March 4

Green Thumbs. on the Web
Sun Review March 4, 2000

The snow is melting, the birds are back and your garden is revealing itself again. If your garden is anything like my garden, it's screaming "Help!". If you want some help in planning your garden, ordering seeds, or pruning those rose bushes, there's no better place to go than the Web.

Visit the Canadian Gardening Magazine online (www.canadiangardening.com) This well-designed site features articles from the magazine, and links to other gardening websites. Canadian links are identified with a Canadian flag, which makes it easy to surf around and find information relevant to our climate.

I Can Garden (www.icangarden.com) is another Canadian Internet gardening resource. You can sign up for the monthly newsletter, share seeds with other Canadian gardeners through the Seed Saver program, and find tips on houseplants, veggies and more. But I have to warn you: this site is extremely awkward to navigate. You'll just have to click and take your chances.

Canadian Gardens (www.canadiangardens.com) is a very plain website aimed at Canadian gardeners. Agriculture Canada has a directory of Canadian online resources in agriculture and agri-food at www.agr.ca/agriweb/agriweb.htm.

If you're looking for more detailed information about plants, you are better off visiting our American counterparts such as Garden.com (www.garden.com), a U.S.-centric multi-dimensional garden resource. This site is interactive, innovative and informative. Ask the Garden Doctor about your particular gardening needs, or design your own garden with the on-site Garden Planner. The Plant Finder is a handy tool that helps you find the most suitable plants for your garden - you choose the soil composition, hardiness, season of bloom, colour and other plant attributes, and the Plant Finder brings you the plants that match your criteria, complete with colour photos and descriptions. And if you're looking for even more information, you can chat with other gardeners 24 hours a day.

The Backyard Gardener (www.backyardgardner.com) is another great source of information. Not only does this site have spades of useful information on different garden types, plants, and soil preparation, but there are also hundreds of links to other gardening sites on the Web.

Garden Guides (www.gardenguides.com) is an online garden tips magazine that walks you through the basics of starting your own vegetable, herb or flower garden. Seasonal tips are updated weekly to keep you on track. Also check the discussion boards (chat rooms) on all sorts of garden related topics.

And if it's roses you're looking for, check out Everyrose.com (www.everyrose.com) which features a database of over 6,000 roses and 750 photos that you can search for roses by name, colour or just about any other characteristic.