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I discovered Evergreen, a non-profit environmental organization, at my local farmer’s market last weekend. They were there promoting their Lawn and Garden Smart program, a garden consultation and design service created to promote ecological gardening to Greater Vancouver residents. Some municipalities, like West Vancouver and Richmond, are buying up blocks of the consultations to be delivered to their residents at a subsidized rate as part of their pesticide reduction education programs. Bravo!
In addition to one hour consultations, Evergreen offers follow-up ‘coaching’ sessions, full landscape design services, participatory installations (where family and friends help you plant), a native plant buying club and gift certificates for all of the above.
But you should check out their website even if you don’t live near one of their regional offices, because there are tons of fantastic resources, including heritage and native plant databases. And – this is really cool – you can add the plants you’re interested in to a personal “wishlist” similar to Amazon’s.
How cool is this outdoor sink – sorry, water centre – from Smart Home? While probably not all that necessary for gardeners blessed with potting sheds or garages, this would be a fabulous amenity for my small backyard. It connects to any tap, and folds down to double as a work surface. Now if only it were slate or stainless steel…
I’m so excited. I just can’t hide it. I’m about to lose control and I think I like it.
Yes, I’ve finally found some decent pots for the front patio. At a Home Hardware, of all places (I don’t know what they’re like elsewhere, but my local Home Hardware is a dinky little store that closes at like 4:00 and never has what you need – hence my surprise).
They’re sleek and smooth and stylish. They’re bold, but match the look and feel of the building. They were cheap. And they don’t weigh 900lbs. Sold!
This is the inner courtyard of our townhouse complex. I think it has kind of a Whistler feel to it.
Here’s our front patio, adjacent to the courtyard. I haven’t done much with it, really, just added a few plants among the landscaper’s yew hedges, oak tree and euphorbia (not shown). You can see a bit of one of the pots. There’s a matching one on the other side of the kitchen (closed) door.
Now to plant them up. I was thinking of grasses, to add some height. Naturally, I turned to Bluestem Nursery, known locally as the source for ornamental grasses. Bluestem is located in Christina Lake, BC’s warmest lake, which is in the southern Interior of British Columbia, right on the border with Washington State north of Spokane. They’ve got a great article and list of grasses for containers, all of which sound lovely.
But I’d love your suggestions. What would look great in these pots? (Part-shade, zone 8, prefer a foundation plant that has winter interest…) The pots themselves are about 3′ high, and about 16″ in diameter at the rim. Anyone had success with grasses in containers?
It’s Ascension Day, the day Christians believe Jesus went to heaven after his resurrection. Like most religious events and symbols, there are a bunch of superstitions rooted in paganism associated with this day. I always find this stuff fascinating:
On Ascension Day:
- If the weather is sunny, the summer will be long and hot; but if it rains, crops will do badly and livestock, especially cattle, will suffer from disease.
- Eggs laid on this day will never go bad and will guarantee good luck for a household if placed in the roof.
- Rain collected on Ascension Day is said to be good for inflamed or diseased eyes.
- Those suffering from goitre should bite into the bark of a peach tree at midnight on Ascension Day, so that the disease passes to the tree and the sufferer is cured.
As a gardener, I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m afraid of spiders – afterall, they’re so good at keeping garden pests at bay. But I’ve been scarred by a childhood in which wolf spiders – those terrifyingly quick-moving, giant, hairy beasts – haunted my summers. They’d emerge when the weather warmed, appearing in the bathroom sink every morning, darting out from every toy I’d pick up in the basement, and once – and I think this is really what did me in – crawling into bed with me. My dad ran into my bedroom with a baseball bat, the screams were that loud.
Maybe I’m growing up (I turned 30 last week – surely thirty-year-olds can’t be afraid of “bugs”) because while planting my edamame seeds yesterday, I disturbed a momma spider and it broke my heart.
See, she’d been nesting in my lavender, and when I’d dug nearby to plant the seeds, I guess she thought she had better make a break for it. But she wasn’t going anywhere without her babies. She was frantically trying to haul her eggs away, and I wasn’t making things easy. I’m not totally reformed, so I didn’t want them hatching in my yard (I envisioned something out of a B-grade horror flick) so I was trying to scoop her and her eggs up onto my kneeling pad so I could I move them. I probably terrorized her in doing so, but eventually I walked her across the alley and found her a new nursery at the ghetto house. Then I subjected her to photography.
It sounds lame, but even two years ago I wouldn’t have been able to move her. I’d have called Ben. And yesterday I felt compassion for her. The way she so desperately fought to hang on to her eggs… I must have recognized that mothering instinct, I guess, even in a spider. Maybe they’re not so scary afterall.
I was supposed to post this yesterday, but Movable Type was giving me grief. Here it is anyway, one day late.
It’s Victoria Day here in Canada, heralding the end of the May long weekend. And, while I’m no monarchist, the holiday gives me a chance to mention one of my favourite perennials, Lobelia cardinalis ‘Queen Victoria.’ Red isn’t everyone’s favourite colour in the garden, but if you can accommodate it, this herbaceous perennial is a sure-fire winner. Actually, it really is – it won the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit. I especially like its deep maroon foliage, but the scarlet blooms are the kicker. An excellent plant for providing impact.
Flowers: Summer
Height: 36″ (90cm)
Position: Sun or Partial Shade
Hardy to Zone 8
(Photo: Thomson Morgan. )
Winter Melon
May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada, acknowledging the long and rich history of Asian Canadians and their contributions to Canada. Vancouver is blessed with a large, diverse, and vibrant Asian community; in fact, 20% of our population is Asian (Chinese, East Indian and Filipino making up most of that percentage). All this adds up to diverse communities, fascinating stories, fabulous festivals and fantastic food. Really. Vancouver has phenomenal Asian restaurants. You should come visit.
In my East Vancouver neighbourhood, many a garden is devoted to the production of vegetables. Many times, I can’t identify what exactly is growing, which is kind of cool. You think you’ve seen everything, and then someone’s growing luffas and it’s like, dude.
I’ve got a bit of a thing for growing unusual edibles (in fact, with the room my tomatillos, edamame, and saffron take up, I’m running out of room for oh, you know, peas and salad greens. Things I eat on a regular basis.) But combined with my fiance’s obsession with Asian food and cooking, it seems I’m just destined to grow Asian veggies.
My friend Emma, who is of Chinese heritage, has fond memories of her parents’ garden (read the extended entry for a handed-down recipe!). They grew basically all the family’s vegetables, including gai lan, kohlrabi, bok choy, long green beans, snow peas and snow pea shoots, winter melon (dong gua), fuzzy melon, cilantro, Chinese chives, “and some dark leafy green stuff that grew around the fence.” Says Emma, “I don’t know what it was called but we used it in a soup that called for liver too. Ew! But the soup was very tasty.”
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From my work’s internal buy-and-sell listings:
I am reluctantly selling my pet worms and would like to see them go to a good family.
They come with their own home, a very nice black self contained unit with ventilation. There are 2 separate family groups (they do not have to go to the same home). I have one book on how to take care of these wonderful pets and if sold separately would go to the first buyer. These guys are perfect for the small family or someone living in an apartment or townhouse.
Vancouver City sells these pets for $25/ family but they certainly are not as mature or plentiful as my pets.
PRICE- $15 for one – $25 for two. Must go by May 23.
If it’s not slugs, it’s aphids, apparently. The little buggers have arrived and are determined to shrivel up all the new growth on my Clematis jackmanii. It being in its third year (third year leap – check!) there is a lot of new growth at stake.
I’ve always used a two-pronged approach to deal with aphids. I plant nasturtiums as a decoy (I call them sacrificial nasturtiums) because aphids go for them and leave my basil and other tender morsels alone. Second, I use a dishwashing liquid-and-water solution to deal with the aphids that do go after my prized plants (never had enough of a problem to buy lady bugs). It seems to work alright, but I came across this recipe in the Farmer’s Almanac and I think I’ll give it a try:
Organic all-purpose pesticide
In a jar, combine 1 teaspoon dishwashing liquid and 1 cup vegetable oil. Shake vigorously. In an empty spray bottle, combine 2 teaspoons of this mixture and 1 cup water. Use at ten-day intervals (or more often if needed) to rid plants of whiteflies, mites, aphids, scales, and other pests.
I have a secret.
I have a fondness for slugs and snails. I think they’re, well, kind of cute. I know I’m not alone in this! Well, maybe among gardeners.
But except for that unfortunate time when I stepped on a slug and it got stuck between my toes… oh, and the time the dog tried to eat the giant banana slug but it glued itself to her tongue and she kept sticking her tongue in and out in a vain attempt to detach the slug… well, my experiences have been mainly uneventful. This despite growing up basically in a rainforest inhabited by thousands of the critters. However, I was surrounded by slug genocide.
My surrogate grandmother, Mrs. Mills, who lived next door to us when I was wee, was an amazing gardener with over an acre of heavenly English cottage-style garden. She was ruthless with the slugs. She carried a pair of scissors with her in the garden, and whenever she came across one, the unfortunate gastropod was snipped neatly in half.
My mother’s method was no less gruesome. It was however, slightly less conspicuous. She carried a giant pair of wooden tongs with her, which were used to deposit the limaceous creature into a grey jug of salt water marked GROSS SLUGS.
Maybe it’s a remnent of teen rebellion, but I refuse to kill slugs. Unfortunately, faced with the lace they make out of my hostas, Something Must Be Done. The slugs must be stopped.
I realize there are a number of organic ways to deal with slugs, setting a beer trap being one of the least offensive. (If your time is up, drowning in beer wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, relatively speaking.) While I’m on the subject, please, please don’t use slug bait (i.e. poison). Domestic animals are attracted to it, ingest it, and die needlessly. We almost lost Blue, my first dog, to slug bait. Not to mention the fact that it works its way up the food chain (slugs are eaten by frogs, snakes and birds, to name a few).
But you don’t really need to kill slugs at all. Here are a few tips for reducing their presence without feeling the guilt:
* Use copper as a barrier. Copper gives slugs a slight shock when they try to cross it. You can buy copper tape and make miniature fences around slug-munched plants, or simply use old pennies!
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