Calgary Garden Coach

Confessions of a so-called sustainable gardener (please honey, can we lose one more tree?)

Here is the front view of my house as of this morning: my cute little blue bungalow (I want to change the yellow trim…) nestled in the spruce trees… the giant, water-hogging, nothing-will-grow-under-them spruce trees!  In case you can’t tell, there are 5 (count ‘em, 5!) in the front yard.  I also still have 5 in the backyard after taking out 4 others in the past few years.  Some previous owner went crazy planting spruce trees at least 20 years ago.

There is one tree, the one to the left of the front door (as you look at the house), that I want to get rid of.  Just out of curiosity, I requested an estimate to have it professionally removed.  It would cost $1067.85!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  $585 to take the tree down, $234 to take away the wood, and $198 to take out the stump (plus tax).  Um, not exactly in my gardening budget.

So live with it, my tree-hugger husband says.  He wouldn’t even want to take one down if we could get it done for free!

So I’m trying to convince him to let me and my Dad do it (we have taken down others in the past – well, my Dad did and I held the rope).  I know, it would be an insane amount of work to take it down and get rid of all that wood ourselves.   But here are the reasons why it is important to me to get rid of this tree:

1.  I can live with spruce trees.  I even know what will grow under/around them.  But with 5 large trees so close together, pretty much the whole front yard is sucked dry by their root systems.  Some plants are surviving but nothing is really thriving.  If I could just get rid of one tree’s worth of roots, I’m certain the garden would grow a whole lot better.

2.  Come on!  We would still have 10 large spruce trees in our yard!  That is more spruce than anyone could want in one city lot!  Think of the variety of different plants that would take one tree’s place.  Think of the biodiversity and the birds, bugs, bees that would be attracted by the flowering & fruiting plants I would put in its place and how much healthier the soil would be!

3.  You might say, just don’t bother trying to garden around so many spruce trees.  Just put down some nice mulch and be done with it.  I might agree if this particular tree were not smack-dab in front of a beautiful, big bay window in the front room of our house.  You can’t see it in the picture, can you?  That’s because of the *&%^$ tree!!  More importantly, the inside view from this beautiful window is ruined by the tree.  Think how much nicer it would be to look out onto a shady woodland garden, perhaps with relaxing little sitting area. With the other trees and shrubs, there will still be lots of privacy from the street.

Please honey?  Please please please?

pink pampas grass in Calgary?

Just got a question from Sophie re: growing pink pampas grass in Calgary.  I agree Sophie, it is a spectacular plant - when I have seen it elsewhere.  I have never tried growing it myself and haven't seen it much in Calgary (OK not at all, but I'm sure some keener somewhere is growing it!)

One problem with pampas grass in Calgary is that it is borderline hardy here - rated as zone 5 so if you had a sheltered spot and/or gave it some protection over the winter, it might make it.  But there's still another problem and that is that it needs a long growing season for the spectacular flowers to develop - which I'm sure is the reason you'd want to grow it.  Calgary does not have a long growing season by most standards!!

If you do want to try it, I'd maybe put it in a pot and overwinter it in a cold, dark spot in the basement or in a heated garage, if you've got one.  Then you can put it in a sunny window in early spring to give it a head start.  But on the other hand, it never hurts to try it outside and see what happens!  With "climate change" you never know...  Let me know how it goes...

Bluestem nursery has tonnes of great information on hardy ornamental grasses.  You can find information on pink pampas grass here (but their pictures don't do it justice).  A great substitute would be Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' which does very well in Calgary (reaches an impressive size but unfortunately isn't pink!).

Thanks for your question!  I love to hear from people who've found my blog helpful.

Seedy Saturday is coming!

Saturday March 21, 10:00-3:00
Mark your calendars!

http://seedysaturdaycalgary.shawwebspace.ca/

February is a good time to prune

The last 3 week-ends I've enjoyed at least a couple of sunny hours outside in the yard.  My older kids played, and I played with them... and squeezed in the odd pruning cut here and there!

Now is a great time to prune because you can see branch structure and you don't have to worry about trampling the garden.  But these neighbours of mine do this to their front yard tree every year - does anyone think this looks good?  Or is good for the tree?

What NOT to do:
- don't top the tree (besides looking terrible, it leads to weak growth and probably decay)
- don't leave too much or too little of the pruned branch (there shouldn't be a stub left but don't cut into the collar where the branch joins the tree)
- don't cut off more than about 15% of live branches from a tree in one year
- don't go crazy: take a step back once in a while to look at what you're doing!!

If you're really unsure about pruning your trees, get someone with experience to help you, or if it's too big to handle yourself, call a certified arborist to do it properly.

As for shrubs, they are generally a little more forgiving.  Generally I alternate every year between heading back (reducing the length of some branches by cutting them back to an outward facing bud or to a good lateral branch), and thinning (removing branches by cutting them off at the ground).

If your trees or shrubs are totally out of control, take a few years to get them back into shape.  Or some shrubs can withstand being cut back to the ground occasionally: lilacs, caragana, honeysuckle, and ninebarks fall in this category.

my last winter project is done!

I've been reading other's gardening blogs and those from warmer areas are proclaiming the arrival of spring.  Grrrrr.  Here in Calgary we have at least 2 more months before anything can really be done outside.  I console myself with the reminder that I LIKE winter.  If it wasn't for winter, I wouldn't get anything done around the house (which is what happens for the 6 months of gardening season every year.)

So, winter is a time for other pursuits.  I like to make some Christmas decorations and presents for my daughters and niece and nephews every year.  I also catch up on my photo albums. 

Above you can see my most recent, and last, project of this winter.  Some good friends gave us some hand-me-down girl's furniture a year and a half ago, and I promised my  husband I would finally paint it up and get it out of the garage before spring.  Hence, I have been painting up a storm.  Thanks to the fact that I used so many colours, and that our laundry room is only big enough to contain one piece of furniture at a time, this project took a month to finish.  But it's done!  Hallelujah! 

The girls like their new bulletin board w/ shelf, dresser & hutch and night tables (my oldest daughter had already been using the desk and insists she wants it to be white - no problem, I'm tired of painting anyway), and now I can get the laundry room back in order and start pulling my weight around the house again, before my husband kills me.  That is, for a few weeks and then I will be starting seeds...

beautiful amaryllis

I just can't get enough of my gorgeous amaryllis blooms!  The vivid colour jumps out at me even when I glance in their direction from another room!  What a great way to perk up the February gardening blahs.
Unfortunately, I planted them in early November, which was too late to get Christmas blooms (which is what I initially intended), but I guess I have Valentine's blooms instead.  Next year I'll plant the bulbs earlier, but it's still a gamble getting blooms for Christmas.  I'll probably plant them anyway, but splurge on a few from the florist in December as well. 
I couldn't decide on just one picture so here are my faves.  Enjoy!

some reasons why I garden

Ken says it better than I can:

"Everyone is being pulled and pushed by the demands of modern life.  There are so many things calling us away from the garden, which is paradoxically the one place that offers a truly restorative, peaceful retreat.  I think one answer for people my age, and for young busy families, is not to necessarily shrink the garden but instead to choose which tasks you like to do, and rely on more self-sufficient shrubs, perennials, and trees for other parts of the landscape."

"I learned as a child, and know today, that the most remarkable discoveries can be made everywhere and every day - just beyond the gate that leads to the garden."

-Ken Druse, Planthropology, 2008

May flowers in Calgary

Yup.  I'm definately getting gardening fever.  I'm starting to sort through my pictures from last year to remind myself of what things I want to add/change in the garden this year.  So, I will be posting lots of summaries of what the garden looked like at different times of the year last year.  Here's what I had blooming in May:

• spring bulbs such as iris reticulata, tulipa tarda, small and large tulips, daffodils, chionodoxa, muscari, fritillaria,
• early blooming perennials such as bergenia, epimedium, euphorbia, iceland poppies and bearded iris
• spring blooming shrubs such as nanking cherry, lilacs, crabapples and plums (some not mine but I enjoy them on the way to work every day)

April flowers in Calgary

It's kind of funny/sad (OK, depressing!!) reading other people's blogs about how "spring is coming".  Not in zone 3!!
About this time every year I am finishing up my winter projects and my thoughts start turning to gardening again.  But I have to remind myself that I have a looooong time to wait!!  These are my garden pictures from April last year...
That's when spring comes to Calgary and only the very smallest and earliest of the spring bulbs, crocus and siberian squill were blooming.  Of course, last year was a very late spring.  We can always hope for an earlier one this year...  But still, I won't have anything to report for at least 2 more months...