Seeds of Diversity has a backup plan to ensure a future of food diversity

Value will be a watchword in 2023 as the price of food and other items continue to rise. Want to garden like it’s 1999 when your dollar had greater purchasing power? Grow some of your favourite plants from seed. Better yet, save money by learning how to save your own seeds. Take the next logical step and trade with other seed savers to increase your access to a diverse source of heirloom and organic seeds.

LEGO Botanical Collection helps budding builders blossom

On Feb. 1, just in time for Valentine’s Day, LEGO will release two new additions to its Botanical Collection designed with adult builders in mind. LEGO Wildflower Bouquet and LEGO Dried Flower Centrepiece will join the collection’s popular line of botanical builder sets which include an orchid, succulents, flower bouquet, bonsai tree, and a Bird of Paradise. LEGO offers several types of builder sets for adults but the Botanical Collection, first launched in January 2021, is aimed specifically at plant lovers.

Ones to watch: Fascinating newcomers for 2023

Each new year brings gardeners oodles of new plant varieties to consider for our outdoor spaces. Despite the vast number of new annuals and perennials, most are the result of extensive breeding, development, and trialing over a period of several years prior to their introduction to the market. Here are some of the fascinating newcomers to watch for in 2023.

Growing green cities so people and nature can thrive

Growing a climate-resilient future hinges on finding nature-based solutions. With 68 percent of the world population projected to live in cities by 2050, sustainable innovations are needed to make cities greener and more livable so that people, communities, and nature can thrive.

Spring forward: Dreaming of next year’s garden

Will your wish list of plants come true in 2023? Think of how much easier it would be to plan next year’s garden if you could have a preview of what will be available at local garden centres next spring. Recently I spoke with Garth Aubin and Doris Verhaege, Aubin Nurseries, about some of the wonderful plant varieties that Aubin’s will be supplying to independent garden centres in 2023. Aubin Nurseries is a 4th generation family-owned and operated wholesale nursery located in Carman. Let’s peel back the wrapping paper and look inside. If you’re like me, visions of new plants will be dancing in your head!

New flower farming business brings healing to its young owners

This holiday season, you may be planning to give flowers to someone on your holiday gift list. Flowers give comfort, lift spirits, and make us happy.

New book has you covered on ground covers

Ground covers can take your garden design to the next level. In his new book, The Complete Book of Ground Covers (Timber Press, 2022), Gary Lewis illustrates the many ways that ground covers offer limitless creativity, playfulness and flexibility in garden spaces.

Relax into summer and visit magnificent gardens in Manitoba

This July, gardeners throughout Manitoba will once again have the chance to tour a range of garden styles. Garden tours are an opportunity to be inspired and to explore innovative ideas, a chance to talk to other plant enthusiasts and receive gardening advice and valuable tips for success. Beautiful gardens and welcoming hosts await your visit.

Nature Manitoba will host its annual Gardens of Distinction Garden Tour showcasing gardens in North and East Kildonan on July 9, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tim Evans, garden tour organizer, says that many of the gardens on this year’s tour were selected in 2019 but with the popular tour cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to pandemic restrictions, the gardens and garden owners have been preparing for three years now. One of the stops on the tour includes Renata Cook’s garden which Evans describes as fascinating and eclectic with all kinds of unusual plants.

Cook, who is a member of the East Kildonan Garden Club, has lived at her property since 1989. Over the years her spacious backyard garden has grown to include a pond, cottage-style garden, kitchen garden, and flowering perennials including daylilies which she purchased from Beausejour Daylily Gardens. In recent years Cook has been inspired by workshops offered by Blue Thunderbird Land-Based Teachings Learning Centre and has incorporated more native plants into her garden design. A favourite is fireweed, a vibrant native wildflower with purple flowers. “It should be in full bloom in time for the tour,” says Cook.

Nature Manitoba’s Gardens of Distinction tour also includes a plant sale and refreshments at Seven Oaks Museum, 50 Mac St. Purchase tickets online at naturemanitoba.ca. The website also includes a list of locations where tickets are available.

Six bang-for-your-buck vegetables you can plant now

With the arrival of the first day of summer, is it too late in the growing season to plant melons, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and herbs? Don’t tell that to Tiffany Grenkow, urban farmer and garden steward for the food forest at Sustainable South Osborne Community Co-operative. “It’s not too late,” she says. “For anyone who thinks they have missed the boat, there are still great planting opportunities.” Grenkow planted her peppers and tomatoes only last weekend and is planting melons, potatoes, and herbs this weekend.

There are 70 or more growing days left so if you start planting right now, says Grenkow, a range of food crops will have enough time to develop and ripen in time for harvesting in late summer or early fall. “Checking maturity dates is key, though, as some things like large pumpkins might run out of time,” she says. But there are plenty of options for growing food plants in your garden as well as ways to manage your garden so that it is more productive and efficient.

Grenkow, who maintains both a large rural vegetable garden as well as an urban food garden, admits that she felt disgruntled after the challenges of gardening in last year’s extreme drought and excessive heat. Last year’s water bills are a not-so-distant memory for anyone who planted a food garden last year. But in the face of rising grocery and gas prices, growing at least some of our own food is too good of an opportunity to miss. “I’ve decided this year to plant things that are productive and easy to grow and won’t consume all my energy and resources. Only my wisest strategies and fruitful plants — the biggest bang for my buck — are getting my attention and space in my garden this year.”

Grenkow has asked herself, “If I had just one or two square feet of space in which to garden, what could I plant that would actually give me some dinner at minimal expense?”

Specimen plants that stand out from the crowd

The unusual or unexpected attracts interest or attention in the garden. As much as any of us recognize the value of simplifying a colour palette, limiting the number of species and cultivars, and emphasizing plant groupings in specific blocks of colour, an empty space in our gardens can be motivation enough to try something completely different.

Harmony does not have to be sacrificed by incorporating one or a few individual specimen plants into your garden design. There is always an opportunity to draw on similarities in leaf and flower colour, shapes or textures. But also, garden design rules don’t preclude the sheer love of something for its own sake. Call the addition of a specimen plant to your garden a statement, a fresh approach or a focal point, if you will, but growing a plant that is weird and wonderful as well as winter hardy can be very satisfying. Local garden centres are ripe with opportunities as shipments of perennials and shrubs continue to arrive throughout the coming weeks.

I have found all the plants listed here at local garden centres but admittedly, it can be a bit of a treasure hunt.

I fell in love with Roger’s Flower (Astilboides tabularis) the first moment I set eyes on its distinctive form. Notable for its large shield-like leaves perched atop round, hairy stalks, Roger’s Flower is zone 3 hardy, suitable for damp shade, and grows to a mature height of 36 inches (90 cm). The cream-coloured, upright flower spikes resemble those of Astilbe. Watching the hairy stalks as they emerge from the ground and the leaves taking shape in the spring is immensely enjoyable. I do get a little worried when wind speeds become severe because tears sometimes develop in the enormous leaves which can measure more than 24 inches (60 cm) across. A protected part-shade site with moist soil is best. I protect the emerging stalks in spring with a wire ring to deter rabbits but once the plant grows, the ring is removed. I’ve transplanted Roger’s Flower a couple of times and it never protested.

Ecological Peace Garden coming to Mennonite Heritage Village

When the Dirk Willems Peace Garden at Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach officially opens in August, visitors will discover a well-planned and well-executed naturalistic planting scheme featuring drifts of grasses and flowering perennials. The diversity of plants selected for the ecologically sensitive design have been carefully considered for their adaptability and easy-care and laid out en masse using a technique that will highlight their contrasting shapes and textures. What will pique the interest of many is how matrix planting, a design method that layers plants in sweeping masses, so effectively achieves visual impact and year-round colour.

“It’s what we see in nature,” says Mike Plett, landscape designer, Skyview Landscaping. “The actual landscape design may be more organized but it draws inspiration from the flow of plants in nature and how plants intermingle.” Part of Plett’s inspiration for the garden design at Dirk Willems Peace Garden came from his research of the gardens designed by Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf, most notably Oudolf Garden Detroit on Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan.

Plett has worked closely with Mennonite Heritage Village as well as the Steinbach & Area Garden Club whose members are coordinating the installation of the plants. SAGC members have also played a prominent role in influencing the rationale behind the design decisions.

Initially the design which was developed for the space a few years ago was focused more on a formal garden, says Elsie Kathler, a long-time member of SAGC. When MHV first approached SAGC to review the initial plan along with its request that garden club volunteers plant the proposed garden, SAGC declined despite its close volunteer relationship with MHV in planting and overseeing other gardens on the museum’s property. SAGC’s concern was that the proposed design which featured moisture-loving hydrangeas and assorted ornamental plants was not water-wise.

Thinking outside the boxwood

With fall barrelling towards us at record wind speeds and winter not far behind, now is the time to decide how you will protect your tender plants. Boxwood is a good example. My experience with growing boxwood in my Zone 3b garden has gone something like this: buy in spring, plant, dig up the following spring, repeat. It’s like one of those videos that plays on a continuous loop.

Digging a trench and burying my boxwood for the winter months beneath a layer of soil and shredded leaves has proven (mostly) successful. When the boxwood is lifted in spring, every speck of debris needs to be cleared from the centre of the plants to prevent fungal disease. I relocate the overwintered boxwood temporarily to a deep shade location to protect the foliage from burning which can occur in the cold temperatures of early spring. Once the root ball has fully thawed, boxwood can be safely replanted into containers and window boxes where it can live on happily for another summer.

But what makes boxwood worth all this trouble and aren’t the boxwood varieties sold at local garden centres supposed to be hardy (or relatively hardy) to our area?

Boxwood is one of the world’s most popular shrubs. It has the distinction of being one of those few plants so widely recognized and beloved for its inimitable structure and style that it can be found growing in landscapes around the world from Europe to Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean, and North America. In addition to the appeal of its small, glossy green, elliptically shaped evergreen foliage, boxwood can be shaped into almost anything. Boxwood is equally beautiful in the landscape or in container arrangements. Its architectural shape and glossy emerald green texture dresses up window boxes and adds pizazz to planters. Boxwood can be purchased in quart size containers, which are less costly, and used as a stand-alone plant or in a linear arrangement of three or more or as the thriller in a container arrangement.

Food to grow

These days there is always something simmering on Bill and Lenore Linton’s stove. The now vintage blue enamel canning pot that Lenore purchased in 1962 for three dollars is filled with jars and the pungent smell of vinegar wafts through the kitchen. Several different types of beans are picked in the garden each morning, meaty and juicy tomatoes are ripening on the vines and ready for canning, the peppers are ready to harvest, next the carrots will be finished growing and then it will be time to dig up the potatoes and begin curing the squash. Bill and Lenore are planning delicious and healthy meals and making favourite recipes as they stock their freezer and pantry for the fall and winter months.

Theirs is a marriage story that revolves around the fruits of their labour in the garden. Their resilience and self-sufficiency through 62 years of marriage, including the lean times that so many couples experience at some point, resonates more than ever this summer.

Lenore, 81, and Bill, 87, have lived in the same house in Old St. Vital for the past 58 years. Built in 1912, the one-and-a-half story house sits in the centre of a lot that is 75 feet wide. Two weeks prior to taking possession of their house July 1, 1962, Lenore, who was expecting her second child, asked permission of the existing owner if she could plant seeds in the garden. By September she was harvesting and canning tomatoes. She has been canning tomatoes every year since. When Lenore worked as a primary school teacher and there was a glut of tomatoes, she put them into a bag and froze them for later use in soups and stews. “I grow tomatoes because they can be used in just about any dish all winter.” Now that the last jar of tomato-orange and ginger chutney is finished from last year, Lenore will grow Jaune Flamee tomatoes next year so that she can have more chutney.

When Bill replaced all the plumbing in the house with copper pipes, he repurposed the old iron piping to use as tomato stakes. This year they are supporting 13 tall tomato plants that have produced a bounty of fresh tomatoes. Favourite varieties, to name a few, include Sun Sugar, an early maturing cherry tomato; Juliet, a saladette tomato that is great in sauces and salads; and German Johnson and Rose, both productive heirloom slicing varieties that make great sandwiches. Lenore grows Forme de Coeur tomatoes every year because they are excellent for canning, sauces or sandwiches. She buys many of her tomato seeds from Casey’s Heirloom Tomatoes in Airdrie, Alta. Although many of the vegetable crops, such as beans and peppers, did well in this year’s heat and humidity, Lenore says her tomatoes didn’t set any fruit during that period.

Just so many days left…

Brace yourself Bridget!

We are now entering one of the most dangerous seasons of the year.

We think we have time, but do we?

For?

Weathering steel ideal for gardens with its rusty patina, year-round durability

Weathering steel’s crossover into the garden landscape is reaching new heights of popularity for the same reasons that make it one of the most predominant materials used in architecture today. Weathering steel is made with alloys that develop a handsome patina of rust over time with exposure to the elements. The natural oxidation process is only on the surface and never rusts through. The aged patina has an authentic feel that resonates in a way that a synthetic material never could. Frost and crack resistant, weathering steel is an ideal material in our winter climate. I admit, I’m wild about weathering steel.

In Winnipeg, the most prominent example is the dramatic 400-foot-long interpretive wall built of layered steel at Upper Fort Garry Provincial Park. Place Louis Riel Parkade features a contemporary extension clad in perforated weathering steel panels. A weathering steel streetcar sculpture, an iconic image of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike sits, tipped, in front of the Pantages Playhouse Theatre.

Weathering steel brings an organic modern style to the landscape and lends itself to many useful and attractive garden elements from arbours to wall art, sculpture, planters, window boxes, fences, retaining walls, gates, water features, trellises, privacy screens, landscape edging, frames for garden mirrors, and more. It’s possible even to have weathering steel rusted roofing or siding panels for your house or garden shed.

Veradek is a Canadian company located in Ontario that sells a line of weathering steel planters and a privacy screen series made from laser cut steel. James Manley, sales manager at Veradek, says the steel has become a big part of the company’s business because of how well it holds up in all types of weather conditions compared to other types of metal and materials such as plastic, fibreglass or even concrete. Blemishes that you might see over time on other types of materials are minimized on weathering steel because of the rust finish, says Manley. “The renewed interest in weathering steel in both the architecture and design community spurred the interest in developing our line of COR-TEN steel planters,” says Manley, referencing the trademarked name held by U.S. Steel.