A Message from the Library
This month, the library completed some projects to be launched this fall! We have developed the content for a tool kit made for libraries wishing to distribute our seeds. This work will enable us to distribute seeds through local libraries this autumn. We have also completed a guide on how to start a school garden, which will be published this fall. This guide will help parents and community members provide increased access to nature for kids at school. These resources will be made available for free on our website.
And of course, we’ve been hosting our summer plant giveaways! Thank you to all who have joined us at one of these events, donated plants or seedlings, and who have volunteered to help bring the events to life. We’ve loved meeting and reconnecting with so many of our community members in person at these events and seeing so many plants and seedlings find homes in your gardens. We’ve also been thrilled to see how far the library reaches! At our June giveaway, we had people travel from Barrie to join us, and in July, we met Ted and Roberta (pictured below) from Friends of Lemoine Point, who travelled from Kingston to donate second- and third-year plants.
We have one more plant giveaway coming up on August 16 at Britannia Park and Beach, and we hope to see you there!
Upcoming Events
Folding Zines!
When: August 9, 2025 at 10:00am EST
Where: Hiawatha Park, Orléans (contact wildflowerseedlibrary@gmail.com for address)
About: The OWSL is looking for volunteers to help make instructional zines to accompany the seed envelopes being given away for Truth and Reconciliation Day. If you’re interested in helping out, please send an email to wildflowerseedlibrary@gmail.com
OWSL Plant Exchange and Giveaway
When: Saturday, August 16, 2025 from 1:00-3:00pm EST
Where: Britannia Park and Beach, set up at the gazebo south of the Ron Kolbus Lakeside Centre
About: The OWSL is organizing a FREE native plant exchange. For more information please visit our website https://wildflowerseedlibrary.ca/events-plant-exchanges-giveaways/
Seasons in the Garden
Full Moon Date: August 9, 2025
Seed saving tip: Take the time to clearly label your seeds when drying and storing in order to avoid seed mix-ups.
Contact us at wildflowerseedlibrary@gmail.com to drop your seeds off at one of our locations in Alta Vista, Barrhaven, Nepean, Kanata, and Orléans.
Native Plant of the Month
Dense Blazing Star (liatris spicata)
Dense Blazing Star, also called Marsh Blazing Star, Button Snakeroot and Dense Gayfeather is a dramatic and beautiful native plant. There are several species of blazing star (liatris), but liatris spicata gets its name for its spike-like appearance – its latin name spicata translates to “spiked”. It produces tall spires of densely packed violet flowers, making it a highly attractive plant for a variety of pollinators. If you’re looking for a tall and bright addition to your native garden, dense blazing star is an excellent choice as it can reach heights of 150 cm (and sometimes taller) and has a long bloom time from July to September.
Dense blazing star has an interesting way of blooming – the tall spire of flowers will begin blooming at the very top of the plant, and as the flowers die back, the blooms will continue down the length of the spire – much like a sparkler! Once the blooming period is over, the plant produces attractive, fluffy seed heads that act as a source of food for goldfinches, black-capped chickadees and other songbirds.
The liatris borer moth (carmenta anthracipennis) and liatris flower moth (schinia sanguinea) use dense blazing star as a host plant. The spiked spires of the dense blazing star also make an excellent perch for dragonflies!
The Ontario government considers dense blazing star to be a “threatened” species and has been added to the Species at Risk in Ontario List. The classification of “threatened” means that the “species lives in the wild in Ontario, is not endangered, but is likely to become endangered if steps are not taken to address factors threatening it”. The main threat to this plant is habitat loss due to urban development or habitat alteration.
Storytime: Growing (and flourishing!) in Thunder Bay
Written by Bon Seguin
This is a story of the Seed Library reaching into a community and finding very fertile soil!
Since the pandemic - a timeline familiar to a lot of us for learning about native plants for the first time - our friends and neighbours in Thunder Bay have been on a journey taking up the work of native plants. In retrospect, it’s easy to see that the big shape of this journey was from isolation in our eco-grief, to connection in our reciprocal relationships with each other and with our places – but it manifested in Thunder Bay with…
“I have to do something!” - Anonymous Friend, circa 2021
One friend saw the huge disconnect between what she was learning - from Blooming Boulevards, Doug Tallamy, Lorraine Johnson, and the Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library - and the total lack of native plants in her city. Not only did local nurseries stock few to no native plants, but the bylaws were pretty explicit in prioritizing non-native turfgrass over naturalized lawns and boulevards. While there were a couple of native species demonstration gardens being supported by a budding community of volunteers eager to help, so much opportunity for growth remained. With very limited access to native plants or shrubs, and minimal (if passionate, thank you Dan Fulton!) community wildflower seed sharing, sourcing native plants and seeds often meant ordering online…and alone, at that.
While it’s difficult to convey all the changes made in Thunder Bay over the past few years – here are some of the achievements:
Nurtured and cultivated Adelaide Butterfly Garden / Urban Greenscapes, where volunteers created events for public engagement- including seed harvesting! Enjoy a full write up by SOUL here in recognition of the Ecological Land Care of this Urban Greenspace.
Advocated for the Mayor to sign on to the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge and engaged in community conservation Action Items to support this pledge. In 2024, the City of Thunder Bay officially proclaimed September 18 as Monarch Butterfly Appreciation Day in recognition of the importance of pollinators like the Monarch Butterfly and the efforts of those who protect them!
The community is celebrating the January 2025 Boulevard Bylaw win - one of the most progressive in Canada. In the words of Margaret Mead, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
Local Seedy Saturday now includes a winter sowing workshop. Continuing to grow in popularity, these events facilitate the sharing of many thousands of locally harvested native plant seeds, with more variety available each year. Free winter sowing kits encourage people to get involved, and there is such an overabundance of native plant seedlings in the spring that hundreds of extra plants have been donated to the Adelaide Butterfly Garden’s growing collection.
Many local nurseries now have some native plant stock, and there is a new, locally-sourced, all native plant nursery to celebrate and support this spring: give them a follow at Whispers from the North.
A new initiative in Thunder Bay is the Dementia Gardens: A Place to Grow. This native plant sanctuary, designed to provide essential programming for individuals living with dementia and their families, will foster further connections within the community.
One key strength appears to be the like-mindedness in the work of promoting native plants through a cross-pollination of ideas - from residents to volunteers, as well as established eco-groups - all are inspiring action and accelerating change.
The Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library, as one friend of the library noted, helped to provide knowledge and resources in their native plant journey.
“So many of the efforts I was involved in were influenced by a connection with the OWSL”.
The OWSL’s open sharing of knowledge through webinars, sharing of resources (label templates, infographics), of support (stories, kindness, advice) and especially of seed donations (the 2025 mailout included 25 orders sent to the city) have contributed to urban greening and native plant advocacy. We see a real kinship in the work going on in Thunder Bay, and warmly welcome ongoing exchanges! Congratulations!
Volunteer Spotlight & Community Stories
This month’s volunteer spotlight highlights the work of Christina Keys:
Christina began volunteering with the seed library in late 2022 by helping host a seed giveaway in their community, which was part of their work with the Manor Park Community Association’s Environmental Sustainability Committee.
They first looked into native plant gardening when they bought a house in early 2021 after moving back to Ottawa. The grass burnt to a crisp that first summer, and as a lifelong environmentalist, they weren’t keen on wasting water on the lawn’s maintenance. It was time to look for an alternative. That fall, their parents’ neighbour hosted a seed giveaway in their driveway, and the rest was history!
Learning about native plant gardening through the seed library was a lifeline for them in the early days of 2021 and 2022 to connect with native plant experts and also as a deeply meaningful hobby. She was caring for her late son who had complex medical conditions, and gardening gave her the intellectual, emotional, and physical respite she craved. Connecting with others in the community with similar stories has meant so much.
Christina’s favourite part of volunteering with the seed library is helping at promotional and giveaway events. She loves introducing people to the wonder of winter sowing and to the generous, community-based model of the seed library. Many newcomers are overwhelmed by the abundance of plants and seeds available as gifts from our community. The experience of teaching others about native plants, as others have taught her, has led her to shift her career from teaching high school to becoming an ecological landscaper. This year, Christina established her own company Cardinal Glen Ecological Landscaping, named after her small neighbourhood where she discovered the joy of native plant gardening. She feels deeply privileged to now spend her time either writing about native plants or with her hands in the soil.
Blazing Stars and Spotted Joe Pye weed are probably her favourites. The amount of life they support in her yard is astounding. Christina loves the almost neon shades of purple of the rough, dense, and cylindrical blazing stars and the impressive, statuesque form of Joe Pye weed.
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