have had a fantastic day in the garden, forsythia, daffs, tulips, even the snow drops are still here. Q. Will i have a problem getting bulbs and flowers in canada that are very prevalent here? spring time in UK is brilliant, I will miss it, unless i can replicate it in canada.

Much depends on where you plan to settle.
http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/nsdb/cli...ess/intro.html

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Depends where you live. Lots of bulbs and flowers around here. In more sheltered spots around White Rock there is cherry blossom and even some azaleas flowering.

Another couple of plant / zone guides that are useful:

http://www.onlineplantguide.com/

http://www.garden.org/plantfinder/

https://www.veseys.com/ca/en/

By mid April ...

Tulips! And that ain't Holland.

In Calgary we get all those bulbs, but they won't flower until June, along with all the summer flowers.

Aside from the cold, our climate is semi-arid, i.e. very dry for most of the year. The first green grass even doesn't show until May! I'm not sure forsythia would survive at all!

The forsythia near my patio began to bloom on Thursday. It's four weeks ahead of schedule according the OH, who knows such things.

Oh, and there are loads of green things sticking up in the flower beds. I've no idea what they are, but I'm sure they're equally premature.

Selection of flowers, bulbs, seeds, nursery stock is as good in North America as in Europe. Bulbs mostly come from Holland, plus some local supplies, nursery stock from all over, annuals mostly locally grown. Many plants are sourced from all over the world, in Europe and North America.

You may want to read up on USDA Zoning system, as every area has a hardiness zone and not all plants are hardy in all zones.

That correct. I just thought I'd mention though that my french home is at 49.3 degrees N., and has a palm tree in the garden. Thank dog for the gulf stream.

I would just like to add - pfffffffft

That's terrible. They say its a lot like living in Kazakhstan.

I think your OH is correct. The maple in our front yard is close to being in full-leaf, the daffs, tulips and hyacinths are already several inches up and the things that look like crocuses but might not be are in bloom. We're already harvesting chives and the shallots don't look all that far away.

The ridiculously warm weather and rain we had last week probably had a lot to do with it. It's normal to have a short hot spell early in the season but not this early. Last week there was the rather odd vision of me shovelling snow off the lawn and onto the driveway, wearing shorts. We've even got the gazebo back in operation, although we may come to regret that, if we get an ice storm or heavy dump, which is still possible.

To answer the OP's question, the bulbs are readily available at places like Home Depot, although I haven't seen any snowdrops for sale. Maybe they don't do well in this zone. We're on the cusp of 4b and 4a (also on the border between mixed and boreal forest).

The general rule of thumb here is that the Victoria Day weekend is when one can realistically assume no more frost. People go nuts at the garden centres that weekend.

Most of the plants I see for sale I recognise from the UK. One difference that I have noticed, however, is that fuscias are annuals here.

My house is several degrees of latitude south of Chateau Novo in France but it doesn't have a palm tree. My front yard does have a plastic gnome.

Bulbs are one of the many things that are dramatically cheaper at the Home Depot in the US than they are in Canada. You'd have to be buying a lot to pay for the trip just in bulbs but, if you're going anyway...

It would probably be worth our while making a trip to the US just to buy tile backerboard. I'm going through rather a lot of it in our bathroom reno.

I spend ages carefully measuring where the holes have to be for the plumbing, keep them as small as I can to minimise the risk of leakage, and then find that I've cocked it up. I'm getting quite narked.