After retiring from teaching, Jeanne McRight found herself back in the classroom to earn a horticulture diploma from the University of Guelph. Among her assignments? Create an urban sustainability project connected to her own garden. But what started as a school project would soon grow far beyond the classroom.
McRight was already an avid gardener. A year earlier, she spearheaded an amendment to Mississauga’s Encroachment By-Law that allowed residents to create boulevard gardens. Building on that foundation, McRight’s school project became Blooming Boulevards.
Based in Mississauga, the not-for-profit transforms city boulevards into native plant habitats, creating thriving corridors for pollinators, biodiversity and community connection.
“The addition of habitat is really not that significant but what’s really significant is the fact that these boulevards act as connectors from one green patch to another green patch,” McRight explains.
Pollinators that might otherwise struggle in suburban sprawl dominated by lawns and pavement find solace in boulevards bursting with native plants that connect the city’s fragmented green spaces.
“You have insect populations that have very short flying ranges, sometimes only 100 metres,” McRight notes. “They can use our neighbourhood gardens along residential streets and in yards, front yards, backyards, as a place for them to eat, to nest, to overwinter, then they can reach each other…It strengthens their resilience to remain a healthy, good population.”
For a volunteer-run charity that’s only been around for six years, the results are inspiring.
“When you look at the map of Mississauga now, after six years, you see little dots of our gardens all over the city,” she says, “There’s about 350 gardens.”
To avoid bylaw infringements, Blooming Boulevards partners with the City of Mississauga to make boulevard gardens legal and accessible. Through this collaboration, the city’s permit fee is waived, and residents can apply by becoming a garden steward for only $15 annually. Stewards receive up to 50 native plants, a planting plan, site visits, and ongoing support. The only cost for stewards is preparing the site by removing grass and adding compost and mulch.
Blooming Boulevards’ model prevents clashes between municipalities and homeowners that have been playing out across Ontario by creating a clear, legal path to naturalize lawns. “We have a good relationship with the city, not just the council but also the city staff,” McRight reveals. “And part of that good relationship also entails a bit of proactive, kind and gentle advocacy for things that we feel would make the city even better.”
As a 100 percent volunteer-run organization that grew close to 10,000 native plants this year, McRight says they’re working at capacity. Impressively, volunteers grow the native plants in their homes since Blooming Boulevards doesn’t have its own greenhouse.
And McRight can’t stress the importance of locally grown native plants enough. If plants can’t be produced from local seeds, gardeners would have to buy them from nurseries far away. As a result, plants aren’t adapted to their local eco-district.
For example, a plant brought to Mississauga from a colder region like North Bay might bloom weeks earlier than when the local bees need it, leaving them without food. Locally grown plants, on the other hand, bloom at the right time for native pollinators, supporting a healthy and synchronized ecosystem.
One way Blooming Boulevards raises money is the annual native plant sale in June that sees long lines in front of McRight’s home to get dibs on locally grown and sometimes rare native plants like the endangered wood-poppy.
And with the demand for naturalized native gardens surging, Blooming Boulevards is expanding. “We have decided that we want to expand our program from just boulevards, which is how we started, into schools, churches, and local businesses. And now we’ve expanded into large corporations because they’ve got these large properties that are just mowed grass.”
“People tell me that this has changed their lives. It’s changed their whole outlook on what a garden is. It’s not only ornamental, but also something that draws you into the whole natural process.”
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