“I have to warn you about this plant.”
Throughout the day, Leonardo delivered this warning to customers at his native plant sale in the Roncesvalles neighbourhood of Toronto. The plant in question was cup plant, an Ontario species that can grow up to three metres tall.
Most people probably didn’t expect to receive horticultural advice from a six-year-old. But Leonardo took his role seriously. He had spent months helping grow the plants, and he wanted everyone to know exactly what they were bringing home.
By the end of the sale, more than 400 native plants had found new homes.
What visitors saw that day was a table full of wildflower seedlings, informative signs about each species and an enthusiastic young salesperson. What they didn’t see was the journey that started years earlier with a front yard that contained nothing but grass.
When we first moved into our home, there was no landscaping at all. Around the neighbourhood, however, signs for Project Swallowtail began appearing on boulevards and in gardens. Colleen Cirillo, of the David Suzuki Foundation, had helped start the local West Toronto initiative, which encourages residents to create habitat for pollinators using native plants. Those signs sparked our curiosity and eventually inspired us to transform our own yard.
When it came time to landscape, we chose native plants exclusively. We started with plants from the Toronto Plant Market and Native Plant Supply. As the garden matured, the plants began doing what native plants do best: growing, spreading and producing seeds.
Soon we were collecting seeds from our own garden. We supplemented them with seeds from the Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library and gathered others on family nature walks. Joe Pye weed seeds came from a native garden at Evergreen Brick Works. Cup plant seeds came from a neighbour’s front yard. Each seed carried a story and a connection to a larger community of people working to support nature.
Before long, we had more seedlings than we knew what to do with.
In spring 2025, we decided to share the extra seedlings through a native plant sale. It was a great success, so we planned ahead for the next year to be bigger.
A local gardener donated used pots and trays after spring planting. Leonardo filled the pots with soil while I planted seeds. Over the winter, the trays sat in Leonardo’s repurposed sandbox while the seeds underwent winter stratification. Together, we watched them emerge in spring.
The process became something of an outdoor classroom. Many neighbours and their children visited our backyard and learned about the process as well.
Leonardo learned about pollinators and why native plants matter. He learned where seeds come from and how they move through the seasons. Winter stratification became one of his favourite topics.
“It wakes up the seed,” he explained. “The seed knows that it will soon be ready to grow and it needs to prepare and get all of the things that it needs before it sprouts.”
Most importantly, he began to understand that even small actions can help nature.
Most importantly, he began to understand that even small actions can help nature.
When asked why we held the sale, his answer was simple.
“To make nature a better place.”
He also understood the bigger picture. Every plant sold would eventually flower, feed pollinators and produce seeds of its own.
“The plants will grow and make seeds and make new plants and repeat the plant life cycle.”
His younger sister Lavinia had an equally thoughtful explanation.
“To make butterflies at nature.”
That simple answer captures the spirit of the project.
What began as an all-grass lawn became a native garden. The garden produced seeds. The seeds became hundreds of plants. Those plants are now growing in yards throughout the community, creating habitat for bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Along the way, Leonardo learned about ecology, gardening and the plant life cycle. He met neighbours, shared his knowledge and discovered that helping nature is something anyone can do.
And somewhere in the neighbourhood, a cup plant is probably getting ready to surprise someone by growing much taller than they expected.
