Lasting Landscapes

Those of us living south of the Fraser are lucky to live within easy reach of rose expert Brad Jalbert's farm in south Langley. When it comes to flowering shrubs, you can't beat roses for bang for your buck -- from July til frost, they bloom over and over again. The more you cut to enjoy indoors, the more they respond with more and more blooms. Select Roses is having their seasonal opening on March 23rd this year. See you there!

Thanks for the help pruning trees in my yard yesterday, Country Tree Services of Langley. Your crew was friendly and worked fast! This very large plum had some damaged branches that required removal.

Spring is going to come early here in the lower mainland of southwest BC. I took these pics on Thursday at a customer's where we have just installed fresh mulch. Not only is it an attracive topdressing that provides a beautiful contrast with plant matter, it also suppresses weeds, insulates against heat and cold, prevents crusting, aids percolation and absorption of moisture, reduces erosion and improves soil structure by enriching it with organic matter as it decays. How's that for worth it!

The BC SPCA Surrey Education & Adoption Centre thanks us for helping out at their location here in Cloverdale. But the thanks is all ours because we appreciate them so much for helping the animals.

As temps have dropped here on the west coast this week, all gardeners take heed -- your valuable plants and containers could be at risk. Ceramic containers can crack as moist soil inside freezes and expands. Roots can freeze too and your plants may not survive. In this Vancouver Sun article, Brian Minter offers suggestions for protecting your outdoor containers. Understanding easy measures like moving your containers up against the house or garage, and/or grouping them together and covering them with just about anything will go an amazingly long way to helping your containerized plants survive a west coast winter cold spell.

This is a cute little garden we installed last fall and I've just returned to visit it and install a few more plants. We are still waiting for a Fairy Stump to complete the design.

Gardening guru Brian Minter shares his knowledge about plants you never even knew were edible!

Winter is a good time for taking opportunities to update our education. Bartlett Tree Experts provided an excellent opoportunity for arborists to learn more about the exciting developments in the technology of detecting decay in trees. The photo on the left shows this Mountain Ash hooked up to receptors and the photo on the right shows the image of the decay (in red) that is projected onto the computer screen. Cool, hey! https://tinyurl.com/y7wxfst8

Select Roses in Langley opens for the season on Saturday, March 17th. Brad Jalbert and his family are avid rose growers and a visit to their rose farm is always a joy! https://tinyurl.com/ya244aoy

Does this look like a carpet store warehouse? It's actually an artificial turf warehouse. Bella Turf in Langley provided an afternoon seminar for industry professionals to learn more about this new and evolving industry and methods of installation. Artificial turf is an excellent solution for shady or wet areas of your landscape where the lawn dies and moss and weeds take over.

Each year, the Perennial Plant Association names its Plant of the Year. For 2018, we have Allium ‘Millenium’, an herbaceous perennial that was selected for its late flowering mass blooms of rose-purple and its tolerance to dry soil. Alliums may be better known to you as our culinary onions, garlics, leeks, shallots, scallions and chives, but this plant is of the ornamental variety such as are the giant alliums that stand 4 feet tall and bloom in May. Allium Millenium is about the same size as chives. It looks lovely in groupings, so if you like purple and want to attract bees and butterflies to your garden, try this award winning little plant in your own garden. http://www.perennials.com/plants/allium-millenium.html

Trees can't talk like we do, but they certainly can communicate with each other. In this Nature of Things episode, David Suzuki shows us some of the strategies trees use to protect themselves from predators (like squirrels, who steal their seeds) and how they share resources like water and nutrients to support other trees in their community. It's amazing, and here's a take-home to remember about these living beings that we often forget are living and therefore are much more than just blocks of wood: "Whatever you do to a tree will not only affect that tree, but also it's neighbours that are connected to it".

Here is a very good YouTube video on pruning figs -- lots of folks have them, if you enjoy the fruit, this is how to prune.