gardening

Changes

With low temperatures forecast for next week, today I received phone calls from several panicked homeowners looking to get their leaves picked up. I will squeeze in a few but I rarely work on-demand. I’m too busy with regular clients.

And this afternoon, as I headed to one of my regular residential clients, they informed me that they were keeping all of their leaves in their beds. Working on a garden design across the street, a horticulturist recommended that they mulch their beds with leaves. So, this is the change for 2022: leaves stay in beds so they can insulate the plants against harsh low temperatures. The forecast for this coming week says as low as -14C.

Leaves as mulch

Leaves can definitely be used as mulch in planted beds. A layer of leaves can insulate your plants from low winter temperatures. However, some clients can’t stand the look of their beds, stuffed full of leaves, especially in high-profile beds. Then the wind picks up and it’s a mess. So, you decide.

Insulation is one thing, but quick leaf decomposition that will benefit the plants might be a bit exaggerated. If you expect your plants to benefit from decomposed leaves, then the best first step is to shred them.

Simply pile them on your lawn and run your mower over them. Whole leaves take longer to decompose. And, speaking of lawns, it’s always a good idea to clear leaves off your lawn so you don’t get weird light-colored zones in your lawn as the grass is smothered.

Same old, same old?

I love the idea of clients trying different things. Why not mulch your beds with leaves instead of removing them every year. Are you tired of your perennial bed? Rip out some of your plants and get new ones.

Your garden shouldn’t be static; gardens are never finished: they evolve.

I’m perfectly happy to adjust to different client requests. There is always something to do, like perennials to cut back or broken tree branches to remove.

Enjoy the off-season and make some plans for next year.

Lessons

I love meeting new clients and getting to know them and their needs. I really love it when it becomes obvious I can help them. And during the garden assessment, you can take a look at the place and see what condition it’s in. When I meet the people I obviously don’t tell them they will be my next blog post topic.

What I see

If you read my blogs regularly, you will know that I hate landscape fabric. But if it’s already installed, then at least bury it with several inches of mulch or soil. This garden had lots of fabric showing so I recommended adding two inches throughout to keep the weeds down; and to give the planted bed a uniform look. Otherwise, they would see there more often, weeding.

Pro tip: Best case, your landscape fabric will delay weeds. Even with two inches of mulch installed, weeds will still drift in with animals and the wind.

I love gardening and I think people should bravely experiment in their gardens. Here, the owners planted lots of single plants which works best for specimens. Like having one weeping Japanese maple in the middle of the bed. More on this soon. But for perennials, multiples are better.

For example, one tiger lily doesn’t have the same effect as, say, 5-7. Instead of having two Bergenias, I would go for 3, 5 or 7. Planting more also means more competition for weeds which love open bed spaces.

Pro tip: plant in odd numbers. Three is better than two. Five, seven, etc.

Proper tree planting is also important. I really like that this client gave it a go. When I told her the maple was planted a bit low she smiled and said something about learning. That’s right, she has the right attitude.

I uncovered the root flare and created a quick tree well so the stem didn’t rot in the soil. The tree should be fine.

The outside boulevard also needed some attention. It was still leafy from the fall and it was covered with cherry pits. And the lawn edge also required blade edging. Now it looks much better.

Normally I would be tempted to make some inappropriate joke but, since these were brand new clients, I just mentioned in passing that their Skimmias were all female. It’s always nice to plant males nearby.

The future

The beauty of having clients is that you can teach them while you make money. Customers, on the other hand, only care about prices and rates, don’t care to learn and will dump you for Miguel who charges $1 less per hour.

I expect to work with this couple all year and beyond. Since the owner loves fragrant plants, I’m looking forward to transforming their garden into a semi-shade oasis. It might generate a few more blog posts this year.

Spring is here, officially, and I’m really happy about it. Bulbs are pushing out, gardeners are getting busy in their gardens, and people are calling about spring garden work.

But the best is the warmer weather and colour in the landscape. My favourite early spring Doronicums aren’t popping up yet but the plants are now noticeable. And I can’t wait for shorts and t-shirts.

Spring projects

If you live in a strata complex maintained by Proper Landscaping then, chances are, your landscaping is ready for mowing season. I suspect we are one to two weeks away from the first mow.

Privately, I’ve set up a few mow gigs and I’m planning to use a new battery-operated mower. Not just because the price of gas has gone up; the model I want is light and the handles can be folded. Plus I won’t have to suck exhaust after hours.

Sidewalks

Sometimes spring clean-up can mean just blowing off your sidewalk and blade edging it. You get instant results and your neighbours thank you for not lowering neighbourhood property values.

This is a quick fix. I love sharp lawn edges.

Lime and aerate

If you don’t do anything to your lawn all year, at least aerate it and put down lime. Lime should help with lowering the pH of your lawn from acidic to alkaline. But you will need to good heavy.

Aeration can be done with a hand tool on small lawn patches or with a machine on bigger patches. Extracting core plugs from your lawn allows water and oxygen to enter the root zone. It’s also a great chance to examine your grass. Pick up a core sample and see how good the roots are.

Weeds

If you’re not up to weeding, you can always bury your garden with new mulch to keep the weeds down by depriving them of sunlight.

Enjoy the colour

Enjoy the spring

Spring 2022 is full of bad news, from COVID, inflation and interest rates to wars waged by maniac dictators. Beautiful spring gardens are exactly what we need to escape the bad news.

Enjoy the spring!

Raised bed advantage

I’ve written a blog post about a community garden which popped up this summer across from my building in Port Moody, British Columbia. So, there the advantage of raised beds is obvious: you can run a lottery and let people take charge of one raised bed each.

But why raised beds? It’s a good question someone asked in a Facebook group.

My hit list

I like raised beds because I hate bending over all day. I used to have a community garden plot and I had to get on my knees to take care of it. If you’re older, go with a raised bed.

Since the plot is nicely defined, you eliminate the risk of stepping on other plants and compacting the soil.

Another advantage is weeds are less likely to migrate into your raised plot or get delivered there by wind. If you do get some drifting in, you can easily weed them out.

I also feel like animals and insects aren’t as bad in raised beds. There is some effort required to climb up.

Raised beds also look neater. Freshly installed, without plants, some residents in my neighbourhood wondered why there were “coffins” on the lawn; today the raised beds are well-used and there is new fencing around the garden.

When thieves hit your raised garden plot, it’s easier to detect.

Other advantages of raised beds

Soil in raised beds drains better and warms-up faster. That helps your plants grow better. It’s also much easier to amend; and, I suspect you will have to amend it because store-bought soils aren’t great. When I rented my garden plot years ago, the group brought in compost every spring. It definitely helped and it was fairly cheap.

Raised garden plots are easier to plant, weed and harvest. But we’ve covered that already under bending over.

If you’re worried about invaders, it’s easy to install barriers on all four sides to prevent invasions.

Somebody also suggested that it’s easier to install cold frames over raised beds.

Give it a go

It’s best to create a raised bed and see how you like it. When I had a regular plot, it worked out fine because it was very small; and I didn’t have it for long. A year into my community garden membership, a bigger -raised!- plot became available.

Kids!

I love kids! My two teenagers mean the world to me. But let’s be open about this, kids and pandemics are harsh on women’s careers. Since it’s usual for the wife to take care of the kids, her own goals and aspirations must be put on hold.

I mention this because a few weeks ago I met a woman who reinvented herself after her maternity leave as a container gardener. I noticed her older Nissan van before I even saw her and her two employees. The van sported neat green graphics and, it turns out, it wasn’t that expensive. Now she was in business and doing well. Aha!

Good news

It’s been hard to find good news during a continuing global pandemic but this qualifies quite nicely. I love seeing people start green businesses and do well. This lady specializes in container gardening.

On this day, she was decorating one unit for Christmas by changing pots and pimping out a staircase. And she was booked solid.

Pots

All I know about planting pots comes from a one page article from Landscape Management magazine. And it might be all you need to know.

All pots have three main components:

a) There is something imposing or noticeable in the middle, like the star of a show. That’s the thriller and it should thrill you.

b) Trailing from the pot are plants the spill over the sides, thus we call them spillers.

c) The gaps between the thriller and the spiller plants are filled with, you guessed it, fillers.

Now you know the secret to pot planting: thriller, spiller and filler.

Design

Now, I confess to not having the required imagination for planting design. I could, of course, take a stab at it but I’m not completely sure you’d want to pay my invoice.

People like me stress about pot planting. This happened to me years ago when I worked for the City of Coquitlam parks department. We arrived at a seniors residence late in the day, and the back of the work truck was still full of plants.

So, my city gardener boss sent us out to plant one pot each, freestyle. That would be sweet music for some people but it genuinely frightened me. And, I did it. I stuffed the pot so much, it was dominated by fillers but I doubt anybody noticed. Most of the elderly shuffling unsteadily by only noticed the flowers, not the arrangement.

Hire pros

If you have pots that need some updating, hire a professional like Pamela, the owner of Magnolia Boutique Gardening. Give her a call (778-228-2301) and enjoy a consultation visit with her. She’s extremely nice and patient. The poor woman was trying to get her project completed and I kept on asking her questions.

Visit the company website for more project photos.

2022

Soon we’ll welcome the new year and the pandemic will still be with us. I hope to meet more green professionals like Pamela next year. People who run green businesses successfully. That would cheer me up.