Home > Featured News > Garden Fundraiser May 27: Rain Barrels and Native Plants

We are expanding our Rain Barrel Pickup day into a Garden Fundraiser!  If you come between 10 am and 2 pm we will have some other great garden additions to get you growing.  Proceeds support REAL’s monarch gardens on the REAL Deal site and at Town Square.  This year we will be adding a new garden over towards our Community Garden.  

Native Plants and Perennials.  We will  have a large selection of native plants and perennials from Naturaide in Winchester.  This is the first time we have tried this, so we are choosing a selection and we’ll see what sells, i.e. no pre orders.   Watch here for a list of what we will be getting.

Seeds.  The Monarch Garden team collected seeds from REAL’s gardens in the Fall of 2022, and have packaged them up.  We will be selling them at the cash at the REAL Deal beginning shortly, but will set some aside for the sale day.  We have:

  • Swamp Milkweed  Asclepius Incarnata
  • Common milkweed   Asclepius Syriaca 
  • Black Eyed Susan (Indian summer)   Rudbeckia Hirta
  • False Blue Indigo Baptisia Australia
  • Mexican Sunflower Tithonia
  • Turtle Head  Chelone Galbra
    And  some Cherokee Trail of Tears bean seeds donated by Nancy Taylor.  They grow crazy tall so are lots of fun!

 

Mushroom Compost.  Trinity United Church will be back selling mushroom compost to benefit their projects, starting on the Victoria Day Weekend, and they will be there on May 27th.  For details contact Jan Montgomery [email protected]

Earth Machine Composters.  We still have about 20 of these backyard composters.  The $50 includes at $10 REAL Deal voucher.  This is a great way to reduce your household waste, and will be a great boost to your garden.

Rain Barrels. We recommend you preorder (and pay) for your rain barrel online at rainbarrel.ca/REALDeal by May 21.  Basic barrels are $65.  This is your chance to get other styles, colours or replacement parts directly from the company.  After May 27, we will have some basic grey and terracotta barrels for sale through the REAL Deal Store, but when they are gone that will be it for the year.  To order, go to Rain Barrel.ca/REALDeal/ page or contact Lauralee at (613) 283-3069 or [email protected].

More about the Barrels.  The rain barrels come from rainbarrel.ca, a Hamilton company that specializes in running fundraisers for various organizations.  They use recycled, food grade barrels, so you know they are safe for your plants.  Rain barrels are used to collect water from a downspout, conserving water for dry periods.  Plants thrive on the air temperature, chlorine free water.   A variety of colours and styles are available.    Each barrel comes with a filter basket, overflow and interconnectivity outlet, overflow hose, nipple and spigot, which you can easily attach yourself.  Be prepared to sit your barrel on some bricks, blocks or a platform so you can get a bucket under the tap. If you already have one rain barrel, please note you can interconnect multiple rain barrels to ensure you don’t waste a drop when it rains.

Payment.  Please bring cash for the May 27 sale.  You can prepay online for the barrels with debit, MC or Visa, but if you are paying the day of pickup, please bring cash also. (Rain barrels purchased through the REAL Deal after May 27 will be subject to HST, but you can pay by debit or credit card at the REAL Deal cash.)