Make It Green Garden Centre

Organic garden centre in Ottawa Ontario Canada

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

Clearing out our annuals at half price until they are gone. Great selection in stock now.

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

Momma duck’s brood of 12 in one of our ponds. Best of luck!

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

Our duck family is moving out. Born on top of a planted barrel in our parking lot, they left the barrel ( not sure how they got down), headed to one of our ponds for the day and left for the river the next morning.

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@JonFraserTF @LangagerLes @JinglaiHe Lots of hard working people in Ottawa. Admittedly we prefer farm kids who understand hard work/long hours but lots of city kids adjust and work their butts off. Some of our growers have foreign workers with them for decades. That knowledge would take a few years to replace

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

In the non-positive interaction department, a customer let her kids run wild at the garden centre and one of them was kicked our cat several times. She is older and less able to escape predators. Letting kids run wild seems to be a theme for the season thus far.

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

Many plant producers raised prices significantly during the pandemic. In 2024 they did the same but a poor sales year made many examine their prices and reduce them. This year we have lowered prices on several hundred plants. Only 5 have gone up.

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

Seems like every spring the best intentions to post on X fall short. Since we post regularly on Facebook and instagram I thought I might use X to comment on the goings on that impact the garden centre in positive or negative ways. More to come…. I promise.

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@underscoreg3 @jakietheboycat @sarahelder @SheilaMeagher She’s not wrong. We rent a washroom trailer now with cleaning services. In the past we’ve had multiple occurrences in the same day when it would take a staff member 45 minutes to clean and disinfect the washroom.

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

Back in the 70’s these snapdragons were nearly as popular as pansies for early spring planting. Hardy to -8 or colder and lots of colours to choose from.

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

Some “kindly” squirrel transplanted these into my yard!

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

Hard to believe that a grower sent several trees like this. We just returned them today. Reminiscent of 25 years ago and I though we had improved a lot as an industry. Maybe pandemic labour issues are to blame but to me this is a significant setback. Choose your plants carefully

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

Perfect day for removing the invasive grass from my herb garden. The ground is soft (I stand in the adjacent window well so no soil compaction). This runner was taller than me and came out in under 15 seconds)

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@Cruntchie @peggy_blair Some home stagers have been a pain in the butt for garden centres and home decor stores for years. The practice of buying stuff to make the home look great and then returning it once the showing is over ties up a lot of inventory and it rarely comes back in the same condition.

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@TonyPeric @MJM_chibroker @texasrunnerDFW It’s just one bit of data but worth keeping an eye on. Another bit of data: we have 25 suppliers of plants and other outdoor goods. They have all become a lot more aggressive trying to book orders for next spring than at any time since 2009. 97% of our sales go to homeowners

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@BDavenport7 @jenwiderberg @MattWalshBlog We hire 5ish gen z college/university students every spring. Tell them that they need to work 6 or 7 days a week, 9+ hour days for two months followed by two months in the summer of normal work. We try to make stressful work fun. They do the job without complaint, happy for the $

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@ForrestRoche @sensoryacuity @Norris1Emma Way less plastic in Canada now. At our garden centre we used to offer plastic trunk covers but they are now banned. We offer (our used) cardboard instead. Less than 1 in 100 complain. No plastic shopping bags in grocery stores, plastic straws, etc. Legislation works

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@nonrev321 @HawaiiDelilah If those are leaves that I see higher up then foliar feeding could replace the nutrients until the roots regrow

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@GeoffyPJohnston @Patrici52965206 We’ve closed early three times in June due to unsafe air quality. Last time we had 22 complaints from people upset that we weren’t there and 6 people who said they were glad we didn’t risk our staff’s health. Too often reasonable voices aren’t heard because they don’t speak up.

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@ctvottawa We track incoming potentially dangerous storm systems to keep our staff and customers safe. Yesterday was particularly challenging as the storm was forming almost overhead. I expect they had the same issue at the golf course

[Make It Green Garden Centre @makeitgreengc]

@ctvottawa Every year we get dozens of complaints from customers when we refuse to help them select plants or load soil in their car during a thunderstorm.