Garden Design, Garden Makeover, Garden Coach
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 →
Last month I covered the basics of planning your wildlife garden: Water. Food. Shelter. Don't use pesticides. Do plant some natives (NatureScapeBC.ca is a great resource)--here's a short list of natives for various garden sites. Include a wide variety of plants--flowers, deciduous and evergreen shrubs, ornamental grasses, but enough of all to actually make a statement.... Continue Reading →
"If You Build It They Will Come" First of all, why should you bother with a "wildlife garden"? Providing habitat for native critters will not only benefit them, but you as well. The more diversity you have in your garden the more you'll appreciate it and get out into it. Which as you know from... Continue Reading →
Fall Clean up--What not to do. It's pretty late to be talking about fall clean up, but today it's still sunny, and pretty cold for coastal BC (-1 right now), and it's Sunday. So there might be a feeling that it's now or never to clean up the garden. Make it "never"--or at least make... Continue Reading →
Mostly we hate bugs. Unless they're Pixar bugs. We don't want ants in the house (never mind cockroaches!) Spiders are just plain awful, and beetles look intimidating. But in fact, none of them are bad for the garden. So here are a few (of the many) bugs that we can happily live with. Spitbug Inside... Continue Reading →
Everyone seems to want to grow herbs. When I look at custom garden designs, many of them have a dedicated "herb garden", often in a knot garden kind of look. Here's a link to a detailed How To for an Herb Knot Garden, thanks to DIY Network . Personally, I prefer to have my herbs scattered among... Continue Reading →
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