cm tall, 80 wide
Leaves: Heart-shaped, bright green / yellow
Bloom: July-August, purple flowers
Zone 3-8
Hosta Blue Wedgewood
Size: 50 cm
Leaves: Wavy, gray/blue
Bloom: July-August, white / lavender flowers
Zone 3-8, very intolerant of sun
Ontario Native Ferns
We love ferns, and we think you should, too. To help convince you, we have many. They look great in mass plantings. Imagine an ancient landscape filled with ferns, ferns that lived here since before the time of dinosaurs. How cool is that?
One thing about modern ferns (post-Dinosaur, say): the ferns have lost the competition with flowering plants for the sun, and have retreated into the forest. Almost all modern ferns require shade, even though some can tolerate very limited direct sunlight. They also don’t have flowers. They reproduce in a more ancient way – through spores on the underside of (some of) their fronds (they’re not called leaves, because they’re not quite the same). Of course, they also send out suckers and produce clone-colonies.
How to buy ferns: Customers like big, healthy, bushy plants. The thing is, with ferns, you’re not actually buying the big bushy leaves (fronds) as they are right now. The fronds are useful to show you the health of the rootball. Don’t look for big fronds, but a good, solid root ball / “rhizome”. A good rhizome will push up new fronds constantly. Actually, the fronds you bring home that look so nice can’t take a lot of damage,and are quite sensitive; if they break, even a little, the frond will die back. Don’t worry – the rhizome will push up more fronds, even if it waits until next year. This means that you should never dig up and throw out fern rhizomes just because their fronds have died back. They’ll come back later this season or next season.
We only grow and sell ferns native to Ontario. The object is to help regenerate the typical forest understory that used to exist before the natural forest was cut down. Also, native ferns survive better and support the local wildlife.
Sensitive Fern – Onoclea Sensibilis
Ontario Native Plant
It was called “sensitive” because it dies back at the first sign of frost. With broad, smooth, pale green frond, and a slowly creeping habit, it spreads in wide colonies until it forms spectacular, rich, luxurious ground cover. It also grows really fast. Even better, in boggy or damn areas, it’s right at home.
It can live in part shade, with some sunlight, but really loves shade.
Hart’s Tongue Fern –
Asplenium Scolopendrium “Spleenwort”
Ontario Native Plant
A very low-maintenance fern, this one has leathery leaf-like fronds with curly edges, and dark spores on the underside of the leaves. The fronds don’t die in the winter, but remain green until spring. The roots are shallow and black coloured.
In a setting with other ferns, Hart’s Tongue is a great addition for visual interest.
Northern Lady Fern – Athyrium Filix-Femina
Ontario Native Plant
This fern lives longer than most ferns, and congregates in clumps. The rizhomes spread close to the surface, and new ferns pop up along the way. It has a really delicate look to it, with very small leaflets along the fronds.
It takes almost no maintenance at all. In fact, in a shady, wet-ish area, it loves to be left alone to be graceful in its own way.
Hay Scented Fern – Dennstaedtia Punctilobula
Ontario Native Plant
This fern has long, half-metre fronds. It smells earthy, like grass, when you break the leaves. In the fall it turns orange-ish.
A word of warning: it can get invasive if you let it get out of control. It’s best in planters and other bordered areas in the shade.
Goldie’s Fern – Dryopteris Goldiana
“Giant Wood Fern”
Ontario Native Plant
With long stems, this the tallest (or almost the tallest) native fern. It spreads very slowly, but has shallow rhizomes, so it can be pulled up and even moved without difficulty. Light green fronds are produced in groups along the rhizomes.
A few of these forming a setting can be quite a show.
Marginal Shield Fern – Dryopteris Marginalis
“Eastern Wood Fern”
Ontario Native Plant
The early shoots have a furry texture, and develop into great, big, deep leathery fronds. The rhizomes also have a furry covering. Clumping, is keeps its fronds all winter, too – tough and hard to kill. Alas, it doesn’t spread by rhizomes, so it can be hard to generate colonies of them.
Northern Maidenhair Fern –
Adiantum pedatum
Ontario Native Plant
It takes about 3 years for this fern to reach its mature, adult size. Adding this to a mixture of ferns gives an assemblage an interesting combination. It spreads slowly, but it will eventually colonize an area that it likes.
Ostrich Fern – Matteuccia Struthiopteris
Ontario Native Plant
Easily the king of ferns in Ontario, this upright, earthy-scented fern has noble fronds around a tight core. The fronds are broad, deep green, and resilient. Brown sporing fronds appear in the middle in the late summer, before the fall sets in. Really, though, the ferns spread using rhizomes, and they can spread wide and far. If there’s shade, this plant will find it, and it will colonize like nothing else.
If you’re going to get ferns and want them to just do their thing and be resilient, then the Ostrich Fern is the one for you.