The Avant-Garden Shop: Your Garden & Bird Store

Garden Gate: Episode 121 – Pollinator gardens

Chex TV airdate: August 4th, 2017 Click link to watch this episode online. Butterflies, hummingbirds and bees love the gardens that the Peterborough Pollinators group have created. With funding from various sources that have installed gardens around the City of Peterborough. They also are encouraging home owners to install pollinator gardens themselves to encourage the … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 96 – Bird baths (Aug. 19th, 2016)

CHEX TV air date: August 19th 5-6pm Click link to watch this episode online. Providing birds with water is an important part of any garden. Both for drinking and for bathing. Birds are especially attracted to moving water, so if you can add a dripper, spraying hose or water wiggler, you`ll attract birds more quickly to … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 71 – Susan Chan, Importance of Bees

CHEX TV airdate: Sept. 4th, 5-6pm Click here to watch this episode online. honey-bee_shutterstock_56017861_300Sue Chan is an expert on bees. Her life is buzzing all the time! Sue works for a variety of organizations including Farms at Work. (http://www.farmsatwork.ca/about-us) ?It was with that organization that she wrote a booklet about bees called A Landowner’s Guide to Conserving Native Pollinators.(Available at The Avant-Garden Shop for just $10.00) ? On this episode of The Garden Gate , we talked about why bees are so important, how they are affected by neonicotinoids, and also what types of plants they like. We carry bee houses at the shop as well which we also talked about. ?These bee houses are made locally and are meant for mason bees to lay eggs in. ?Putting up a variety of “houses” for the bees will help them to increase in numbers and pollinate your plants!

Garden Gate: Episode 67 – Neonicotinoids – What are they and why are they bad? Guest Mark Bennett

bees_chart_neonicotinoidsCHEX TV airdate: Friday July 10th, 5-6pm

Click link to watch this episode online.

We’ve been hearing a lot in the news about Neonicotinoids (Neonics).

This relatively new class of insecticide affects the central nervous system of insects, resulting in paralysis and death. ?Plants that have been grown using Neonics are harmful to bees, butterfly’s and birds because they ingest the nectar or pollen and the insecticide along with it.

honey-bee_shutterstock_56017861_300My guest, Mark Bennett from Wild Bird Trading and Millcreek seed, discusses Neonics with me on this episode of The Garden Gate.

redpolls
Picture courtesy Fred Jennings from Longlac

All of our Millcreek bird food is Neonic FREE! ?So you can be rest assured that when you feed our Millcreek brand of bird food to your birds you are not harming any birds, bees or butterfly’s!

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