From Susan Munroe,
Your Guide to Canada Online.
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Have you been thinking about going out in the garden and getting your hands dirty? Here are some useful resources to give you a bit of inspiration and some solid advice on planning your garden in Canada.

Gardening Zones

The first thing you need to know is the gardening hardiness zone for your geographic location in Canada, so you'll be able to find information that applies to your particular climate conditions. To make life a little more difficult, Canadian and U.S. zone numbers are not the same - so be sure you know whether you are at a Canadian or U.S. site when you are looking at zone information. Here are maps for both:

• Canadian Plant Hardiness Zones
• United States Plant Hardiness Zones

Planning Your Garden

Lee Valley Tools, an Ottawa company which sells gardening and woodworking tools, has a lot of useful information on its site. As well as online shopping for an array of useful gardening tools, the company has articles to help plan your garden. As an example, in the "In the Garden" section of articles you'll find a Home Garden Schedule. It gives a month-by-month schedule of what things in the garden should be done when. Primarily for the northeast United States and central and eastern Canada, you might have to adjust it a bit for your own location, but it provides a useful overall perspective.

Garden Landscaping

A source of Canadian landscaping information is the In The Yard section of the I Can Garden site. You'll find items there on starting your garden, accessories, perennials, trees and shrubs, and lawns.

If you need general information on landscaping and garden design, you can find it here on the About network. The first site to check is About Landscaping with David Beaulieu, where you'll find an amazing selection of resources to help with your landscaping needs. Also be sure to check About Gardening with Marie Iannotti. Her page on garden design provides practical information plus some inspiration. Neither of the About sites is Canadian, but much of their information is useable in northern climates.

Canadian Government Information Sources on Gardening

Agriculture Canada and the provincial departments of agriculture can also be helpful sources for gardening information.

A great place to roam through is AgriWeb Canada, a database on the Agriculture and AgriFood Canada site. Select "Horticulture" to find more than a hundred well-annotated links to Canadian gardening sites. You can also search AgriWeb by subject, geographic region in Canada, type of organization or keyword.