GENERAL INTEREST
The Evergreen Foundation
Evergreen is a national non-profit environmental organization with a mandate to bring nature to our cities through naturalization projects. The website has a wealth of information, including details of how to apply for their grants. It is especially useful for school garden projects.
Grow Me Instead Booklet 2011 - VERSION 2
Created by the Invasive Plant Council of BC, this 72-page booklet includes 27 of BC's most 'unwanted' plants in horticulture, as well as five recommended alternatives (non-invasive native or exotic plants) for gardeners and landscapers.
PDF download available here
Field Guide to Noxious
and other selected weeds of BC
Good photos of many of our common garden weeds can be found in the Field Guide to Noxious and Other Selected Weeds of British Columbia on this B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Lands site.
"Let’s Go Natural" is a gardener's guide to composting, grasscycling and water smart gardening in the Central Okanagan.
click here for pdf
Naturescape B.C.
The Naturescape British Columbia program helps homeowners and communities restore, preserve, and enhance wildlife habitat in urban and rural landscapes. The resource guides for specific regions can be ordered here. The Provincial Guide is also available online as a pdf.
Okanagan Waterwise
This is the Okanagan Basin Water Board’s new outreach and education program, providing a valley-wide message, recognizing that Okanagan residents from Armstrong to Osoyoos are all connected by the waters of the Okanagan Basin. The site is intended to be a call to action and provides information on local water issues and encourages water conservation and protection.
Slow It. Spread It. Sink It!
An Okanagan Homeowner’s Guide to Using Rain as a Resource is an easy-to-use guidebook, showing local residents how they can easily capture and re-use the water that falls on their property. Produced by the Okanagan Basin Water Board.
Regional District of the Central Okanagan- Yard Waste Management
This website includes information about the Central Okanagan's bi-weekly curbside yard waste pick-up, worm composting, grasscycling and composting. (this page includes a link at the bottom to the pdf booklet "Let's Go Natural"- or you can find the pdf on our site here- click here for pdf
Pesticide Free
This City of Kelowna website includes information about it's Pesticide Bylaw, the Pesticide Notification Program, and information of how to safely manage common pests and diseases, as well as links to related useful websites.
Waterkind Consulting Services Ltd.
Waterkind is 80 years of irrigation experience at your fingertips. Our team of irrigation professionals includes Certified Irrigation Designers, Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditors and Water Management System Experts. We believe in continually expanding our level of knowledge and certification to ensure that our clients receive the best possible product, be it a design, workshop or landscape irrigation audit. Along with experience, the Waterkind team brings a drive to create excellence in irrigation. We work with our clients to provide greenspaces that meet their needs while always being sensitive to the conditions in which the space exists and in partcular, ensuring the very careful use of our limited and most precious resource; water.
Waterwise Landscape Design
Waterwise Landscape Design uses xeriscape principles to create residential, commercial and industrial xeriscapes that conserve water, reduce maintenance time, and are in sync with nature.
World of Worms
World of Worms is a Kelowna-based company created to make worm composting as simple as possible for you. The site goes through the entire vermicomposting process, from buying your worms and composter to teaching you how to use and care for them, to harvesting the final products and showing you all of the amazing benefits of worm composting.
LOCAL NURSERIES
Bluestem Nursery
This B.C. Interior mail-order nursery has a wealth of information on ornamental grasses and is a supplier for Enviro-Turf (a low-mow, low-grow, low-water turf grass mix)
Drought Smart Plants
Drought Smart Plants are the wave of the future - Succulents, Sedum, Sempervivum and Thyme for Dry Gardens, Xeriscape Patios and Green Roofs
Dusty Shovel Gardens
Based in Vernon, this company specializes in renovating residential yards using xeriscape principles. Most of the plants used are field grown in the family-run Nursery, where they are tested for drought/heat tolerance, winter hardiness and maintenance requirements. Retail sales of perennials and shrubs, many of which are native, by appointment only. For a plant list or appointment please contact dustyshovel@gmail.com
Gardens North
Canadian source of many seeds, including unusual varieties and drought-tolerant plants.
Grasslands Nursery
Located in Summerland, this nursery is a very good source of xeriscape and Okanagan native plants as well as a great source of information regarding both xeriscape and permascape gardening.
ILR Nursery
Located in Lake Country, this native plant nursery will open to the public on May 1, 2010. Mike and Rhonda Kamann have been propagating and growing native plants for use in their large-scale habitat restoration projects since 2006 and this work has led them to starting a full scale nursery. With water conservation being a huge concern in the Okanagan, the use of native plants is a way of achieving I.L.R's goal of land preservation.
Sagebrush Nursery
One of the few suppliers of Okanagan native plants, this Okanagan native plant nursery is located in Oliver.