MEET THE EXPERTS

Elaine Martin

Vintage Gardener
Website: http://www.vintagegardener.com
Phone: (416) 364-6232
Email: elaine@vintagegardener.com

VIDEOS

Decorating for the Holiday Season - more...
Forcing Branches to Bloom - more...
How To: Hydrangea Wreaths - more...
Jumpstart Spring with Hydrangea Wreaths - more...
The Moss Thread - more...
Grand Spring Entrance - more...
Inspired by England’s Sissinghurst Garden - more...
Pretty in Pink Peonies - more...
A Case for Baskets - more...
Inspired by England’s Sissinghurst Garden - more...
Decorating for the Holiday Season - more...
A Moveable Feast - more...
Bring the Garden Indoors - more...
Cutting Garden - more...
Grandma's Garden - more...

ARTICLES

It’s a Good Time to Force Branches to Bloom - more...
Create A Hydrangea Wreath for Your Home - more...
Create A Hydrangea Wreath for Your Home - more...
Repeat a theme, Create a thread - more...
Spring on your doorstep - more...
Inspired by England’s Sissinghurst Garden - more...
Pretty in Pink Peonies - more...
Bring the Garden Indoors - more...
Blossoming Baskets - more...
Decorating for the Holiday Season - more...
Herbs spice up Decor - more...
Seven Gadgets for the Garden - more...
Bouquet for Grandma - more...

Vintage Gardener’s, Elaine Martin fashions a romantic signature to her floral decoratives that offers a respectful nod to a rural upbringing – yet with a contemporary twist. Influenced by memories of Grandma’s garden, and twenty years of tending to her own award winning Hockley Valley garden, Elaine is a well known TV host, speaker and writer in the industry. She claims “a good friend would have told me to stop – with creating so many gardens”. Many will remember Elaine from A Day in the Country TV (Life Network). Now she launches “Vintage Gardener”, in Toronto’s gem – the Distillery Historic District, with a focus on garden festivals and workshops sharing her hands-on education and experiences.

You will likely remember Elaine from A Day in the Country TV, a National Television Show which appeared 8 times weekly on Life Network – attracting 250,000 weekly viewers. Elaine writes for and has been featured in many of your favourite national and New York magazines such as Victoria Magazine and Women’s Day Journal, out of New York City and top Canadian Magazines such as Home & Country, Style at Home, Gardening Life, Canadian Gardening, Harrowsmith, House & Home, and Homemakers to name a few.

Before her involvement in the garden/floral décor business, Elaine’s career was colourful and celebrated in the fashion industry, where she excelled as a buyer, an operations manager of a chain store and eventually became vice president of an upscale men’s wear company – not bad for a girl who grew up on a dirt road and attended a one room schoolhouse!

Gardening comes to Elaine genetically. Her Grandfather was once president of Ontario Horticultural Society. Her parents founded the Chinguacousy Garden Club and wrote the Garden Column for the Brampton Times. Her Mom was an award winning floral artist. On moving day to her home in the Hockley Valley – (back to life on a dirt road), Elaine and her mother Betty were exploring and turning soil in the garden even as the “men-folk” unloaded the moving truck. Elaine tended to that same plot of land for 20 years.

Giving back to the community is a big part of Elaine’s life’s focus. She has served on the National Board and as a Director and Assistant National Treasurer for the Girl Guides of Canada and has participated on many boards and committees including, Seneca College, the Royal Ontario Museum, Headwaters Country Tourism Association, Dufferin County Museum and Theatre Orangeville. In fact Elaine is the recipient of a Governor General Award for her work in the community.

Still, with the success in her business life, Elaine claims that her very best and most important job is as single Mom to her two children and two step children – ranging in ages from 17 to 27. She claims to be the world’s oldest Girl Guide and calculates that now at 53 years of age; she has lived well over two thirds of her life on a dirt road. Some day she plans to write a book with that very title.