Beginner Gardening Tips Blog

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources has recently created a Tree Atlas. This helpful tool allows you to choose your region on a map and then provides you with a list of trees that will thrive in your area. Each tree’s page features photos, optimal growing conditions and interesting facts. Surf around a bit and you will find there is also lots of helpful information about the environmental importance of trees, as well as Ontario’s pledge to plant 50 million trees by 2020. You can make your own pledge to plant a tree by filling out a special form on the site. My lot is not particularly huge, but once we decide how we’re going to block out the new two-story house going up behind us, I will be ready to make my pledge!

A couple of weeks ago, I enthusiastically gave the flowers I planted in my garden this year almost straight A’s in a little gardening report card. This was not only a fun exercise to reflect on the season, it will also help me remember what to consider for next year. Sadly, I have a garden ‘fail’ to add. I was very excited about finding some mid-sized cedars this spring to go along my back fence. For some reason one of them completely died on me… I’m still not sure what I did wrong. But next year, whatever I choose to plant in its place will be coddled and very well taken care of.

My sad little cedar

While I’m on the subject of Toronto, as I was driving over the Bloor Viaduct on my way to yesterday’s event, I was admiring the gorgeous canopy of trees in the Don Valley that are just beginning to turn. Living in the city you sometimes forget just how much green space there is.

Queen’s Park is another gorgeous ‘green’ area in the city and last week, William Thorsell, Director & CEO of the ROM along with Toronto Parks and Environment Committee Chair Paula Fletcher unveiled new interpretive panels and tree identification signs as part of Trees for Toronto. The aim of TFT is to renew the urban forest in Queen’s Park, which originally opened in 1860. It is home to 47 varieties of trees, including red and white oaks, butternuts, Norway maples, lindens and pines.

Has anyone seen these panels up close yet?

I’m currently in Northern Alberta taking in all the pristine, untouched wilderness this lovely province has to offer.

Kodak lent me one of their new EasyShare M381 digital cameras to capture the gorgeous sites. My old camera had a big docking station you had to plug into the wall and then the computer to upload photos. This one just takes a USB cord and was pretty easy to use out of the box.

I haven’t seen any wild roses, but I love the trees pictured here. I’m not sure why, but I call them scrubby pines. They’re actually Jack Pines and apparently they are one of the first trees to grow after a forest fire. This is what Wikipedia says about them: “It is fire-adapted to stand-replacing fires, with the cones remaining closed for many years, until a forest fire kills the mature trees and opens the cones, reseeding the burnt ground.”

These would be perfect to line the back of my yard to give us privacy from the giant house going up behind us. The soil in my yard is pretty dry and I wouldn’t have to trim as they grow fairly straight. I’m wondering if it’s something I could buy at a nursery…

Despite the rather chilly temperatures this past long weekend, I still managed to get out in the garden and cross a few tasks off my list. It’s not very often I have two straight days in a row to get things done. So with a new pink pair of gardening gloves that I got for my birthday, I set out with my basket of tools to weed, plant, prune and dig.

This is what left me with a sense of accomplishment:

1. We planted two five to six-foot cedars: I bought these about a month ago and have been waiting for a chance to dig them in. Fingers crossed that they make it. They still look lovely and green.
2. I dug out a ton of dandelions and other annoying weeds that magically appeared after all that rain we got these last couple of weeks. Talk about eco-friendly pest control, it was also a workout!
3. Give my boyfriend a pair of loppers or pruning shears and I come back to a twig with a root, so I kindly pointed out what I wanted pruned and how. Lorraine Flanigan’s article on how to prune spring-flowering shrubs, was helpful for my forsythias.
4. I spread around some compost in a couple of my beds to prepare them for the lovely plants I have in store for them.
5. I’m not sure if it was the fungus gnats or the fact that they’d outgrown the little peat pellets, but all of a sudden, my seedlings were looking sad and limp—and they didn’t need water. So I transplanted my seedlings into bigger pots until I’ll be able to plant them right into the garden.
6. I have always felt bad about tossing away those wooden mandarin orange containers, so this winter I kept them because I knew they’d come in handy for something. And in one of them I planted salad greens. Yesterday the squirrels made a couple of holes in it, but if things start to grow, I’ll take a picture.
7. I had some herb plants I was trying to protect from frost, but I just couldn’t wait any longer, so I planted them.
8. I dug out a ton of lily of the valley and their network of roots—they are so pretty and smell so nice, but they’re a pain in the butt every spring when they’re in the middle of my garden and I’m wanting to plant things. So I had to be ruthless.

And that sums up my list. A few tasks down, a few hundred to go!

I felt so proud of myself this evening when I purchased two healthy-looking cedar trees for my backyard along with my groceries. You see there may or may not be an enormous second story eventually being built on the house behind us and I need to start planning (and planting!) some extra privacy pronto. Currently there is an old chain link fence separating our yards with some sad, spindly little cedars steadfastly growing around the middle of it. I want to eventually fill in that whole back area and these shapely cedars seemed to be a good start.

However for some reason my garden ambition clouded my judgment and I didn’t realize quite how tall and heavy these cedars would be. A very helpful young air cadet graciously left his money box with a friend and helped me drag the first cedar into the back floor of my little hatchback. After much maneuvering we finally got it in. I thanked him profusely even though he called me ma’am and decided I’d come back with some strong arms for the second tree.

Both are now safely in my backyard awaiting their destiny as a privacy fence. And I am hoping I can lift my arms tomorrow.