Three demonstration gardens at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton-Burlington show us how to go gree.

How green is your garden? With that thought-provoking question in mind, the Royal Botanical Gardens has established three new demonstation gardens, located just beyond the entrance to the Laking Garden, that offer three different ways to go green and reduce your carbon footprint. The No MOW! garden shows how an attractive perennial bed can replace a front lawn. The No BLOW! garden demonstrates how to use fallen leaves, commonly blown onto streets by noisy blowers, as a natural fertilizer or protective  mulch. The No H2O! garden uses drought-tolerant plants that help eliminate the need for supplemental watering .

A mailbox folds down to display tips for going green.

The gardens are laid out in front of charming, cutout-style cottage facades. At the foot of each one, a mailbox opens to display tips for going green, including plant suggestions.

The driving force behind the gardens is Head of Horticulture, Belinda Gallagher who says, “I want people to be engaged [by these gardens], and to step through them and bend down and say, “here’s something I haven’t seen before’”.

Lots of ideas have been packed into these small gardens, so be sure to stop by the next time you’re at the Laking Garden at the RBG. Plant lists and project details are also available on the RBG website.