The Avant-Garden Shop: Your Garden & Bird Store

GARDEN GATE: Episode 315 – Canadian Cards and Seeds! (March 28, 2025)

Nature’s Garden Seed Company is located in Mill Bay, British Columbia, Canada. They’ve been making high quality products for nature lovers for over 30 years. Their greeting cards each contain a strip of post-consumer waste fibre paper, embedded with flower or herb seeds. These make great gifts for anyone wanting to experience the rewards of … Read more

From Sea to Sea, Canadian gift ideas

If you’re looking for gift ideas for the year ahead and want to choose Canadian, here are a few examples of items by Canadian artisans and entrepreneurs.  We have plenty of new stock on order due to arrive in coming weeks and months ~ keep watching our social feeds and newsletters for updates. We appreciate … Read more

GARDEN GATE: Episode 294 – Father’s Day Ideas (June 7, 2024)

Fathers Day is this Sunday, June 16th. We’ve got many unique items for Dad in the shop including locally made bat houses! Bats consume a tremendous number of mosquitoes nightly and are a great option for pest control. Ask us for more fun facts about bats in the store, or grab a book on bats … Read more

Attracting Hummingbirds and Orioles

  Sweets for the Sweet In May, we begin to see the arrival of hummingbirds, orioles and warblers. The beautiful but elusive warblers are generally happy within the safe cover of trees to provide a healthy diet of insects, but hummingbirds and orioles will come to gardens and feeders if we provide what they love … Read more

GARDEN GATE: Episode 291 – Gift ideas for Mother’s Day ! (April 26, 2024)

Mother’s Day is Sunday May 12th this year! This means there’s not much time left to go find that perfectly unique gift for the Moms in your life! Luckily the shop is loaded with beautiful options. We have locally made jewelry, hummingbird feeders, puzzles, pottery, metal art, and handblown glass hearts! If Mom’s a gardener … Read more

Garden Tips: Planting for winter bird use

You’ve purchased and set up your bird feeding station, filled it with high-quality bird food, sat down by the window with your binoculars and identification guide, and… …no birds! What’s up with that? Birds need food to survive, of course, and feeders can provide them with desperately needed calories, especially in the deep cold of … Read more

Late-summer allergies: goldenrod isn’t the culprit!

For many, late-summer is hailed by runny noses, itchy eyes, and irritated throats. Plenty of colourful flowers are in bloom at this time of year, including Queen Anne’s Lace (a.k.a. Wild Carrot), New England Asters, and Blueweed (a.k.a. Viper’s Bugloss), but the new bloom on the block when these allergies hit is the conspicuous bright … Read more

Garden Tips: Landscaping for birds

The two most recent Garden Gate episodes were filmed in my backyard. The first is about setting up a squirrel-proof bird feeding station. It aired recently and is now on the Avant-Garden Shop’s YouTube channel. The second is about including trees and shrubs in your landscaping plans to attract birds and provide shelter. It may … Read more

Garden Gate: Episode 115 – Creating a fun patio (May 12th, 2017)

CHEX TV airdate: Friday May 12th, 2017 Click link to watch this episode online. The nice weather has finally arrived!  It’s time to get out and absorb some vitamin D. We have some fun, retro patio chairs now in stock.  These “motel” chairs have been in production in Canada since 1973!  They’re super comfy too. … Read more

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