Calgary Garden Coach

hardy shrub rose 'morden sunrise'

blue salvia and annual cosmos

spirea 'Goldflame'

leucanthemum (shasta daisy) 'Becky'

Philadelphus (mock orange) 'Waterton'

alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle)

catmint combos

June/July tapestry

The peonies are just finishing and the daisies and lilies are starting.  The rains of June have greened everything up and the garden is looking fresh and full.  I love this time of year!

tango asiatic lily 'dot Com'

bearded iris and shasta daisies

... and pink cranesbill, russian stonecrop (just finishing) and potentilla 'Pink Beauty' (hiding behind the daylilies)

this garden is ladybug friendly!

I finally got around to digging the Sierra Club pesticide-free sign out of the garage and proudly displaying it near the sidewalk.  (You never know, maybe those people down the street who drown their lawn with weed & feed every spring will rethink their practices!)

backyard border 1 makeover - before

This is the kind of garden design job I like best.  Sure, I like doing complete designs from scratch and providing drawings for people, but I don't do the actual work myself so I never get to see the end result!  Here is one of the borders of a client I will be working with over the summer.  She has given me a budget of $50 for compost and $200 for perennials & shrubs for this border, and I will deliver the plants and place them in the garden for her, ready to be planted.  This way I get to shop, pick the plants myself, and see them in their future home.  Fun!

This border is on the south side of her backyard, and goes from shade on the left to sun on the right.  There are a few shrubs and trees we can keep, and others that aren't doing so well.  I stuck a fork in the soil and it went in fairly easily to a depth of about 30 cm, so we decided not to dig out and replace the soil, just to amend it.  Here are the tasks I gave her to do before I bring the plants next week:

• Pull out the plastic edging in the middle of the garden bed.  Plants will better serve the purpose of holding the soil in the sloped bed.
• Pull weeds.  Watering the night before weeding will soften the soil and make this job easier.  Be sure to completely remove any weeds with flowers or seeds on them, and toss in garbage.  Any smaller seedlings can be composted.
• Turn the entire garden over with a fork, to a depth of 30 cm (or about the depth of the fork).  Remove any large rocks.  Do not dig too close to existing perennials or shrubs so as not to disturb roots.

growing veggies - more would be better!

So far so good in the new veggie garden - although my 2-year-old's spring stomping disrupted the planned planting pattern a little...

But after going to the farmer's market last week, I am vowing to make more veggie space next year!  My husband and I have been buying organic for a while, but we're also trying to make more of an effort to buy local.  That means getting to the market and also paying a little more - fine.

But what really is the problem is dragging 3 kids to a crowded market!  Too stressful.  My 2-year-old is at the stage where she is distracted by everything and you can't get her to go anywhere quickly.  My 5-year-old was pulling on my arm the whole time to go faster.  Halfway through the trip I had to stop and nurse my 6-month-old.  Yes, my husband was with me but it was still almost too much to handle!!

So after the cost and the stress, I came home vowing to plant more veggies next year.  I'd rather garden than go to the market any day.  But where?  In my established neighbourhood with lots of big trees, the little area shown above is the only spot that gets enough sun (minimum 6 hours) for a veggie garden.  Except for the small back lawn....  By the time we got home I had a new design in mind to take out more grass this fall in preparation to plant more veggies next spring!!

Fortunately, my husband is not a lawnophile and is on board. 

Another note:  My neighbours are currently taking out their back garden and putting in more grass to make space for their 12-year-old boy to play hockey and football in the yard.  I have 3 younger girls and a corner lot so I think I can afford to lose a little more grass.

July to-do list

• Pull weeds.  A few minutes a couple times a week is best so you never get overwhelmed.  If you don’t have much time, at least pull off the tops of ones that are flowering or have gone to seed.
• Deadhead perennials that have finished flowering (such as iris and peony) to tidy them up.  Deadhead annuals to promote more blooms.
• Prune lilacs after flowering is finished - pruning later will remove next year's flower buds.
• Thin crowded vegetable seedlings.  Root crops such as carrots and beets especially do not like to be overcrowded.
• Continue breaking off the secondary branches from indeterminate (vine) tomatoes.
• Stake tall plants such as delphiniums and monkshood, if you haven’t already.
• Water the lawn about 1” per week (water deeply i.e. once or twice a week instead of every day).  Mow to a 3” height to help keep the roots shaded, and leave grass cuttings on the lawn.
• If planting anything this late, be sure to give lots of water.
• Water trees with a soaker hose after 2 weeks of hot dry weather.

potentilla 'Pink Beauty'

aruncus dioicus (goatsbeard)

hardy shrub rose (explorer series) 'John Cabot'

hardy shrub rose 'Therese Bugnet'

variegated creeping sedum (creeping stonecrop)

polemonium caeruleum (Jacob's ladder)

heuchera sanguinea (coral bells, alum root)

aquilegia (columbine)

how to get rid of ants?

A few ants in the garden are not a problem.  However, if they decide to make a large nest right near the root system of one of your plants, then they could damage the roots and even kill the plants.  Most ants like it dry, so they can also be a problem under patio stones, under eaves or in rock gardens (carpenter ants nest in moist areas but are not very common unless you have a lot of rotten wood in your yard like me - more on that some other day!)

One solution I've tried is to pour boiling water on the ant hill.  This works fairly well especially in patio areas, although you may have to do it a few times.  However, if the ant hill is near a plant, you don't want to risk damaging the plant, too. 

A week or so ago I heard someone on a radio call-in show give a tip about cream of wheat - spread it around the area, the ants will eat it and it will expand in their stomache and kill them.  I thought it was worth a try so I'm trying it!  I will report back if I get any results.

perennials: the first year they sleep...

Here's my back hill garden at the beginning of July.  The middle is the new part where I took out the grass this spring.  It looks a little sparser than the sides, which are 4 years old now. 

It may be tempting to plant perennials really close together, but if you want to save yourself some work in a year or two (and save money by not buying too many perennials), remember to leave space for their full size.

There's a rule about growing perennials:

"the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap."  This is because they take some time to get their roots established before their growth really takes off.  So be patient, use mulch and wait until the third year before you decide you really need more plants!!

 

Here's what part of the same garden looked liked last year at this time:

garden views from the house

I've talked before about the importance of designing a garden with views from the house in mind.

I'm so happy with my new hill garden in the backyard that I had to get a new mirror so that I can see the back garden from the living room in the front of the house!!  Crazy but true.

what I love about gardening...

... taking fresh flowers to a BBQ at a friend's house.

what is the best edging to use between lawn and garden?

A trench is easiest and most effective.  If you make a nice vertical cut like this all around your garden, and let the soil on the garden side gradually slope back up again to ground level, the grass roots will have nowhere to spread.  Redo the edging once every spring and maybe once later in summer if you're a perfectionist, and that's it.

The black plastic edging stuff isn't worth it.  It's a pain to install properly, it often heaves from frost, and you'll still have to pull up grass that jumps over it here and there. Not including installation, you'll probably spend the same amount of time keeping grass out of your garden as if you just re-cut the edge every spring.  Plus, moving the plastic edging is a pain if you want to change the shape of your garden bed and finally... it's plastic in the garden!  Who needs it?

A brick or rock border looks nice, so go for it if you want, but keep in mind it will not be low maintenance.  The grass is going to keep spreading into the cracks between the bricks and it's even harder to pull out once it's in there.  And again there's the problem of changing the shape of your bed. 

Seriously.  Cut a trench once a year and you'll be happy!

roses in zone 3

It's rose season!  Yay!  Some people think roses are too fussy, but it ain't true.  Shrub roses are low maintenance and drought tolerant.  If my brother could grow one in his very cold, windy front yard in practically pure clay soil with no extra care, then anyone can grow them.

More on roses later, but in the meantime here's a wonderful example of hardy shrub roses growing at the zoo.

polygonum (fleeceflower, snakeweed)

Here's a plant I've been meaning to add to my garden.  Polygonum affine is a groundcover that likes full sun and is drought tolerant - this one is growing beside a blue spruce.  The leaves turn bronze in fall.

Polygonum 'bistorta' is taller (75 cm) and likes moisture and semi-shade.  It would be happy beside a pond.

papaver orientale (oriental poppy)

I had this flower in my garden at my old house and I think I must get it again.  The satiny, tissue-paper flowers are big and gorgeous.  If orange is too much for you, there are many cultivars with pink, red, and plum colours, and more.

Oriental poppies go dormant after flowering so plant them behind something bushy to hide the hole.  Staking would be a good idea.

These plants like sun and are drought tolerant.  Divide them plants in August after they go dormant.  Poppies are also easy to grow from seed.

salvia superba

I think the variety of this perennial sage is 'May Night', if I recall correctly.  I brought it with me from my old house so it is at least 5 years old.  Salvias like full sun and are drought tolerant.  This one gets about 45 cm tall.

But every year after it flowers, this plant gets powdery mildew on me.  I give it space and full sun, but it still succumbs.  So I cut it back when it finishes blooming and no harm seems to be done.  I love the blue flowers so much that I forgive it.

You'll notice the iceland poppies are still going strong!

lonicera x brownii (honeysuckle vine) 'Dropmore Scarlet Trumpet'

I don't know why it's called scarlet because the flowers are actually pinky-orange.

This vine was in the long-neglected garden of my current house when I moved in.  It was growing under a spruce tree!!  Obviously a tough and drought-tolerant perennial.

Honeysuckle blooms for a long time in partial shade or full sun, and is loved by hummingbirds.  The old growth gets woody (this vine does not die back to the ground over winter) so only requires the occasional thinning if it is getting too big for its space. 

nepeta (catmint) 'Six Hills Giant'

One of my favourite plants.  This variety is huge - it gets about 80 cm tall and wide.  I just moved it this spring so it is smaller than it was last year, but I'm sure next year it'll be crowding out everything around it.

Catmint looks so nice along a sidewalk or patio because it spills over and softens the edge.  It also looks great with roses or lady's mantle.  If you don't have enough space for this variety, 'Walker's Low' is smaller and more well-behaved.

It likes full sun and is drought tolerant.  It blooms from now until frost, which is one reason why I like it so much.  It can be cut back for even more flowers later in the season.

tanacetum coccineum (painted daisy) 'Robinson's Red'

I wouldn't classify this plant as low-maintenance because it is not quite drought tolerant and should be staked, but I am a sucker for pink and yellow!!  this plant can also be found with lighter pink or red petals.

It likes full sun to part shade and gets about 60 cm tall, 45 cm wide.

thalictrum aquilegifolium (columbine meadow-rue)

I got this plant last year and then moved it in spring, so it's not very big yet (it doesn't like to be moved), but I look forward to great things from it.  I love the delicate sprays of flowers. 

This plant should get about 1m tall (and 0.6 m wide) when in flower, but I like to plant it in front of something shorter just because the plant is so lacey that you can see through it to what is behind.

It likes part shade and moist soil.

allium schoenoprasum (chives)

Chives are so easy to grow that I have several patches - one in my small herb garden and some more in the front yard, just because they look nice.  Super hardy and drought tolerant, too.