Prairie Garden articles from January 1 2004

Prairie Garden archives from January 1 2004

An editorial note.
January 1, 2004... The focus of this year's issue is beautiful prairie communities. I hope you find that the communities that have found their way into these pages are representative of the most beautiful rural settings our prairie provinces have to offer. Our...

Guest editorial.
January 1, 2004... Most of us see the rest of the world through the eyes of the best photographers. This can lead us to conclude that every other place looks far nicer than wherever we live. The advent of glossy gardening magazines has served to encourage our...

2004 feature section--pleasing prairie places: Pinawa, Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... Pinawa is a unique little town with a mixture of planned gardens, native vegetation, and vistas of natural landscapes typical of the Canadian Shield. The town is nestled in the spruce, jack pine and deciduous forest on the banks of the...

Parkside, Saskatchewan home of the World's Largest Lily.
January 1, 2004... Parkside is a small peaceful community located 130 kilometres north of Saskatoon. At one time, the village consisted of a great number of businesses, churches and a school, but as with many rural communities most of them have disappeared. We...

Virden, Manitoba a millennium garden.
January 1, 2004... In 1998 Virden in Bloom entered the Canadian Communities in Bloom international challenge. Virden was one of five towns and cities from across Canada that challenged a group of towns and cities in Great Britain. One of the towns in the Great...

Luseland, Saskatchewan.
January 1, 2004... Along Highway #31, about 80 kilometres from the Alberta border in Saskatchewan, lies the quiet Little town of Luseland. Situated beside the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks with its large terminal elevators standing guard as sentinels, it is...

Rocky Mountain House, Alberta.
January 1, 2004... Rocky Mountain House is an hour's drive west of Red Deer on Highway #11, an hour east of the mountains. Much of the town is built on a hill that slopes south and west towards the North Saskatchewan River. For the most part, the river is...

Rumsey, Alberta the Rumsey flower shop.
January 1, 2004... Rumsey is a small hamlet in east central Alberta, located off Highway #585. A few houses and community buildings are all that is left of what once was a thriving prairie town. It, like so many other small towns, could not compete with larger...

Darlingford, Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... The Town of Darlingford is set well back from Highway #3 in south central Manitoba. Most traffic speeds by with scarcely a glance. But this little town lovingly maintains what is probably the most imaginative and ambitious war memorial in any...

Binscarth, Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... Near the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border, beside the Yellowhead Route, is a picturesque village nestled in a grand array of trees--spruce, ash, elm, maple--that our forefathers had the foresight to plant. This small community is surrounded by...

Mennonite street villages in Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... There must be something happening here! I'm looking at the official highway map of Manitoba. South of an imaginary line drawn from Winkler to Altona is a cluster of small places with big names: Friedensruh, Schanzenfeld, Halbstadt, Gnadenthal...

Blumenort, Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... In the Village of Blumenort home gardens have always given us much pleasure; for our tables and for our eyes. Bright, colourful flowers in all varieties, bountiful vegetables, fruit trees and ornamental trees are all a very important part of...

Saltcoats, Saskatchewan.
January 1, 2004... Any person travelling the Yellowhead Highway, Highway #16 in Saskatchewan, during the summer months would be well advised to tour through the town of Saltcoats to view the great variety of gardens and inviting small town landscapes. Visitors...

St. Claude, Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... The Village of St. Claude was founded in 1892 by emigrants from St. Claude Jura in France. Descendants of those early settlers still make up the majority of the residents today. When we were choosing a symbol for our town our choice led us...

Carberry, Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... Free, unlimited water... every gardener's dream, and a dream realized every day in the community of Carberry. Tucked away only 3 kilometres south of the TransCanada Highway and an easy 200 kilometres west of Winnipeg, Carberry (pop....

Neepawa, Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... Neepawa is best approached from the east. The town, from this entrance, appears to be at the top of a hill. Highlighted against the sky and overhanging the road are dramatic rows of gigantic cottonwoods. They shelter what could be the finest...

Sceptre, Saskatchewan.
January 1, 2004... Sceptre (pop. 162) is located in southwestern Saskatchewan north of the TransCanada Highway off Highway #32. The area, opened to homesteaders just prior to World War I, consists primarily of grain farms, with ranching on the periphery of the...

Bryce Farnsworth 2003 Prairie Garden Award for Excellence.(Garden In General)
January 1, 2004... Bryce Farnsworth is the fourth recipient of The Prairie Garden Award for Excellence. This is an annual award given in recognition of significant contribution to the advancement and/or promotion of horticulture on the Northern Great Plains....

Transplanting your garden.
January 1, 2004... In 2001, after 20 years developing a 5-acre rural garden, we found ourselves transplanted to a city lot. As with most life changing experiences, we learned something about ourselves, but we also learned some new insights into gardening. ...

Fragaria, the strawberry food and medicine.
January 1, 2004... The Rosaceae family includes many species which do not appear to be related to the rose when viewed from a perspective other than botanical classification. The strawberry, a member of the genus Fragaria is a good example. The generic name for...

Cherries for the prairies ten years later.
January 1, 2004... Ten years ago, I wrote my first article for the The Prairie Garden on the Evans cherry. Since that time I've learned a lot more about cherry hardiness and cherry fruit production. It can now be estimated that somewhere between one and two...

Landscape plants developed for Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... Manitoba has a rich history of horticultural research and plant introductions. Pioneers such as A. P. Stevenson established a fruit orchard and nursery northwest of Morden. He along with others demonstrated that fruit production was possible...

50 years ago climate control by planting.
January 1, 2004... Planned planting of trees and shrubs may control climate on a good-sized lot by as much as 10 [degrees] to 15 [degrees] (Fahrenheit), according to James I. E. Ilgenfritz, President of the American Association of Nurserymen. "By proper...

Urban forestry a component of communities in bloom.
January 1, 2004... Communities in Bloom encourages all public interest groups, including citizens and politicians, to look at all their man-made and natural physical, horticultural and heritage resources in terms of how they can be enhanced to make a more...

The Northern Catalpa in Winnipeg.
January 1, 2004... I have always loved trees. On our 50 by 100-foot lot we have two eastern white cedars (Thuja occidentalis), two white spruce (Picea glauca), two larch (Larix laricina), one bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), one silver maple (Acer saccharinum),...

Maples for the prairies.
January 1, 2004... Maples grown on the prairies vary from the tough, ubiquitous and often maligned native Manitoba maple (Acer negundo) to the coveted but generally unreliable sugar maple (A. saccharum). Their leaves are simple or compound, they range from...

Chlorosis in trees on the prairies.
January 1, 2004... Many deciduous tree species in southern Manitoba succumbed to last October's severe temperatures. Thousands of trees lost twigs and branches to the very cold temperatures. If the twigs survived, many of the buds on them did not. Surviving...

The aphid and the honeysuckle.
January 1, 2004... Almost every prairie farm yard and many urban landscapes once hosted Tartarian honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica). The introduction of an aphid (Hydaphis tataricae), believed to have originated in Asia, also the origin of the Tartarian...

An unusual late bloomer for autumn.
January 1, 2004... I like seed mixtures. Garden North offers packages of perennial seed mixes, generous packages for the zone you specify. There are other mixtures by other seed houses; collections of annuals, rock garden mixes, Princess Diana's favourites,...

The Prairie Gardener's Book or Bugs.
January 1, 2004... The Prairie Gardener's Book of Bugs: A Guide to Living with Common Garden Insects by Nora Bryan and Ruth Staal (2003). 89 colour, 2 black and white illustrations, 208 pages. Fifth House Ltd., Calgary, AB. $19.95 paperback. ISBN:...

The electric light bug.
January 1, 2004... Ponds and water features are becoming very popular additions to yards throughout the prairies. Many of these new ponds become oases within the urban landscape for many wild creatures, both welcome and unwelcome. The following introduces you...

If you go out in the woods today ...
January 1, 2004... Many prairie gardeners enjoy having native species of plants growing in their yards. There are commercial outlets for purchasing these precious gems, but it is always a great pleasure to search for the specific seeds of plants that you would...

Insects in the garden: spittlebugs.
January 1, 2004... A blob of frothy bubbles on the stem of a plant in your garden, or froth and a hanging droplet beneath a leaf (see photos, page 104), are signs of the presence of an unusual and interesting insect. Spittlebugs are named because of the obvious...

Butterflies birds and beneficial bugs in the garden.
January 1, 2004... BUTTERFLIES Butterflies add simple beauty, movement, and wonder to a garden. They add to the quality of life. They help us learn about nature and our connection with it, right in our own backyards. As we learn about the life cycle of...

Control of fairy ring in lawns.
January 1, 2004... Fairy rings, dark-green circles of grass that sometimes have mushrooms associated with them, are a fairly common problem in lawns. Once thought to bring good luck, folklore has it that they were caused by the little people or "fairies"...

What dangers lurk within the soil.
January 1, 2004... We all know the benefits and joys of gardening--exercise, fresh air, sunshine and the sheer pleasure of digging in the soil, enjoying the smell and feel of the warm earth. Likewise, we all know we should wear hats, sunscreen and long sleeves...

Digging.
January 1, 2004... I love digging--I always have. If I had the time, energy, and a sufficiently large plot of ground, I could spend all day digging. I had an opportunity to indulge this passion of mine, on a rather larger scale than usual, last year when I...

Create a foliage planter it's the mature thing to do.
January 1, 2004... "I need some suggestions because I have installed three windowboxes on my balcony rail and I want to fill them with foliage plants," said my daughter in an email early this spring. Since it was spring planting time in Vancouver where she is,...

A garden for sharing.
January 1, 2004... When Winnipeg day-trippers visit Gimli, odds are that when they reach the foot of Centre Street at the breakwater, they'll turn left. That is, after all, where the action is--a world class white sand beach, a 'tony' resort and trendy little...

Garden club Millennium Gardens 2002.
January 1, 2004... A three year project bore fruit in 2002 as the first vegetables and flowers began to grow in the Millennium Gardens, a new gardening project near the Chief Peguis Bridge in the North Kildonan area of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The plants, especially...

The Leo Mol Sculpture Garden a rare jewel.
January 1, 2004... Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park is well known and loved by many people, but how many of us know about or have been to that very special corner of the park--the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden? Almost hidden from view, northwest of the English Garden, an...

Garden ornaments.
January 1, 2004... A cow, an inukshuk, a cat, a garden seat amongst a tangle of planned growing patterns, a bird cage. These are but a few of the non-plant ornamentations that we use to decorate and define our identities, as displayed in our front gardens. ...

Addressing pond water quality.
January 1, 2004... A clear reflective pond is filled with life that follows a natural cycle and establishes its own food chain. Healthy ponds support a delicately balanced but complex ecosystem. This balance is affected by minerals and gases, sunlight, and the...

Grasslands National Park "solitude".
January 1, 2004... Val Marie, Saskatchewan is much like many of the towns and villages dotting the Canadian prairie landscape. Situated about 30 kilometres north of the Saskatchewan / Montana border and directly south of Swift Current, Val Marie is a peaceful...

The amaryllis.
January 1, 2004... One of the joys of winter gardening is having an amaryllis (Hippeastrum hybr.) in full bloom. At the time of writing (end of February), I have a beautiful one called 'Picotee' in flower--its second stem has five large blossoms, white with...

Deer, deer prairie pests.
January 1, 2004... Moose, elk and deer are all members of the family Cervidae (Cervids) which total some 41 species worldwide. In Canada we have to contend with white-tailed deer, the number one pest, moose (called elk in Europe), mule or black-tailed deer and...

Deer-proof and some not so deer-proof plants.
January 1, 2004... Achillea spp Yarrow (all kinds) Aconitum napellus Common Monkshood Actaea rubra Red Baneberry Aegopodium podagracia...

Herbs.
January 1, 2004... Allium--the Latin name for onions, garlic and chives, is a great seasoning for soups, salads, meat dishes, etc. Basil--a favourite in tomato dishes, salads, with meats and fish, and a basic ingredient in pesto. Celery--is rich in...

Word search: plant introductions from Manitoba.
January 1, 2004... Look for the cultivar names in BOLD print below: Morden AMBER (Dogwood) CHARISMA (Lilac) CREAMY Belles (Lily) DISCOVERY (Elm) DOUBLE DELIGHT (Raspberry) EARLY GOLD PEAR FALLGOLD (Ash) FIREY Belles (Lily)...