Canada Blooms Fact Sheet

Canada Blooms Festival is Canada’s largest flower and garden festival dedicated to promoting horticulture and showcasing outstanding floral and landscape products and services.

Canada Blooms is a not-for-profit organization that gives back to the community through out the year by funding community garden projects around Ontario. 2008 proceeds will support the new Woodland Walk Entrance Garden at the Toronto Botanical Garden. Canada Blooms is also dedicated to providing the community with horticulture expertise, education and resources on an ongoing basis.

It takes five days of preparation to create over six acres of breathtaking gardens. About 500 people work around the clock to transform the Metro Toronto Convention Centre into Canada’s premier flower and garden festival

It takes about 32 dump trucks to bring in over 1,400 tons of sand, and eight truckloads of mulch to create the plant beds for the Festival

$1.5 million of specialized equipment is donated by major horticultural equipment manufacturers, such as forklifts, skid steer and wheel loaders, to do the work.

Growers prepare more than 300 trees, 400 shrubs, 4,000 pots of perennials, 600 potted evergreens, 1,400 flowers, and about 80,000 bulbs for the Festival.

A technique called “forcing” is used to ensure that each of these trees, shrubs and flowers are in bloom during the five-day Festival. Trees and plants are artificially cooled in June to put them into dormancy, and then brought into greenhouses in January and ‘fooled’ into thinking that it’s time to grow again.

There are more than 100 dedicated individuals from The Garden Club of Toronto and Landscape Ontario, who work throughout the year to bring Canada Blooms to life. During the Festival, there are nearly 800 more volunteers from across Canada who contribute their time.

Visit www.canadablooms.com or call 416-447-8655.