The Avant-Garden Shop: Your Garden & Bird Store

GARDEN GATE: Episode 315 – Canadian Cards and Seeds! (March 28, 2025)

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Nature’s Garden Seed Company is located in Mill Bay, British Columbia, Canada. They’ve been making high quality products for nature lovers for over 30 years. Their greeting cards each contain a strip of post-consumer waste fibre paper, embedded with flower or herb seeds. These make great gifts for anyone wanting to experience the rewards of … Read more

GARDEN GATE: Episode 314 – Susan Robertson’s Pottery! (March 14, 2025)

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We just received an order of pottery from Susan Robertson! Susan is an internationally recognized ceramic artist from Saskatchewan Canada, that we’ve been featuring in the shop for many years. She’s always coming up with new designs that reflect her sense of humour and love of nature. Each unique piece is made of stoneware clay … Read more

From Sea to Sea, Canadian gift ideas

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If you’re looking for gift ideas for the year ahead and want to choose Canadian, here are a few examples of items by Canadian artisans and entrepreneurs.  We have plenty of new stock on order due to arrive in coming weeks and months ~ keep watching our social feeds and newsletters for updates. We appreciate … Read more

GARDEN GATE: Episode 313 – Customize Your Bird Feeding Station (February 28, 2025)

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We’ve got everything you need to set up and customize a great quality bird feeding station that also keeps the squirrels off of your feeders! If you want to use a pole we start at the ground, and find the right spike for your soil type. Next you add the pole, making it whatever height … Read more

GARDEN GATE: Episode 312 – New and Coming Soon! (February 14, 2025)

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  Just recently we were at the gift show in Toronto, and were able to find some new artists to feature in the shop! Here are some of the new and wonderful finds we’ve ordered. They’re not in the shop yet, so consider this a tease!  Amanda Brown of Scarlett Dahlia Artistry in Saskatoon, hand dyes, … Read more

Made in Canada – What’s New and Coming Soon!

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We’ve been shopping!! It’s that time of year to see what our artists are adding to their repetoire and we’re pretty excited to have our orders in! At Avant-Garden Shop, we’ve spent the last 22 years stocking our shelves to reflect our landscape. Anytime we can replace an internationally-made item with a Canadian-made one, we … Read more

GARDEN GATE: Episode 311 – Why it’s important to support Canadian artists (January 31st, 2025)

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We’ve been hearing a lot about “buy Canadian” lately. It’s so great to see this support coming to the forefront. We have so many talented Canadian artists in our country, so why not support them? We have beautiful works from artists across the country. Over the 22 years that we’ve been in business we’ve been … Read more

GARDEN GATE: Episode 310 – Seed Cylinders! (January 17th, 2025)

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A very popular feeding option for our backyard birds are seed cylinders! These are made fresh by the company that brings our bird seed every week. Woodpeckers, blue jays, nuthatches and chickadees really love these. Ingredients like hulled peanuts, meal worms, cranberries, sunflower seeds and safflower make them very attractive. Approximately 3lbs of compressed seed is held together in each cylinder so the birds really have to work away at them. This means we get to see them at our feeders longer! There are many different ways you can hang or add a cylinder to your feeding station. Pop by the shop and we’ll find which one is right for your birds! ** Please note, some birds shown in this video are from stock footage and may not be relevant to the area of Peterborough Ontario. **

** Please note, some birds shown in this video are from stock footage and may not be relevant to the area of Peterborough Ontario. **

GARDEN GATE: Episode 309 – The Best Bird Seed For Winter (January 3rd, 2025)

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As the days get shorter and the nights get longer and colder, birds have to eat from dawn to dusk to have enough energy to survive the nights.  Offering fatty seeds like hulled peanuts and sunflower seeds are some of the best options to provide quick easy energy to the birds. We also have a Niger seed blend with chips of the hulled sunflower which is very popular with finches. It’s also a great time to give your feeders a good cleaning as you can expect a heavier flow of birds. Checking your feeders often for freezing and clearing off the snow really helps them have easier access to the seeds. Doing this will help you see many different birds enjoying themselves at your feeders this winter!

** Please note, birds shown in this video are from stock footage and may not all be relevant to the area of Peterborough Ontario. **

GARDEN GATE: Episode 308 – Feeding Birds (not squirrels!) in the Winter (December 20, 2024)

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It’s getting colder at night so during the day birds (and squirrels) are busy eating and storing up energy. The Squirrel Buster Plus, (which really is squirrel proof!) is a great feeder to use to keep the squirrels from gobbling up all the seeds before the birds get a chance. When a squirrel gets on the feeder its weight closes off access to the seed. Our Seasons Woodland blend is a great option to use in this feeder, offering a mix of high-quality fatty seeds for all the birds visiting your feeders. This Buster holds over 5lbs of seed and is adjustable to also keep out some of the bigger bully birds.

Feeding suet in the winter is especially tough, as it is VERY attractive to the squirrels. The Squirrel Buster Suet feeder helps to solve this problem! It comes with two suet cakes, can be adjusted for different weights, and like all the Squirrel Busters, has a lifetime warranty against squirrel damage! Stop by the shop and we’ll show you how they work!

The Avant-Garden Shop