ALT It's a guarantee that next spring will bring a raft of new plant introductions. Here's a selection of some of the very best including an extraordinary new heuchera coral bells unlike any other on the market. Demand by retailers is so strong that it can only be compared to a frenzy. Need to perk up areas of your garden or inject extraordinary colour into your patio containers? These plants will do it!

ALT My column today in the Winnipeg Free Press features a spacious country garden located in the historic community of St. Andrews, 30 minutes outside Winnipeg. The garden owners, Karl and Mary Loepp, both spent their childhoods on family farms. Avid collectors of vintage farm implements and hand tools, they are always searching for that one special piece to integrate into their garden where it becomes an intentional focal point.

ALT From helpful gardening tips to profiles of new plants, tools, and products to help you garden, Winnipeg Gardener newsletter is filled with interesting facts and news -- delivered each month by the Winnipeg Free Press right to your Inbox for free! Click on the link and check it out.

ALT In Bethany Booy's garden, plants are specifically grown for making natural dyes. Booy is part of a growing community of fibre artists who embrace slow fashion. Fibre artists will gather next week at the Manitoba Fibre Festival. In today's column, Booy shares insights on which garden plants produce beautiful natural dyes. She also weaves her own baskets using daylily leaves. Who knew?

ALT It's big news when a new wholesale nursery and retail garden centre sets up business on hundreds of acres just outside a major city centre like Winnipeg. With a huge inventory of trees, shrubs, and perennials, owner Mikkel Grabinski is poised and ready to serve urban and rural customers alike. Creekside Tree Farm & Nursery is a welcome addition to Manitoba's horticulture industry and an exciting new option for homeowners and gardeners. Grabinski, 28, shares his story and future plans in this weekend's gardening column in the Winnipeg Free Press.

ALT "The garden looks tired" -- it's a common refrain heard from gardeners as the August garden begins to fade in colour. But fresh, vivid colour in the September garden -- and even October's garden -- is easy with any one of the several late season plants listed in my column this weekend. Which one is your favourite?

ALT NewRoots Construction and Landscaping specializes in three- and four-season geodesic grow dome greenhouses. Owned by Garrett Fisher and Oxana Ossiptchouk, the greenhouses are designed and manufactured right in Saskatoon. Year-round greenhouses are the future, they say. In just the past two years, demand for their greenhouse kits has soared. Imagine a year-round greenhouse in your backyard or at your neighbourhood school? My column today highlights a game changing project just outside Saskatoon.

ALT For advice, ideas and tips to keep your outdoor and indoor plants growing, sign up to have Winnipeg Gardener a free monthly newsletter I write for the Winnipeg Free Press. Click on the link in my post to read the latest edition and sign up to receive the newsletter!

ALT The work is done for you with these new varieties of potted dahlias. No staking required! You will love the ease and versatility of ready-to-grow dahlias with their bushy habits, loads of blooms and dramatically dark foliage with built-in resistance to powdery mildew. Picture these on your deck, balcony, or patio without all the work of starting your own tubers. They're a gamechanger!

ALT Seeking exciting colour and striking texture for your landscape? Looking for that rare combination of unusual but with reliable cold hardiness? Iseli Nursery in Oregon is famed for is selection of colourful, compact, hardy conifers and colourful maples. They're as hard to find in Manitoba as hen's teeth! Step into Lothar Behnke's Winnipeg garden where a diverse selection of some of Iseli's most unique plants are thriving -- indeed, glowing. These specimens will have more of a presence at garden centres across the Prairies if this sales rep gets his way. That will be to our benefit!

ALT What if you wanted to sell your house? Could you leave your garden behind? Could you take it with you? My column this weekend tells the story of a gardener who dug up and divided hundreds of treasured plants when she decided to sell her spacious rural property. She moved to a small urban property in Winnipeg in the cold month of December. But what did she do with all the plants in the meantime? How long did it take to make her new garden? Click on the link to learn more about this extraordinary undertaking and the fabulous results which have already earned a notable distinction.

ALT June's wet weather has meant misery for some and relief for others. It's important to assess the garden after heavy rainfall to observe the flow of water. Need solutions? Look inside the July edition of Winnipeg Gardener, a monthly digital newsletter published by the Winnipeg Free Press. Subscribe to have the newsletter delivered monthly to your Inbox!

ALT Salvia and Veronica speedwell are two of the most popular garden plants for their versatility and reliable bloom. My column in the June 27 edition of the Winnipeg Free Press looks at exciting new breeding that brings colourful options to your garden for a longer season of bloom. Compact to super-sized! Gardeners frequently confuse Salvia and Veronica but there are distinct differences between the two. Check it out!