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January 6, 2026 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Manitoba’s Ecoregions and What Gardeners Can Learn from Them

By Linda Dietrick, Master Gardener

 

In 1997, Canada, the US, and Mexico collaborated to produce an ambitious project called the North American Environmental Atlas. This detailed map of North America defines what are called ecoregions, based on similarities of geography, geology, soils, hydrology, vegetation, wildlife, land use, and climate. The map is available in three versions, according to levels of detail. You can download each level of the map as a PDF here: https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecoregions-north-america.

Level I divides our continent into 15 broad ecoregions; Level II subdivides those into 52 ecoregions; and Level III further subdivides them into 182. Each of the subdivisions is assigned a number, name, and colour on the map. Here is a detail from the map showing most of our province and the ecoregions it is part of at Level III.

Map – North America Ecoregions – United States Environmental Protection Agency

 

DetaIl from the map “Level III Ecoregions of North America” showing southern Manitoba and neighbours. Source: Commission for Environmental Cooperation: Level III Ecoregions of North America. https://dmap-prod-oms-edc.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ORD/Ecoregions/cec_na/NA_LEVEL_III.pdf

 

Southern Manitoba is part of the Great Plains (9.0), the vast, tan-shaded swath that stretches all the way down to Mexico. More narrowly, it belongs to the Temperate Prairies (9.2), which reach from northern Alberta down into the corn belt in Iowa. Southwestern Manitoba sits in ecoregion 9.2.1, the Aspen Parkland and Northern Glaciated Plains, which curve around from Calgary to Edmonton through northern and eastern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and then run south through the Dakotas to Sioux Falls, SD. Winnipeg sits in ecoregion 9.2.2, the Lake Manitoba and Lake Agassiz Plain, which runs from Lake Manitoba along the Red River valley to south of Fargo, ND. This last ecoregion corresponds to the original tallgrass prairie.

Designated by shades of green, northern Manitoba from Thompson south, together with southeastern Manitoba, belongs to ecoregion 5.0, the Northern Forests. Subregions include the Softwood Shield (5.1), Mixed Wood Shield (5.2), and the Boreal Plain (5.4). The Interlake and the Whiteshell both sit in 5.4.3, the Mid-Boreal Lowland and Interlake Plain. The southeast corner of the province, along with the Northwest Angle and Lake of the Woods, is placed in 5.2.2, the Northern Minnesota Wetlands.READ MORE

January 6, 2026 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Assiniboine Park Conservancy Enrichment Garden

 

By Laverne Dahlin (Lead Master Gardener)

 

Did you know that the Assiniboine Park Zoo has a secret garden? The garden is not on display for the zoo visitors; only the volunteers and staff know it is there. Established in May 2023 and situated near the Volunteer Centre on the west side of the main entrance to the Assiniboine Park Zoo, the Enrichment Garden is composed of several raised and in-ground beds and has a unique purpose.

Enrichment Garden Beds. Photo: Laverne Dahlin

 

This garden is the vision of Dr. Chris Enright, Director, Zoological Operations, Animal Management and Conservation. Dr. Enright approached our Volunteer Resources Manager to reach out to the volunteer Master Gardeners at APC to determine if we would be interested in a pilot project to grow plants that animal care professionals could provide as enrichment food for the zoo animals. Enrichment food stimulates the animals’ natural instincts by providing different smells, textures, and opportunities for the animals to forage, explore, and play.

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January 6, 2026 In Uncategorized

Embracing Winter, A Season of Rest

Plant stems against a backdrop of textural sastrugi, snow eroded by wind. Photo: Allison Kendall/APK Photography

By Allison Kendall

As I sit down to write this, a light flurry of tiny snowflakes is floating past my window. The garden is tucked in for the winter, autumn’s fallen leaves forming a blanket for my perennials beneath the accumulating snow. The resident chickadee stops by the birdfeeder for some seed while an animated little red squirrel looks on with envy from the snowy tree branches.

These moments are still a novelty to me. I am a relative newcomer to Manitoba and find myself regularly amazed by the natural rhythm of the seasons here on the prairie. The first few decades of my gardening experiences were spent in the very mild climate of the Northern Californian coast. I could grow almost anything year-round, though the cooler influence of the nearby ocean meant that some of the more heat-loving vegetables like peppers and tomatoes weren’t guaranteed to be a plentiful harvest.

The seasonal pattern there has changed in the past decade, but I can recall that we would only really experience two “seasons” in our California gardens: wet and dry, or winter-spring when we could expect regular rain; and summer-fall, when we would rarely see precipitation and would have to accept the annual drought and fire conditions. In the coldest part of winter, there might be a couple of nights of frost, and I would bring in my collection of cymbidium orchids to shelter in my kitchen until the chill had passed. In the dry heat of summer, I would have to be mindful of plants needing more water, as we could expect to go months without rain.

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January 6, 2026 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Interview with MMGA Board Member Judy Heppelle

 

MMGA Board Member Judy Heppelle, Special Events and Fundraising Director

 

By Brenda Evans
How long have you been gardening?

My mom loved her yard. She had both a vegetable garden and flower gardens, so I always thought that’gardening’ was something I could do. We lived on a regular-sized lot in Kenora, ON; there were endlessfields of corn, peas, or beans to pick, and potatoes to hoe. We ate fresh vegetables in the summer and enjoyed bouquets of lilacs, peonies, or daisies in season. Gardening was as natural as cooking, baking, or sewing. Mom did it; I could do it.

 

What kind of garden(s) do you have?

I bought my first, and current, house in 1980. The backyard had a skinny perennial border along the back fence – two feet wide at the most. What came up that first spring were ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) and those tall orange daylilies (Hemerocallis). The front yard had two trees – a birch (Betula) and a magnificent mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia); both now gone, taken by old age and disease.

 

The front yard now has a newish Japanese lilac (Syringa reticulata), a nannyberry (Viburnum lentago), ayoung bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), several mugo pines (Pinus mugo), and other smaller shrubs andperennials in a long, wide bed. Under the window is another bed with ninebark (Physocarpus) and daylilies.

 

Over the years, I’ve pulled the back yard perennial bed further and further out from that fence on all sides, removing more lawn and deeply curving the division between grass and ‘garden’.

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October 31, 2025 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Interview with MMGA Board Member Agnes Tamoto

By Brenda Evans, Master Gardener
How long have you been gardening?

I have been actively gardening for over 35 years, but I knew from a young age that I needed to be a gardener. We bought a bare lot in St. James in the late 80s, where I began to seriously garden. I made many mistakes, including tilling sand into our clay ground, effectively creating concrete.

It was impossible to dig into that area of my garden, so my husband Glen built me several raised boxes that I used to grow vegetables. Vegetables were eventually replaced by perennial plants because I found the amount I harvested was not worth the effort. That garden eventually became a butterfly garden, where my three children were able to witness every stage of the monarch butterfly life cycle.

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October 31, 2025 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Understanding Tree Biology through Arboriculture

By Liz Sellors, Master Gardener and Arborist

Caring for trees is a complex subject. When asked to respond to questions about tree care, I generally suggest that a discussion about caring for trees should be accompanied by a demonstration.

For years, I had a love of tree biology, and in 2018, I made the decision to take the Arboriculture course offered through the School of Agriculture at the University of Manitoba. Taking the course confirmed that there are few, if any, short answers to questions about tree care. In 2019, I wrote the three-hour Arboriculture exam that required a 70% pass rate. Passing the exam entitled me to call myself an Arborist. Distinction: not Certified Arborist. That title involves additional study and examinations.

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October 23, 2025 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Pelargoniums: History, Varieties, Growing, & Propagation

By Florence Carey, Master Gardener

 

Zonal pelargonium – pink showing flowers and buds. Photo: Florence Carey

 

Most gardeners have fond memories of ‘geraniums’ growing on Grandma’s windowsill, or in window boxes of our youth. They are a common and treasured garden and house plants, and have been for centuries! I found it interesting to learn more about where these plants came from, and how it came to be that we have so many different varieties to enjoy in our gardens today.

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October 23, 2025 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Using Eggshells in the Garden

Using eggshells in the garden. Photo: Courtesy of Manitoba Egg Farmers

By Adriana Findlay,
Marketing Manager, Manitoba Egg Farmers
Reduce kitchen waste by using crushed eggshells in your garden

As autumn settles in and gardens begin their seasonal transition, many gardeners look for sustainable ways to enrich their soil before winter. One effective and eco-friendly method is using crushed eggshells. Often discarded as kitchen waste, eggshells are a rich source of calcium that can significantly benefit your garden soil, especially during the fall season when soil preparation is key for spring planting.

Benefits of Crushed Eggshells in Soil

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September 6, 2025 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

About Honeysuckles in Manitoba

By Linda Dietrick, Master Gardener

About 15 species of plants called honeysuckles are hardy enough to grow in Manitoba. The fact that they share a common name, however, masks some major differences among them. Several honeysuckles have shown themselves to be seriously invasive and should not be included in our gardens, while others are perfectly harmless or even beneficial. To help you sort out which species are worth planting and which are not, here’s an overview.

Invasive shrub honeysuckles

Invasive Tatarian honeysuckle growing in Pinawa Dam Provincial Park, Manitoba.
Photo by Séraphin Poudrier via iNaturalist, CC BY-NC.

 

Let’s begin with the “bad guys”: four non-native shrub honeysuckles in the genus Lonicera (pronounced lon-ISS-er-uh): Amur (L. maackii), Morrow’s (L. morrowii), Tatarian (L.tatarica), and bella, also called Bell’s (L. xbella, a cross between L. morrowii and L. tatarica). Introduced from Asia and Europe, these species and the one hybrid have been used as ornamentals in North America since the 1800s. Their hardiness, attractive foliage, characteristic red, pink, or white blooms, and bright red berries made them popular. By the 1920s, however, it was already evident they were expanding beyond their original sites into natural areas, and they are now a real problem.

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September 6, 2025 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

How to Keep Your Coleuses Alive Over Winter

Coleus El Brighto. Photo by Igor Kaftan

By Igor Kaftan, Master Gardener

We were blessed with a wonderful, hot summer this year. The latest episodes of rain dumped sufficient amounts of water for plants to revive and look refreshed. At that time, nobody thought that the cold and wet days of fall were just around the corner. Typically, when the temperature’s reading plunges below 0°C overnight, many gardeners panic. Dozens of coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides) cuttings will be hastily picked without keeping track of the amount and quality. Now all of these cuttings will be tightly packed up into many kinds of vessels filled with water for the roots to develop.

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