Find Seeds & Sprouts
Native Nursery Directory
Native Seed nurseries can be difficult to track down. Average garden centres usually don’t offer straight-species native plants because you can’t trademark them/make them proprietary–the best place for good plants is a dedicated native nursery. We don’t have a dedicated native nursery in Barrie yet, (Anyone wanna fix that?) but we’ve got nearby options.
HOT TIP: Native nurseries sell out FAST, and then they’re out of stock for the rest of the year. Order early, and order often!
Barrie
- Barrie Native Seed Library: Seeds from your backyard!
- The Living Green Barrie Native tree and shrub sale: Once a year, every spring, while supplies last. Pickup in Barrie at the Janice Laking Community Garden, 9 Churchill Dr.
Ontario
- A Cultivated Art: And they have an incredible, comprehensive Plant Library too!
- Wildflower Farm: Our second most local option, located in Coldwater.
- Northern Wildflowers: Winter-hardy native seeds and plants from Muskoka. (Vegetables, too)
- Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library: They also have great instructions on how to sow seeds.
- eARTh revival: A new source of plants and seeds all sustainably collected and grown in Collingwood.
- Hidden Habitat: Plants, seeds, shrubs, trees, and expertise, all for pickup in Huntsville. Interesting species!
- Lacewing Plants and Seedlings: Located in Kimberly, they’re offering free pollinator garden resources for joining their mailing list!
- Not So Hollow Farm: Located in Mulmur. Order online, pick-up by appointment, hard to find on GPS so take a look at the instructions.
- Ontario Flora: Located in Markdale. Social enterprise style nursery focused on a wide variety of ethically sourced native plants. Delivery (for $$$) or pickup in Grey-Bruce by appointment only. They sell hard-to-find and hard-to-propagate things like trout lilies, bloodroot and trilliums!
- In Our Nature: Located near Orangeville. Run by experts and a good source for help with garden planning.
- Toronto Plant Market and Native Plant Supply: Located in Etobicoke. A new venture that sells hard-to-find native species, woodland double dormancy flowers like trilliums and spring beauties, in addition to doing a lot of community work! Very active on Facebook.
- Ontario Nature Plants: Ships from Dundas ON; good selection and great customer service. Don’t worry about the shipping–those plants are packed extremely cleverly, and they arrive safe and sound! They open for preorders March 1st!
- Origin Native Plants: Ships from Guelph; strong selection but pricier than Ontario Native Plants.
- Ontario Flora: Wholesale orders from Flesherton. By appointment only, $400 minimum for $100 flat rate delivery. Good prices for bulk; a smart option for big spaces!
- Haliburton Micromeadows: This small nursery operates through their Facebook page and offers a great selection of native plants.
Various Plant sales and swaps are also run by various community and nonprofit groups–the North American Native Plant Society does the best one all year (for members only), and Blooming Boulevards in Mississauga, the Clearcrest Butterflyway in Toronto, and Pollinate Collingwood all do them. We might do one this year too!
Outside of Ontario
- Prairie Moon: Rare and hard to find seeds; a vast resource. Located in Minnesota, so be choosy in your order!
More info for other places can be found at this map from Network of Nature.
If it’s not in your budget to purchase native seeds, you can attend our annual Seed Swap or learn how to collect your own!