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November 8, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

MMGA Report: Canadian Urban Forest Conference

By Linda Dietrick, Master Gardener

 

From October 15-18, 2024, Winnipeg was host to the annual conference of the national non-profit organization Tree Canada (treecanada.ca). The conference theme, “Trees for All: Equity in Canada’s Urban Forests,” interested me as a Master Gardener, so I decided to attend a pre-conference workshop and one full conference day for a total of 12 presentations. I thank the MMGA board for their support. Here’s my report.

We know that the urban tree canopy plays an important role in mitigating the effects of climate change. Trees capture carbon, moderate temperatures, support diversity, and provide shade and other benefits to humans. At the same time, urban forest managers recognize that less affluent neighbourhoods tend to have fewer trees and greenspace. And that’s a problem for people who cannot escape to a cottage or air-conditioned spaces. Thus, as municipalities plan for the future of a canopy now threatened by urbanization, pests, and wild weather, they are also allowing equity to drive their decisions. This is evident, for example, in Winnipeg’s Urban Forest Strategy (https://engage.winnipeg.ca/10550/widgets/67282/documents/120884); see pp. 37-38.READ MORE

November 8, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Summer in Western Australia

By Marilyn N. Dudek, Master Gardener

 

Western Australia is the real Australia! I think this claim might be due to the books I have read or the travel promotion influences, but the largest state in Australia is impressive with its towering Karri forests, calm aqua-blue flat beaches stretching endlessly, vast open spaces, rolling hillsides, diverse and protected botanical specimens, and unique cities and towns. Western Australia features almost half of Australia’s 25,000 plant species and two-thirds of these do not occur naturally anywhere else on earth.

From winter in Manitoba to summer in Western Australia! Yes, seasons are opposite to ours, and I experienced their very hot summer and the falling leaves of autumn’s arrival on my stay with daughter Debra this year from January to mid-March. We stayed with her in the city of Fremantle (or the abbreviated “Freo” in keeping with the many Australian words that are shortened in this manner), which is part of the metropolitan area of Perth.READ MORE

September 3, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Question on Cotoneaster Borer

We seem to have a problem with our cotoneaster hedge. A white grub is burrowing into the lower end of the stem. We cannot find a solution for this. Can you offer any advice?

We live in the Woodhaven area near the Grace Hospital. A lot of the branches were pulled out last fall. We continue to pull more out this year but not as many. In the picture of the hedge, you can see some signs of the dead, reddish -ooking leaves. It is mostly at one end although there is one shrub near the garage that seems affected.READ MORE

September 3, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

The Heritage Gardens at Dalnavert Museum

By Lorraine Endler, Master Gardener, and
Barbara McEwen, Dalnavert Museum Garden Volunteer

Just south of Broadway at 61 Carlton Street stands Dalnavert Museum. This Victorian-style mansion was built in 1895 as the home of Sir Hugh John Macdonald and his family. Sir Hugh was the son of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister. After the death of Sir Hugh in 1929, Lady Macdonald moved to a smaller residence. Ownership of the house then transferred between various parties. After undergoing a full restoration, Dalnavert, also known as MacDonald House, opened as a museum in June 1974 and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1990. This year, Dalnavert Museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary as a museum.

Complimenting this beautiful historical landmark are its heritage gardens. The gardens originally bordered Dalnavert. They were later enlarged after the purchase of a neighboring building was made to accommodate the construction of the Visitor’s Center built during 2004-2005. The large lawn to the south of Dalnavert Museum houses the underground geothermal pipes which heat and cool the new center. This expansive area with its garden borders is an enchanting location for many of the events hosted at Dalnavert.READ MORE

September 3, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Fall Garden Tasks

By Brenda Evans

Let’s face it, it’s fall. It’s time to take a stroll through your garden and consider how it performed this year. What you were happy with? What would you like to change for next year? Are there plants that might perform better in another location? Are there any areas that are lacking seasonal colour or interest? It may come in handy to note this information in your gardening journal to refer to when planning for next year in the dead of winter.

While on that stroll, consider the garden cleanup that must be done. Below is a list of tasks to consider that may or may not apply to your garden.

Photo: Gosia Barrette

General TasksREAD MORE

September 3, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Gardening in Neepawa

Photo: Glenda MacPhee | Gardening in Neepawa

By Glenda MacPhee, Master Gardener

 

It has been a very busy gardening year in more ways than one in Neepawa. Our local horticultural group, Beautiful Plains Horticultural Society, planned a Gardening Saturday of workshops to take place in April. We were pleased with attendance and benefited from a variety of topics such as hydroponic growing, yard regeneration, perennials, and new plant material. All our speakers were local community members. At the same time, one of our most knowledgeable and hard-working members passed away quite suddenly. Brent Hunter was our horticultural leader for many years. He was one of the founders of the Lily Festival and on the board of the Manitoba Horticultural Association for more years than we could figure out. He was our community go-to plant guy and, for a number of years, our local florist. He has been greatly missed this summer. He may not have had Master Gardener credentials, but we shared our gardening passion, and I learned so much from him. He knew where some plants were in my garden that I had forgotten about.READ MORE

September 3, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Planting a Blue Grama Front Lawn

Interview with Chelsea Synychych

Photo: Linda Dietrick | Synychych lawn 20240613 – Seedheads of non-native grasses visible in the blue grama.

By Linda Dietrick, Master Gardener

 

In July 2023, MMGA Garden Tour visitors to the Fort Garry neighbourhood of Winnipeg were treated to a delightful sight: a front lawn of blue grama, a graceful, shorter native grass with characteristic brush-shaped seedheads. Created by homeowner Chelsea Synychych, the lawn is still thriving. Since many readers might want to know what was involved in creating it, I asked Chelsea if she could provide some details. Here are her answers to my questions.

Linda Dietrick: I understand that this is your fifth year with your native blue grama grass front lawn, and that you originally planted it with seeds from Skinner Native Seeds near Roblin, Manitoba. Is that correct?

Chelsea Synychych: That is correct! We started converting our front yard to native plantings in 2015, but it wasn’t until 2020 that we decided to transform the “lawn” as well. We planted a mix of blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), a warm-season grass, and June grass (Koeleria macrantha), a cool-season grass, in an effort to get active growth throughout the season. The June grass never took, so the lawn is entirely blue grama.

READ MORE

July 8, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

Peat belongs in Bogs, not Bags

By Lynne McCarthy, Master Gardener

 

Peatlands are “the unsung hero of carbon capture1”, formed in waterlogged environments, such as bogs, where remains of plants do not decompose completely.  Partly decomposed plant material, primarily sphagnum moss in Canadian peatlands, accumulates slowly and becomes compacted, forming peat. Peat is not considered a renewable resource because of the length of time it takes to form – a thousand years for a metre of peat.READ MORE

July 8, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

2024 Garden Tour – Manitoba Master Gardener Association

1. Angelina’s Garden
In the back, a modest vegetable-box garden provides fresh vegetables over the summer. A brick patio is partly covered by a grape-vine arbor which provides a shady, green, sitting area. The atmosphere is colourful and wild, reminiscent of the gardens that roll down the mountain in her birthplace in Italy.

2. Lisa’s Garden
Shade- tolerant native flowers, ferns, and groundcovers grow under the trees and shrubs in the front garden of this professionally designed landscape. A seating area in the sun is surrounded by prairie grasses and forbs. An espaliered apple tree and grapes grow on a trellis along the fence and raised beds hold the kitchen garden in the back.

3. Karen and Tom’s Garden
The focus for the garden always was to increase the green space either by pushing out or building upwards. A tall pergola is being covered by Kentucky Blue Wysteria which is growing like wildfire. Bulbs and edibles are planted amongst perennials like peonies, lily, iris, and ground cover for a green carpet look.READ MORE

July 8, 2024 In Newsletter Articles, Newsletters

The National Mini Forest Initiative

My Journey of Discovery
By Rebecca Last, Master Gardener, ON 

Photo: Courtesy of Canadian Geographic. Canadian Geographic headquarters.

It started with a general email invitation from a local environmental group. ”Admission by donation”, it said. Early on October 18, 2023, four of us gardeners – members of Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton and the Ottawa Horticultural Society, headed downtown to 50 Sussex Drive. Once a lock-master’s station, this building at the confluence of the Rideau and Ottawa Rivers now houses the headquarters of Canadian Geographic, which was host to the Canadian Geographic Mini Forest Summit.

What is a Mini Forest?

The mini forest concept originated with Akira Miyawaki, a Japanese botanist and expert in plant ecology who specialized in seeds and natural forests. Concerned with how little native forest remained in Japan, and mindful of that country’s scarcity of space, he pioneered a way to quickly grow small natural forests, using densely planted communities of native plants. The following schematic from1000 Islands Master Gardeners is modified from Tiny Forest Planting Method, IVN (Institute for Nature Education and Sustainability, Netherlands) , and illustrates the main steps in planting a mini forest. This schematic is available in reader-friendly format here.

Photo: Courtesy of 1000 Islands Master Gardeners, modified from Tiny Forest Planting Method, IVN.

About the Summit

As a former policy wonk and science nerd, I was intrigued by the Summit program of financiers, scientists, and policy experts, several of whom I knew from my working life. However, practical, dirt-under-the-fingernails types seemed to be missing from the agenda. At the morning coffee station, I shared my opinion that gardeners needed to be involved if mini forests were going to get planted. Luckily, the person I chose to speak to was Keith Sears, the volunteer facilitator for the network engagement process.READ MORE