Garden Design, Garden Makeover, Garden Coach
Rodale's water use infographic: It's not a bad thing to review your water use, and it's certainly a good thing to manage your garden responsibly. But I have a few comments about this graphic: Why would California governor Jerry Brown be proud if you were "growing nothing in your yard"? Not even a joke. I guess... Continue Reading →
Wow, we finally hit Day 10 of Garden Tribe's Vegetable Garden Boot Camp. Yay! Subject of today's post--COMPOST. It almost doesn't matter where you're getting your information, it's likely you'll find this is one of the top recommendations for any garden, vegetable or otherwise: Use Compost! As I said in the post on Understanding Soil,... Continue Reading →
I read the following brief article on Rainwater Harvesting on Rob Thibault's website, TBO's Green Landscape Systems. I asked if I could repost it here, and so here it is: Rainwater Harvesting 101 Rainwater is one of the most precious resources in the world. Fortunately here in B.C. we are gifted with an abundance! Unfortunately,... Continue Reading →
This article, "City hopes bird strategy will take flight", appeared in today's Vancouver Sun. Apparently Vancouver aims to make the area increasingly bird-friendly, and city management will tell us how to do that. Which is what I've been writing about since I started RLGS. (Sorry for all the links--better than cutting and pasting.)
Lots of plants are designated as "ground cover", because they do in fact cover the ground. If the whole object is to prevent weeds from falling on the soil and germinating, almost anything dense will do. But my own definition is limited to plants that are essentially living mulch (and you all know how much I... Continue Reading →
Make YOUR Garden Sustainable You've heard the buzz words: "Green gardening", "Sustainable gardening", "Environmentally sound gardening". But you don't know how to transform your water-guzzling, fertilizer-gobbling, time- and energy-intensive outdoor space into something that requires less of all those things. I'll be honest here. Much as I'm always encouraging my readers to DIY, and giving... Continue Reading →
Steve Whysall (Vancouver Sun gardening columnist) wrote a great article in Friday's paper entitled Six Ways To Keep Your Garden Looking Great. He interviewed Egan Davis, the chief instructor of the Horticultural Training Program at the University of B.C. Botanical Garden, but formerly at Van Dusen Botanical Garden, and one of my Master Gardener instructors. So I'm... Continue Reading →
Is it time to plant a tree? Treekeepers is a program established recently (2013) to encourage Vancouverites and locals to plant trees. And their strategy is to almost give them away ($10 each!). Go to the website for details. According to Steve Whysall in his column (Mar 24, 2014), the city of Vancouver planted 10,000 trees (just in Vancouver)... Continue Reading →
When to Start Your Spring Clean-Up Back in the Fall I wrote a post about NOT doing Fall clean-up. There are lots of reasons, not least is to leave some seed-heads for the birds. Well, it's mid-February, and the birds have eaten all the available seeds, and now there's a good reason to start your pre-Spring... Continue Reading →
Design Your Wildlife Garden We've had an overview of the Wildlife Garden with "How to Design the Wildlife Garden". That covered a lot about Birds. Next were a bunch more B's--Planning Your Wildlife Garden--Bees, Butterflies, Beneficials. Finally, let's look at ponds and bogs. I've linked to NatureScape BC several times, and this is no exception: here's... Continue Reading →
Real Life Garden Solutions 