Alberta Gardening: Against All Odds
John Mason spent a day in May 2000 visiting eight home gardens as a guest of the Calgary Garden Club.
What do you do when the climate is against you, and gardening is your passion? Gardening in Alberta, Canada is certainly a challenge, but one which the Calgary Garden Club meets and overcomes with enthusiasm.
With over 20,000 members, the Calgary Garden Club is actually one of the largest and most active garden clubs in North America. Check out their web site at http://www.calhort.org. Apart from regular meetings, the club organises tours, workshops and garden shows, produces a regular newsletter, and has published a couple of excellent books, The Calgary Gardener Vols I and II, which are full of ideas about how to garden in adverse conditions.
What Are The Conditions In Calgary?
Summer days can actually be quite warm, not unlike a summer’s day in Tasmania or even Melbourne; but the winters can be extremely cold, not only with snow covering the ground, but with everything in the top layers of the soil also freezing. Temperatures can fall to minus 30 degrees Celsius. Spring and autumn can see some mild days (you wouldn’t even need a jumper), but can also see occasional frosts as late as mid-May (late spring in Canada). The soil is generally alkaline, winds can be strong, and the air is very dry (humidity is virtually zero). Without some form of protection, tender vegetables or annuals can be grown for little more than the three months of summer, regardless of the variety being grown.
What Do They Grow?
- During summer, they grow all the same vegetables and annuals we grow in southern Australia.
- Rockery perennials are popular.
- Conifers are the most common evergreens. In this part of the world, there are only a handful of flowering evergreens that will survive without some protection.
- Deciduous trees, including apples, prunus, birch, and maples.
- Container plants are very popular – they can be taken inside over summer.
- Greenhouse and indoor gardening is popular.
- Bulbs are widely grown. Tulips, daffodils and other cool climate bulbs will grow very well, and can even flower through a thin carpet of snow.
Growth Rates
Herbaceous vegetables, bulbs and perennials do grow rapidly through summer; but due to the shorter growing season, trees and shrubs are often much slower growing than you will find in Australia. Calgarians take great pride in showing a plant that is 2 metres tall and a decade or two old, which a Melburnian might consider to be a two-year-old plant, and nothing special.
Pests and Diseases
One unexpected advantage of a cold climate is that the winter cold each year helps strongly control pest and disease problems. Slugs and snails do occur; but they are not the problem that they are in Australia. Hostas are easier to grow, because populations of these pests are knocked back hard every winter. The dry air also helps with disease control – many fungal diseases do not thrive in such low humidity.
VISIT THE ACS ONLINE BOOKSTORE
Quality ebooks written by our staff- Wide range of Horticulture titles by John Mason, author of over 40 gardening books, garden magazine editor, nurseryman, landscaper and principal of ACS.
- Ebooks can be purchased online and downloaded straight away.
- Read on an ipad, computer, iphone, reader or similar device.
- New titles published every month –bookmark and revisit this site regularly
- Download sample pages for free, to see what each book is like.
Titles include:
Commercial Hydroponics 3rd edition
One of the worlds best selling hydroponic books, first published in 1991 by Kangaroo Press. Dozens of colour photos, unique and rarely published advice on how to grow over 100 different types of plants (vegetables, herbs, flowers, indoor plants) in hydroponics.
http://www.acsebook.com/products/2232-commercial-hydroponics-third-edition.aspx
The Environment of Play 2
nd edition
A unique and inspirational view of designing play spaces for children. Full of photos, an inspiration for parents, child care workers, teachers, play leaders, landscape designers and park management professionals. First edition was published in the 1980’s by Leisure Press in New York.
http://www.acsebook.com/products/2247-the-environment-of-play.aspx
Trees and Shrubs for Warm Places First edition
A valuable reference for growing plants not only in the tropics and sub tropics, but also greenhouses, inside the home or even hot courtyards in a temperate garden. Never before been published. The book contains colour photos of close to 300 plants and descriptions of many times that number (and largely different to the plants covered in our Tropical Plants book).
http://acsebook.com/products/2238-trees-and-shrubs-for-warm-placescoming-soon.aspx
Garden Design Part 2 1
st edition
Following on from Garden Design Part 1, this presents approximately 300 more photos, and a huge amount of inspirational reading to help you (in particular), understand the different styles of garden and the options open to you as a garden designer, or a home owner.
http://acsebook.com/products/2244-garden-design-part-2.aspx
Discounts offered for students of ACS Distance Education
