Summer is the season for gardens and growing things. We enjoyed our first crop of yellow beans this week with the promise of cucumbers to come.

In the markets, investors look for growth from Canadian dividend stocks. They can find good candidates in the S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index (the aristocrats index herein), which seeks companies that have increased their dividends in each of the past five years.

The aristocrats index enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of 10.3 per cent over the 14½ years from the end of 2011 through to the end of June.

It’s an unusual index because its holdings are weighted by dividend yield rather than by size (i.e. market capitalization). That is, more of its money is put into stocks with high…