Each year many new plants species are introduced for use in the horticulture trade due to low maintenance requirements and often, beautiful, showy flowers. Many of these species can become very problematic because they can escape gardens and enter natural areas where they outcompete native plants, lower biodiversity and can become extremely costly to remove. The Ontario Invasive Plant Council’s Grow Me Instead Guide, created by the Horticulture Outreach Collaborative, was created to assist gardeners in making informed decisions about the plants that they are buying for their gardens, helping to educate and avoid the use of invasive plants. This 1.5hr webinar will outline several problematic garden plants and suggest native alternative that are proven to non-invasive or native, easily found and widespread availability and have similar requirements, shape and garden uses as the invasive species.

We are excited to announce that we will have three guest speakers at our upcoming Grow Me Instead – Promoting Invasive-free Gardening Across Ontario Webinar on April 24th, 2025 (12pm – 1:30pm EST).

We are also excited to announce that this webinar has be approved for some continuing education opportunities:

• 1 CEC under the Society for Ecological Restoration’s Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner Program (CERP).
• 1.5 International Society for Arboriculture (ISA) CECs

See more information on our guest speakers below:

Claudette Sims

Claudette joined Master Gardeners of Ontario in 2004 and served as President for 6 years. She was a regular panelist and lead on the weekly CBC radio online garden chat for many years and has subbed in for Ed Lawrence on the radio-a thrilling but scary experience! Claudette is currently the admin for the very successful Master Gardeners of Ontario FB group and works with a great team of Master Gardeners and garden experts to provide reliable, science-based gardening advice to the public. This forum continues to grow and has just exceeded 58K members! She and Cathy Kavassalis are the co-founders of the Canadian Coalition for Invasive Plant Regulation which aims to stop the sale of high-risk invasive plants that harm biodiversity. She loves to attract wildlife to her garden and her most recent passion is adding larval host plants for butterflies and native plants to support specialist bees.

Rick Gray

An avid gardener since the 1960s, it wasn’t until 2006 that Rick discovered “native plant gardening” and he never looked back. With a background in Environmental Sciences, an undergraduate degree in Natural Resources Management with a minor in Landscape Ecology, and a master’s degree in Environmental Biology, Rick spent many years teaching in the environment program at the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown Campus. He went on to become the Academic Chair of the Horticulture, Agriculture and Environmental Management programs at Assiniboine College in Brandon, Manitoba followed by a stint as Academic Chair at Fleming College’s School of Natural Resources in Lindsay, Ontario. In 2018, Rick retired to play in his half-acre garden full time, where he tends to over 300 species of native flowers, grasses, ferns, shrubs and trees. His garden has been part of several organized garden tours in recent years. Rick is the principal author of the Globe and Mail’s best seller The Gardener’s Guide to Native Plants of the Southern Great Lakes Region, published by Firefly Books. He regularly posts articles about native plant gardening on his website https://loom.ly/Gj-LNjk

Shaun Booth

Shaun booth is owner of In Our Nature, a natural garden design firm and native plant nursery based out of Alton, ON. Shaun is on a mission to change the way we see our gardens by empowering gardeners to invite nature back into their lives through natural garden design. As a co-author of the Globe & Mail bestselling book “The Gardener’s Guide to Native Plants of the Southern Great Lakes Region,” Shaun brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to design projects. His approach to garden design increases biodiversity and reduces maintenance all without sacrificing beauty. Shaun is the founder of the “Ontario Native Plant Gardening” facebook group with over 38k members and regularly posts free resources and guides on his website https://loom.ly/usmGKWo

As spaces are limited, we ask that you only register if you are able to attend the session. Recordings will be made available after the webinar.

 

*VIRTUAL EVENT* over Zoom

 

Date: April 24th, 2025

Time: 12pm – 1:30pm

Cost: Free

 

REGISTER HERE