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Canada Blooms 2009
Toronto, Canada
From March 18 to 22, 2009,
Canada Blooms returned to Toronto to transform the Metro Toronto Convention
Centre into Canada’s largest flower and garden festival. Now in its
thirteenth year, the 2009 Festival celebrates the best of Canadian gardens
and explores the tradition of gardening and horticultural excellence across
the country.
The RBC Speakers Series presented five education days featuring North
America’s premier gardening experts. Themed days included Organic Gardening
Day, Design Day, and Scents and Sensibilities.
Canada’s Largest Standard Judged Flower Show - With the theme ‘Sea to Sea,’
the Garden Hall was filled with exciting amateur competitions in
horticulture and floral design from the best Ontario flower arrangers and
international competitors
Plastic nursery pots can be a landfill nightmare, but in the hands of
talented artists Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins, they beaome a
provocative and unconventional work of art. This renowned artistic team
created Land-Escape, a sculptured landscape that re-imagined a landfill site
teaming with discarded plastic pots, transforming shredded plastics, bulk
material and pellets into a brightly coloured art installation.
The largest garden at this year's show, The Heart and Stroke Foundation
Pulse Garden, in partnership with Humber College, featured flowering
dogwoods, Japanese maples, rhododendrons and ‘Red Prince’ weigelas, a
variety of perennials and signature Foundation red and white tulips. At one
end, a waterfall and pool encircled by a wheelchair ramp added to the beauty
and tranquility. Across from the pool, nursing students were on hand to take
blood pressure readings.
Canada Blooms is a not-for-profit volunteer-driven event which to date has
reinvested over $500,000 in proceeds into community horticultural projects.
This year’s proceeds will benefit the Toronto Botanical Gardens’ children’s
programs.
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It takes five days of
preparation to create over six acres of breathtaking gardens
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About 500 people work
around the clock to transform the Metro Toronto Convention Centre into
Canada’s largest flower and garden festival.
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It takes about 32 dump
trucks to bring in over 1,400 tons of sand, and eight truckloads of
mulch to create the plant beds for the Festival.
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$1.5 million of specialized
equipment is donated by major horticultural equipment manufacturers,
such as forklifts, skid steer and wheel loaders, to do the work.
-
About 500 people work
around the clock to transform the Metro Toronto Convention Centre into
Canada’s largest flower and garden festival.
-
It takes about 32 dump
trucks to bring in over 1,400 tons of sand, and eight truckloads of
mulch to create the plant beds for the Festival.
-
$1.5 million of specialized
equipment is donated by major horticultural equipment manufacturers,
such as forklifts, skid steer and wheel loaders, to do the work.
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Growers prepare more than
300 trees, 400 shrubs, 4,000 pots of perennials, 600 potted evergreens,
1,400 flowers, and about 80,000 bulbs for the Festival.
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A technique called
“forcing” is used to ensure that each of these trees, shrubs and flowers
are in bloom during the five-day Festival. Trees and plants are
artificially cooled in June to put them into dormancy, and then brought
into greenhouses in January and ‘fooled’ into thinking that it’s time to
grow again.
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There are more than 100
dedicated individuals from The Garden Club of Toronto and Landscape
Ontario, who work throughout the year to bring Canada Blooms to life.
During the Festival, there are nearly 800 more volunteers from across
Canada who contribute their time.
www.canadablooms.com
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