Urban Forest Demonstration Gardens

With temperatures already warming up, it feels like spring is already here and it is time to start preparing for a new gardening season. However, while we might be ready to get to work in our gardens, it’s good to remember that many creatures are still using them as habitat before the spring thaw. Our volunteers came up with a great way to remind people of how important our gardens are for local wildlife during the winter.

What is the most valuable part of being a volunteer Garden Steward? We posed this question to the dedicated volunteers that care for our Urban Forest Demonstration Gardens located outside of five TTC subway stations. For 10 years these green spaces have added a little bit of nature to the lives of local residents and commuters. None of this would have been possible without this passionate community of volunteers steadily working behind the scenes!

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the LEAF Urban Forest Demonstration Gardens. Made possible with support from Ontario Power Generation, these gardens, located outside five TTC subway stations, demonstrate how biodiversity can thrive, even in small urban spaces. Whether you frequent our gardens on your daily commute or are just learning about them now, we are excited to share with you how much they have grown!

This fall, our garden stewards spent a morning with Lillian Natalizio to learn how to properly harvest native plant seeds from our LEAF Learning Garden. Harvesting your own seed is a cost-efficient way to ensure your garden will have beautiful blooms year after year or to share seeds with friends and family. Here are the key tips we learned that day on how to harvest our own seeds.