KIC Gardening Services

Just another day at the office. How lucky we are!

Containers and gardens looking lush and colourful!

Feeling very thankful for a long weekend filled with family time, music and beautiful gardens in the Berkshires!

This property never ceases to delight! We are not surprised that it’s a finalist for the CNLA’s Caterpillar Award of Excellence for Residential Landscape Construction - one of the top 3 projects in Canada!
So proud of the team for the well-deserved recognition!

Great blooms at the RBG right now! I loved the numerous patches of butterfly milkw**d and pale purple coneflower in the rose garden. Also thankful for the chance to see Kalm’s St John’s wort in full bloom. Last photo captures the delicate beauty of elderberry flowers.

Pretty excited about the way this hillside planting is coming along. And the client’s wisteria is stunning!!

There are a lot of native plants that can add interest to your garden this time of year. These are some of my favourites right now: woodland phlox, Virginia bluebells, large-flowered bellwort, foam flower, field p***y toes and the heart-shaped leaves of wild ginger.

There were lots of lovely spring blooms spotted this past week. This clump of bloodroot is growing nicely after I only had one flower last year. Also featured… emerging wild ginger in bloom, a spring pot starting to pop, flower buds on my serviceberry, and a client’s Prunus incisa.

And so it begins! 2024 promises to be an exciting second season for our little company, and today was a beautiful day to KIC things off!

Great family trip to the Royal Botanical Gardens yesterday! We loved the exhibit and there were some very welcome signs of spring 🌷🐰

Had a great time at this past week. I am always inspired by the Conference. Some takeaways:
-This year there was a lot of focus on the importance of soil health - for many reasons including nutrient and water retention, supporting biodiversity and sequestering carbon. Those of us in the industry have a great opportunity and responsibility to help out our planet!
-I am thankful that Ontario’s new excess soil regulations will encourage more designers and contractors to work with the existing soil on job sites. This will help to reduce unnecessary waste and costs and will minimize the risk of spreading potentially harmful organisms and substances.
-Congress is a great opportunity to connect with and learn alongside colleagues. Here’s a photo of me and my good friend from at the awesome interactive display by and the .

Lots of pots! Definitely favouring natural decor this year.

This was a fun late-season project! Selective pruning, some removal and transplanting, and a better sense of balance. More tweaks to come next year, but we like where this is going! Feeling thankful for a great local client that is happy to !

Not sure we were feeling confident as we started putting these pots together in the snow. Happy with the end results though!

Winter pots are underway!

Spent a productive day yesterday removing a huge amount of buckthorn from this stand of trees. It was hard, important and satisfying work. Thankful to the team who brought their muscles, tools and great attitudes to the project!

One of the most beautiful work days I can recall. Thankful for Jim Mosher’s vision, for making the vision a reality, and for the amazing client that entrusts KIC with maintaining these gardens. Add in fabulous weather and a passionate, fun and hardworking team… I frankly don’t want the season to end just yet.

It may be the second half of October, but there are still some nice, showy blooms and berries to be found!
This aster was sold to me as a goldenrod, but I love that it has continued to bloom after the New England aster finished flowering. A client’s dahlias are show-stopping right now. I also came across a gorgeous American pokew**d yesterday. This is an Ontario native I would love to try!

The bees are not looking as busy these days, but there are still a few hanging around. Most bumblebees die off by the end of the season. Only next year’s queens hibernate over the winter in cavities - these might be underground, in dead wood or under grasses. In a large, heavily developed city like Toronto, it is very important that the bees can find shelter in our cultivated gardens. Leaving a layer of leaves, some old logs and hollow plant stems in your garden is a great way to start providing habitat.

Three of us spent the day digging up periwinkle and buckthorn and reclaiming this patch of forest floor. So thankful for our client who understands the importance of this effort. Now the hepatica, Virginia water leaf and Canada mayflower are free from the unwanted competition.

Gone to seed but still nice in the garden! Hairy beardtongue, foxglove beardtongue, swamp milkw**d and virgin’s bower, purple coneflower and boneset.

I love our native obedient plant and I love pink turtlehead, and this patch containing both species is one of my favourite spots in the garden this time of year! This is the first year I also have our native white turtlehead blooming!

Nice finds today - milkw**d tussock moth caterpillars, pretty combo of heartleaf aster and zigzag goldenrod, and dung-loving bird’s nest fungus

There’s no denying the impact of black-eyed susans this time of year! I’m also getting quite excited about the asters coming into bloom. They put on a great show late summer into the fall and are extremely important for pollinators, but they are frequently misidentified and w**ded out. I love having the chance to let them spread and thrive in more natural areas of the garden.

So much to admire in the garden this time of year! Blooming natives include cylindrical blazing star, spotted bee balm, goldenrod, virgin’s bower, vervain, helenium, blue lobelia, anise hyssop and green-headed coneflower. A feast for the eyes and a feast for the insects.

Never know what might be hiding in the garden!

Always a pleasure to visit this garden. These homeowners do a great job taking care of it. I just came for a bit of tweaking! Even a visit once a year from a knowledgeable professional can make a big difference in the long-term success of a garden.

Thrilled to see these newly planted native perennials taking hold here in King City! Wild bergamot, false sunflower, swamp milkw**d, joe pye w**d and anise hyssop. All planted late May.

When it comes to native plant maintenance, we don’t need to shy away from giving the plants some structural support when needed. I’ve tied up the tall cutleaf coneflower, staked this purple coneflower (over 5 ft tall - I guess competing with the nearby common milkw**d) and put a hoop on the switchgrass (which is probably planted a bit too close to my spruce tree and only gets morning sun). I let plants grow in densely for the most part which also allows them to offer each other support.