When we first moved to this property, the garden felt like a forgotten chapter. The flower beds were wild, but not in the good way—just tangled grass, stubborn weeds, and a few struggling remnants of what must have once been someone's hopeful plantings. There was no structure, no rhythm. Just chaos and neglect.
Still, I was eager to make it beautiful again. So, like many people do, I wandered through local garden centres, choosing whatever caught my eye—soft pinks, bold yellows, anything with a pretty bloom. There wasn’t a plan. I just wanted it to look “nice.” I thought that would be enough.
But something shifted not long after.
I started learning more about the quiet crisis happening all around us—the disappearance of pollinators. I read articles, listened to podcasts, and began noticing things I had overlooked before. The silence where buzzing should be. Fewer butterflies. Gardens filled with flashy plants that had nothing to offer the creatures that make life possible.
And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
I realized that so many of the flowers we’re sold—bright and beautiful as they may be—do almost nothing for bees, butterflies, or native insects. Some even cause harm, pushing out the very species that local pollinators depend on. Suddenly, my garden didn’t feel like a sanctuary. It felt like a missed opportunity.
That realization lit a fire in me. I didn’t just want a pretty garden anymore. I wanted to grow something meaningful. Something that gives back.
So this year, I’m beginning again. I’ve chosen one of the beds—the one that felt the most unruly—and I’m turning it into a space designed with purpose: a home for native wildflowers, a refuge for pollinators, a small act of healing.
I’ve carefully selected species that are native to Ontario, each one chosen not just for its beauty, but for the role it plays in the local ecosystem. I ordered my seeds from Northern Wildflowers, a Canadian company whose values align with everything I’m trying to grow into. Prairie Smoke, Foxglove Beardtongue, Black-Eyed Susans, Square-Stemmed Monkey Flower, Wild Bergamot, Anise Hyssop, Purple Coneflower, Dense Blazingstar—each one chosen with intention. Together, they’ll bloom across the seasons, from early spring to the last warm days of fall, feeding and sheltering the creatures that need them most.
Before I can plant, though, there’s work to do. The bed is overrun with invasives, and while I thought about using cardboard and mulch to smother them, life with a toddler means I’m opting for something simpler and more forgiving: hand-weeding, hoeing, returning to the same patch again and again to gently but persistently clear the way. It’s slow. Sometimes frustrating. But in a strange way, it feels right. Like I’m showing the garden—myself, even—that change doesn’t need to be rushed to be real.
This fall, once the ground is ready, I’ll sow the seeds. Letting them rest through the winter, just as they would in the wild. They’ll feel the frost, the snow, the long sleep of the cold season. And when spring comes, they’ll begin to wake.
There’s something deeply hopeful about that—sowing seeds not for immediate reward, but for the promise of something better down the line. A quiet kind of faith.
I don’t expect miracles. This transformation will take time. But already, I feel something stirring. I see it when I look at that rough patch of soil and imagine it blooming. I feel it when I picture bees drifting between wildflowers and butterflies tracing the breeze. I feel it when I remember that even a small garden can be part of something bigger.
This is just one bed. Just one garden. But it’s a beginning.
And that’s enough.