Making the most of the holidays in Toronto is easy. One great place to start is Casa Loma. Take your kids to see their production of Alice in a Winter Wonderland for a terrific interactive show that will delight the whole family. Visit www.casaloma.org for details.

The Royal Botanic Gardens in Brampton have a great range of child and family oriented activities that will make sure you don’t hibernate this winter.

Help your children learn to enjoy the gifts of nature by enrolling them in one of the RBG’s day camps. You can choose from a range of age-appropriate programs that feature guided nature walks, storytelling and activities. This is a great way for kids to begin to discover our connections to plants and our planet. www.rbg.ca

Drysdale’s Tree Farm is the perfect place to start your family tradition of cutting your own Christmas tree. Enjoy a hay ride or sleigh ride, plus a visit with Santa. www.drysdales.ca

Harmony and balance are the keys. A properly installed and maintained irrigation system balances the range of seeds throughout each garden. We’ve also seen some client’s systems being turned off too early, even as soon as early September. This prevents trees and shrubs from doing their last little uptakes of water into their vascular systems before the long winter.

Wiley and his crew made sure the systems we are maintaining were not shut off until late October and early November. This gave all your trees and shrubs a last drink before the long winter, ensuring your perennial plants will weather the winter the best they can.

This year we took a raft of carefully chosen new organic products out into our clients gardens. We focused our attention on the results and took close note of what was working.

One of our biggest successes is using horticultural vinegar on hard surfaces. Stone pathways, driveways and patios are the toughest surfaces to keep clean and weed-free.

This powerful vinegar has minimal negative impact on the environment. It works so fast you can see the plants wither; sometimes within an hour they’re dead and gone. As an added bonus, it cleans dirt from stone and concrete surfaces as it’s applied.

This summer we also made a lot of comparisons to measure results of different products. One of the most dramatic improvement came with our new alfalfa fertilizer. Chemically treated plants might stand taller, but are often leggy and spindly. Our organic alfalfa fertilizer produced plants that were well mounded and healthier, proving once again that bigger isn’t necessarily better.

This year we made a giant leap forward in the compost we are putting on client’s gardens: we’ve switched from animal based to plant based.

The results have been dramatic. First, there’s the aesthetic improvement: frankly, it’s not stinky. Secondly, it’s healthier for everyone. Your kids and your pets can roll around in plant based products without worry. Thirdly, there is no risk of fungal growth.

Why introduce animal products when we can just replace the plant material that’s being taken out as we keep our gardens clean, tidy and attractive?

LPGC is also proud to be entering the second year of our curbside composting program. Not only is it an effective way of picking up people’s garden waste, we’re accelerating the composting process by shredding it at the curb.