Ottawa - The official start of spring may still be a month away, but once again Canada Post is delivering the promise of a new season with stamps celebrating Canada's most popular hobby – gardening. On March 8, post offices across the country will be blooming with four new domestic rate (51¢) stamps featuring typical Canadian gardens.
Aching backs aside, gardening is the number one hobby in Canada and is second only to golf in the amount of money spent on a per capita basis. Gardening is a $14 billion retail business – including nursery, landscaping, and greenhouse operations – that is experiencing a 10 per cent annual growth. Gone are the days when there was a very limited plant choice, now every season sees a wider and wider range of flowers, trees, and shrubs available as garden plants; and seed catalogues list both heirloom, new and improved varieties of flowers and vegetables, and Canadians are enjoying every bloom.
These beautiful stamps will be launched on March 16 at the International Home and Garden Show/Successful Gardening Show in Toronto (March 16-19). The unveiling is in conjunction with the Ontario Horticultural Associations' Flower and Plant Competition. The year 2006 also marks the centenary of the Ontario Horticulture Association (1906-2006).
From the many types of gardens, four were selected for this set of stamps: flower, shade, rock and water. A well thought out flower garden can produce colour from the moment the snow melts until it returns; and in the milder regions, such gardens give colour year-round. Shade gardens give a gardener the chance to grow a wider range of plants with blooms that are typically of cooler colours – white, blue, pink and lavender. An increasingly popular form of gardening, the rock garden is ideal for those with only a limited amount of space. Smaller plants are generally used, enabling a large selection to be grown in a small area. The restful sound of trickling water probably accounts for the popularity of this garden feature, with more and more gardeners installing a small pool, with a fountain or waterfall, and growing plants that cannot survive in the dry garden.
The stamps, presented in a stunning booklet that features a blended landscape image of the gardens, also introduce a 'critter' that is attracted to each type of garden. Toronto designer Debbie Adams notes that though the stamps highlight different gardens, they all share a common horizon and native plants. "I'm pleased that these stamps demonstrate the growing trend of using plants that have too often been viewed as weeds," Adams added. Andrew Leyerle photographed all the images used in the stamps at various Ontario gardens.
Available for sale at post offices across the country on March 8, 2006, each stamp measures 28 mm x 44 mm (vertical), and will be sold in a booklet of 8 stamps. Lowe-Martin printed 6 million of the self-adhesive stamps, using 8-colour lithography on Tullis Russell Coatings paper. The stamp is general tagged on all four sides with 13+ perforations. The Official First Day Cover will read: Toronto ON.
Additional information about Canadian stamps can be found in the Newsroom section of Canada Post's website, and a downloadable high-resolution photo of the gardens stamps set is in the Newsroom's Photo Centre. Stamps and Official First Day Covers will be available at participating post offices, can be ordered online by following the links at Canada Post's website www.canadapost.ca, or by mail-order from the National Philatelic Centre. From Canada and the USA call toll-free: 1-800-565-4362 and from other countries call: (902) 863-6550.
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