“You must have moved here from Alberta?” was a question we heard from passer-byes while we were landscaping our newly purchased residence in Harrison Hot Springs. For years while gardening in the Prairies, I read the magazine, Gardens West, and craved the plants growing in the Zone 6+, which is most areas of the Lower Mainland of B.C.
Now that I had arrived, it seemed so many of those plants would look good in my garden and I planted many of them. I soon realized what the passer-byes meant was the plants grew much faster than on the Prairies and soon were too crowded. Moving from the Zone 3 area required overcoming a huge learning curve.
Over the 10 years of residing in Harrison, I’ve learned to plant smarter, although still making the occasional mistake. Researching for answers was necessary by checking the Internet, reading books and magazines, and questioning greenhouse staff and landscaping businesses. Driving around neighbourhoods to see what was attractive during different seasons of the year was probably the most helpful. I not only found the names of plants that I admired, but also met the owners of the plants, and often gained new gardening friends.
So it seemed that a column called “Green Thumb” containing questions and answers would be helpful to new, and older, gardeners. Please send your questions or comments to news@ahobserver.ca