When I started writing this post, I decided to search my inbox for my oldest correspondance with Lunapads, and found an email from Sept. 1, 2006, related to entering a contest to win some kind of Lunapads prizes. In the email, I mentioned that I already had some of their wares... that makes me a customer for over five years! And that's only a third of Lunapads' existence - they'd already been in business for over ten years by that time.

As far as I can remember, I first found out about Lunapads from ads in Bust Magazine, which I used to have a subscription to in university. The women's center at school used to hold "sew your own pads" DIY workshops on occasion, so this wasn't a completely new concept to me, but the specific design of Lunapads (in comparison to the other reusable pads I'd seen) held some real appeal. I was hooked after my first order.

Location

Earlier in the fall, I was walking down the back lane on my way home, and came across this funny little truck.  It caught my eye because I thought at first it might be an Electic Vehicle...upon further inspection, it didn't actually appear to be one, but then I noticed something even more interesting.  It was a truck for a gardening company...The Silent Gardener.  But how could such a small truck carry all the equipment gardners use?

As soon as I put two and two together, I looked at the truck's cargo: push mowers, brooms, aeration tools... no big gas powered mowers, no leaf blowers.  Could it be it was really that, a silent gardening service? 

I looked around a little more and saw several tidy little piles of leaves that had been raked up... and just as I pulled my camera out, a man in a yellow rain jacket popped out from around the corner, carrying a big bucket.  It turned out that the man I met, Barry, is the area manager and a professional horticulturalist, and he was more than happy to tell me about the company and their philosophy.

The Silent Gardener serves Vancouver, Burnaby, and the North Shore, and they do landscaping and gardening without icky chemicals or loud machinery, which is music to everyone's ears!  Instead, they employ a team of landscapers, many of whom have horticultural degrees, to take care of yards using environmentally friendly mulches, organic fertilizers, and proper plant care, all using people power.  They do residential and commercial properties, and also do landscape design and installation, so whatever your needs are, it seems they are up for it!

And if that isn't enough, if Barry is any example, the team are very friendly and well informed, and have a good sense of humour to boot. Case in point:

Sure it might be winter, but what better time to take good care of your trees and plants and make sure they get pruned properly, and then get everything off on the right foot in the spring?  Plus, I don't know who could say no to a company that is doing their utmost to be good to the environment, keep down noise pollution, and obviously really love what they do!

Location

Jenn sent me an email a while back (I think she found my blog through HappyFrog.ca), telling me about her shop, and I finally made it over there last weekend to check it out and snap some photos! She was super friendly and we ended up chatting for quite a while--be sure to introduce yourself if you stop by and she's there!

The shop itself is not new, but Jenn took over from the previous owner only a couple months ago, and has been working on making it more eco-friendly bit by bit as she goes along. She is covering all the bases, from buying directly from plant growers to decrease how much the plants are transported back and forth, to buying free trade and certified products whenever possible, to using green cleaning products. On top of that, they buy carbon offsets and compost their plant waste! Read more about Pollination's environmental practices here.

Location