Easy Gardening

Good grief. Here’s a little tidbit for your late week reading. Canada Blooms cancelled a screening of the film “A Chemical Reaction” – the story of how one town in Quebec led the revolution to ban lawn chemicals in Canada. It was apparently booked, signed, sealed and “not-yet-delivered”. So now it won’t be delivered because the CB board of directors canceled the showing.

Why Cancel It?

Landscape Ontario is the provincial trade association that represents the lawn care industry in the province (along with others in the hort trade) and these folks convinced the Canada Blooms Board to cancel a contract to show the film. The lawn care industry in Ontario fought the banning of cosmetic chemicals.

Landscape Ontario is one of the two groups responsible for the show (the other being the Garden Club of Toronto.) Mind you when you count the number of Landscape Ontario representatives on the board ( 5 out of 10 voting and 1 of 2 ex-officio) of Canada Blooms, you can see the amount of weight they can bring.

Want to check out the sponsors? There are a lot of good nurseries and some great companies but yeah, chemical lawn care folks – Scotts and their chemical fertilizer product Miracle Gro – two separate sponsorships (Scotts owns that brand too) are there. I note the major sponsor Home Depot won my approval last year because they voluntarily pulled all garden chemicals from their shelves when the law in Ontario was passed but before the ban took place. Good for HD.

Here’s the Canadian Cancer Society Website and their summary of the movie where you can also purchase it. I just bought it.

I’ve asked Tony DiGiovanni – the Exec Director of Landscape Ontario (and one of two ex-officio members of the Canada Blooms Board) for his comments and possible corrections to this story, he responded, “This is interesting but not quite the way it is. First of all we are not the chemical industry. We represent the all those that design, install and maintain gardens, green space and landscapes and all those that grow and sell plant material. Second of all we do not feel we should be politicizing or polarizing people at a garden show. Canada Blooms is meant to be a celebration of horticulture and floriculture. We are not against showing the film nor are we against free speach (sic) and debate. In fact we encourage it. We just do not feel that Canada Blooms is the correct venue for doing this.”

Interesting – the Organic Lawn Care people spin it one way and Landscape Ontario spins it another. The Organic Lawn Care spin it as another delaying and rear guard action by entrenched chemical-gardening folks and Landscape Ontario spins it as free speech is fine but not here and not now at our venue.

How do you spin it?

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