Living rural in the city is great – you can do it, too.

Category: Gardening (page 2 of 4)

It’s Pollinator Week! Let’s do stuff to help them.

In this post, lower down, we’re gonna build a Mason bee house.

Pollinating flowers is a serious job. In fact, in places where pollinators have been killed off by environmental toxins, people are employed to do it. (That means a government might see it as an advantage to take a service nature does for free, and turn it into something people have to be paid to do.)

For this reason, the third week of June every year we have Pollinator Week. Its aim is promote and support pollinator abundance and diversity, in the interest of serving them better than we have (see environmental toxin above, but also, habitat loss!) – because Lord knows they serve us!

The Pollinator Partnership created this event. They have tons of information about pollinators and what we can do to be as hospitable to them as possible. And it’s not just about bees: “Birds, bats, bees, butterflies, beetles, and other small mammals that pollinate plants are responsible for bringing us one out of every three bites of food.” (Even rats have demonstrated a role in pollination.)

Never mind an existential necessity for us humans; that’s a lot of economic value.

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Vines for green walls  

My house is distinctive for the vines I have growing on it. The only other neighbours who have vines are a house on the end of a row, with a big wall to cover.

Virginia Creeper on the house and garage wall

The Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) adorning my home has been here for 6 years. It’s ropey all the way to the top of the eavestrough. I trimmed it a lot the past year to stop its spread across the house and into the soffits, but spread is what Virginia Creeper does. Though to be fair, it falls back on its own, so it’s not unreasonable, and the configuration changes every once in a while. This makes it great to green-up a wall, especially if you are willing to “tutor” it across a large expanse of wall. If you don’t tutor it, it will detach and hang when it gets heavy.

For two years, I also let one climb the back wall, on the shady eastern side of the house. At the same time, I nabbed a “real” ivy plant and planted it in the same place, to have both. Parthenocissus tricuspidata “Veitchii”Boston ivy – is not a native plant, and it’s not from Boston! Its leaves spread out row upon row – nicely, and less rambly. There’s ample room – like 10m2 – for it to spread. But it stayed stunted, so I suspected that Virginia creeper inhibits other plants. The creeper had to go.

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A seed library/catalog at the municipal library

Once upon a time when I was at the Westmount Public Library, I saw something to get excited about: they’re reusing their old card catalog, situated near the main circulation (borrowing) desk, as a Seed Library.

I spoke with Daniel, who is responsible for it. It started in May 2016, and last year they reopened it in April 2017, when they learned that’s way too late for most gardeners. So this year, they’re opening the seed library on Monday, February 26. The quick explanation of what it is? “Free seeds for members for more than 50 varieties of plants. “

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10 tips for an urban homestead garden in Montreal

“Can an urban homestead work in Montreal?”  This was the query of someone who found my blog once upon a time. “Yes, of course.”

But. (There’s always a qualifier!) You need to have sun, and then you need to have space. If you don’t have sun, you can’t do it (unless you go to step #2, community group part, and then it’s a garden, not a homestead, but that’s OK).

If you have sun and space, then the only thing you need (other than water), is to be ready and willing to put up with the learning curve and the occasional need for help on any of the following things:

1. Start your seedlings indoors in March (some as early as February). That means now! Many require eight weeks before planting.

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