A Guide To Canadian Seed 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 this comprehensive guide to seed sellers in Canada. We're introducing 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.
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.
Some businesses, like the ones featured 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.
Other businesses, like the ones featured here in part four of our guide, specialize in gathering seeds from growers and sources all around the world, and offering them all together in one easy-to-shop space. These companies often have longstanding relationships and partnerships with seed growers, which allows them to offer high quality seed to their customers.
It’s important to note that not all seed sellers are seed growers, and information differentiating the two can sometimes be difficult to find.
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 Sellers below.
IVY WAY FLOWER FARM
Ivy Way Flower Farm: Farm owners Heidi and Kelly moved to Victoria, BC in 2017 with their four boys, trading the Arizona desert life for a West Coast one. In 2019 they settled onto a 2 acre farm, and started to plan how they could make the farm into a cut flower farm. Their farm is now focused on providing beautiful in-season blooms for their community, with a focus on improving our soil health without the use harmful pesticides, and creating a garden that attracts beneficial bugs. This farm curates a collection of seeds for planting your own cut flower garden.
Since 1896 A.E. McKenzie Co. has been a leader and innovator in the Canadian Gardening industry. They specialize in flower and vegetable seed, as well as many other garden products. They offer a Heritage seed line, a Giants line (contest-worthy varieties that are larger than life), Culinary selections, Jumbo packs (a more economical option for gardening, perfect for rural gardeners with a lot of space to garden), and Seed Tape (seeds are pre-spaced in biodegradable tissue tape making for fast, easy, and convenient gardening). Garden supplies are also available through McKenzie Seeds.
At Olive Seed Company, they are committed to providing high quality fresh seeds. Their goal is to provide you with the most beautiful flowers in your garden, and the most delicious food at your table. After several years of growing for themselves, family, friends and pollinators, they decided to start selling seeds. While their seeds are not certified organic, they do not use any chemical pesticides. Flower, vegetable, herb and micro-greens seeds are available.
Stems Flower Farm: This online seed shop offers over one thousand different seed varieties specially selected for their superior growing properties. Stems offers a robust assortment of around 55 varieties of vegetable seeds and a wide assortment of Cut Flowers varieties, available in quantities for home growers, and in larger quantities for cut flower farmers.
VESEYS SEEDS
Veseys Seeds: From a very young age, Arthur Vesey operated a market garden in the rural community of York, Prince Edward Island. During his market garden years, he was keenly interested in securing and testing seeds that were suitable for the cool, short growing seasons of Atlantic Canada. When ordering his own seeds, he soon began to include seed orders for his neighbours. This eventually led to the establishment of a small retail seed business located in one room of his home in 1939. Since then, with over 85 years of experience in the seed industry, Veseys now offers seed for flowers, vegetables, fruits and berries and more. They also offer a wide variety of gardening tools, and have plenty of gardening resources available on their website.
William Dam is a family run company located just outside of Dundas, Ontario, Canada, supplying small farmers and gardeners in Canada with seed for food, flowers and soil building. They take pride in offering a varied catalogue of many different seed varieties. William Dam Seeds has been based near Dundas Ontario on a small farm since 1959. Their extensive trial plots have outgrown their farm and they currently trial in several locations. Their aim is to supply their customers with seeds of the highest quality and it is their hope that you find joy in sowing these seeds.
Here at Dahlia May, we purchase the majority of our seeds for our growing season from William Dam (they offer larger packs and bulk packs for farmers, as well as smaller packs for home gardeners) and we've always been happy with the quality we've received.
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
