A Guide to Canadian Seed Growers & Sellers
What can we do when times feel uncertain?
Aside from the obvious: staying informed, and building community online and —more importantly—offline, we can plant seeds.
Michelle Warren writes: Ironically, seeds do not look like they will grow into anything needed or beautiful. They look like something you would sweep into a dustpan and discard. Yet, the sheer act of placing them in dirt, believing they will grow, points directly to a crucial element needed in our community development efforts – hope.
In uncertain times, many of us are reaching for a little more hope, and we’re finding it in the garden.
With that in mind, we’ve complied a comprehensive guide to seed growers and seed sellers in Canada. Over the next few emails, we’ll introduce you to business we love, and businesses we are newly discovering. Our hope is that you’ll be able to find all of the seeds you need this year right here in Canada.
Seed Growers and Seed Resellers
While many businesses offer seeds, their sources can vary. Seed growers, (the businesses featured in parts one and two of our guide) of our guide, sell only the seeds that they have grown themselves. Seed growers grow their own seeds, sometimes partnering with other local growers to grow alongside them, then harvest that seed, package it, and offer it to customers.
Seed growers are not bringing in seeds from other parts of the world, and the seeds they sell are often beautifully acclimatized to the particular regions they have been raised in. Purchasing seeds directly from seed growers is a wonderful way to directly support their important work, and it connects you to small family business that have spent years (sometimes generations) honing their craft.
Some businesses, like the ones featured here in part three of our guide, grow a portion of their own seeds and also offer a curated collection of seeds from other sources (both Canadian and global).
Bringing in seeds from other growers, and other parts of the world, allows these businesses to round out their offerings, giving you the opportunity to purchase seeds that you may otherwise not have access to. Many of these shops are also flower farms, and the seeds they bring in from other growers and other parts of the world are also treasured varieties that they plant on their own farms every year.
It’s important to note that not all seed sellers are seed growers, and information differentiating the two can sometimes be difficult to find.
All of the business listed here in this guide have been fully vetted as BOTH seed growers (they grow a portion of the seeds that they sell, and seed sellers (they offer seeds from other sources, both Canadian and global).
It’s also worth noting that some seeds are not able to be grown and produced locally, for a variety of reasons.
Seed sellers (business that do not grow seeds but do offer a curated collection of seeds for sale) are not the enemy of seed growers, and seed growers work hand in hand with seed sellers to offer buyers plenty of options.
Many of the seeds we grow here at our own farm (lisianthus, eucalyptus, and other popular crops) come from other parts of the world and are not available directly through Canadian seed producers.
Seed growers, seed sellers, and business that sell both seeds they grow and a curated collection of seeds from elsewhere all play a vital roll in keeping the Canadian seed supply strong and abundant.
Meet Canadian Seed Growers and Seed Sellers below.
ANTONIO VALENTE FLOWERS
Antonio Valente has been gardening all his life, but he actually came from a long line of avid vegetable growers. He's currently growing flowers where his father and grand-father once grew their veggies. While he never quite took to vegetable growing as they did, it certainly left a niche for him to fully explore flower gardening. Growing up as a creative young boy who was fond of flowers wasn’t always encouraged, however. “Boys don’t play with flowers,” as he was told at school. Passion, however, is relentless in its calling…
Antonio is known and loved in this industry for his sense of humour (check out his Instagram reels if you need a laugh), the top quality flowers that he grows and delivers to top Toronto florists, his beautiful photography (his product shots are dreamy) and his great online tutorials.
We buy seeds from Antonio every spring, and LOVE the Celosia varieties that he has cultivated himself. Antonio grows seeds, and also offers a curated collection of seeds from other sources.
Circle Farms is passionate about providing high-quality, non-GMO, untreated seeds that thrive in the Canadian climate. Whether you’re a home gardener or a cut flower farmer or homesteader, they aim to make growing plants easier, more rewarding, and chemical-free. They started as a backyard urban homestead in Calgary, Alberta and have expanded to add a one-acre garden plot just outside the city. Circle Farms grows many seeds themselves, without chemicals or pesticides. They also source seeds from trusted seed suppliers who rigorously test for germination to ensure the best quality. They do this to be able to offer a wider selection of seeds. Their mission is to help other gardeners and growers have successful and beautiful gardens, and to become more self-sufficient by using heirloom and open-pollinated seeds that can be saved and replanted, ensuring year-after-year abundance.
HANA EARTH GARDENS
Yukie Hanada, the owner of Hana Earth Gardens, was born in Japan and worked at a flower shop there before she came to Canada. When she and her husband purchased their first home in 2011, gardening became her biggest hobby and she's been working on her garden ever since. Yukie love naturalistic gardens and she tries to promote native plants and pollinator friendly plants.
Some of the seeds she's offering come from her garden, which she tends to organically.
Yukie was also featured in a 2022 Chatelaine Magazine article, alongside our farm and a small selection of other incredible Canadian growers!
Kitchen Table was created by Kathy and Annie. Together they share the growing, cooking and eating of the crops on the farm. In fact, it was around a kitchen table that they decided to join forces and put their skills, passion and knowledge together to offer you the best quality seeds they can produce from varieties they've come to love. Located on Wolfe Island, they are just a ferry ride from downtown Kingston, Ontario. Their crops are grown over three acres in two separate fields.
Kathy and Annie place much emphasis on growing and offering you varieties that are well suited to Zone 5 growing areas and that offer maximum flavour. They seek to inspire you to share a meal with family and friends from vegetables, herbs and flowers grown in your garden. They currently grow roughly 70% of their seed varieties and buy in the rest from certified organic seed farmers they trust.
PRIMROSE LANE FARM
Primrose Lane has been growing flowers and selling at markets since 2015, from their 130 acre farm in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. They are located in the very SW corner of Alberta near Waterton Lakes National Park. They do not use any chemicals, pesticides or weed killers on their farm, growing beautiful flowers with organic methods. This farm offers a curated collection of seeds from their own farm and from other sources. Beautiful product photos make their website a visual treat to shop!
Herb plants, seeds, books, dried herbs and more – Richters is your best Canadian source for everything herbal! If you grow your own herbs or make your own herbal products, or if you are in the business of herbs, Richters will be of interest to you! Richters has been growing and selling herb plants and seeds since 1969. Their first catalogue dedicated to herbs came out in 1970, and they have lived, worked and breathed herbs ever since.
This is where we purchase Scented Geranium plants and cuttings every year for our farm. Scented Geranium makes a brilliant cut flower foliage, and Richters has over 25 different varieties to choose from!
SALT SPRING SEEDS
Salt Spring Seeds: A passionate gardener since he planted his backyard in Montreal at age 13, Dan Jason is committed to empowering people to grow their own food and save their own seed. Since 1976 he has lived on Salt Spring Island, BC, where he created the mail order seed company Salt Spring Seeds, which specializes in heritage and heirloom open-pollinated and non-GMO seed varieties of vegetables and plants.
Dan was strongly involved in Seeds of Diversity Canada in the early years, and founded the Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada in 2003, which he now heads. Dan has written many bestselling books, which you'll find in the Books Section of saltspringseeds.com. As an active critic of genetically modified seeds, patents on living organisms and industrial agriculture in general, he is a dedicated educator on sustainable organic gardening and farming, food politics, seed saving, and a farmer of beautiful gardens full of vegetables, grains, medicinal and culinary herbs and flowers.
This past season Salt Springs sent out over 58,000 packets of heirloom seeds to farmers and gardeners across Canada. Seeds from Salt Spring Island are growing in India, China, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, Finland, England, Ireland, Norway and Slovenia!
TUNDRA'S FLOWER FARM
Laura Gesy started Tundra’s Flower Farm (named after her gorgeous fluffy Great Pyrenees dog) in 2020 with the hope and dream of inspiring you to find the joy in planting some seeds and watching them grow. She started with very little to no experience in ‘cut flowers’, ‘gardening’, ‘growing’ or anything even related, and she is 100% confident that if she can grow beautiful flowers, you can too! Laura offers a curated selection of seeds from her own garden, and from other seed sources.
Whistling Prairie: In 2010, Dawn Cosgrove traded in stilettos and stock markets for rubber boots, chickens, homegrown tomatoes and rows upon rows of the most beautiful flowers she had ever seen, when she started her farming journey. Together with her husband Adam, they are raising 3 kids on their 2nd generation farm in Southwestern Saskatchewan.
While Dawn has been growing zinnias since she was 4 years old alongside her Dad, her passion for flowers truly exploded in 2017 when Whistling Prairie Flowers became more than just a dream. She quickly converted a few acres of her yard into a flower farm that produces everything from the most fragrant sweet peas and peonies in the Spring to sunflowers and dahlias in the Fall. Over the last few years, Dawn's passion for sourcing & growing unique and hard to find varieties has opened up new possibilities for her at WPF. Her focus now is predominantly on finding ways to not only inspire but provide unique & hard to find floral varieties to Canadian gardeners.
Dawns website is beautiful to shop, full of the most dreamy photos from her life on the farm! It's a real visual treat!
A NOTE FROM US
We've done our best to ensure that all of the information collected here is accurate and up to date. With that said, it may not be perfect. We have reached out to our network of Canadian growers through online forums, and we've sourced information through our online community. We've visited the websites of all of these growers and sellers, to ensure our information is as accurate as possible. Our aim is to provide you with a robust resource, but inclusion on this list is NOT a personal endorsement. We have purchased from some of these growers, and others listed here are new to us. Our hope is that you will discover some wonderful new Canadian sources in this guide, and that you, alongside us, will be sowing seeds and planting something beautiful this spring.
-Melanie and the Dahlia May Team
