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Gardener's Notebook - Seed catalogues for 2019 arriving

The days are definitely shorter, and if your garden clean-up is done, our garden season for this year is done! But you know gardeners! We’re always thinking ahead to next year, and it won’t be long till we start getting the 2019 seed catalogues.
debbie

The days are definitely shorter, and if your garden clean-up is done, our garden season for this year is done! But you know gardeners! We’re always thinking ahead to next year, and it won’t be long till we start getting the 2019 seed catalogues.

And here’s a new project to look forward to! Visit our website, www.yorktonhort.ca to learn about the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society’s new venture with the Yorkton Public Library, the Seed Library. This is a very exciting project for us! Seeds will soon be collected and filed and next February, eager gardeners can visit the library and “take out” new seeds to try! We’ll talk about it more as the date approaches.

Planting new shrubs may be in your gardening future, and one that I have been noticing (with mixed reactions) is the low-growing juniper. There are many varieties of juniper to choose from for all kinds of yard requirements, but I wanted to learn more about the low-growing variety. This is a lovely shrub, growing less than a foot high, but with an amazing spread of several feet. It is a tough little shrub, able to tolerate less-than-perfect soil and dry conditions. As long as it has good drainage and full sun it seems happy! 

This shrub makes an excellent ground-cover, looks very elegant as it sweeps across your landscape, and is a fine choice is you have a slope in your yard and want to stabilize your soil. They don’t need a lot of care, just a bit of a haircut once in a while to shape the shrub. I read that we shouldn’t cut them back to the old wood, because it is difficult to get new growth from the old wood.

Because the creeping juniper is so easy to get along with, growing just about anywhere, this is the very reason it must be used with care. Be sure that it is the right kind of juniper for your space. Ask the experts at the greenhouse to recommend the best choice for you. Tell them the maximum size of space that you have for a juniper, and let them choose a suitable variety.

If you have gone for a leisurely walk or drive through any neighborhood, chances are you have seen situations where the good creeping juniper has gone bad: situations where the juniper has grown far outside its boundaries and has taken over a space, filling in a yard with dense, intertwined branches that completely obliterate the soil. Sometimes this is the goal, in problem areas, but quite often it is not. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. I’m sure we have all seen yards where gardeners have tried to clear their space of this advancing wave of juniper, resulting in exhausted gardeners, trailers filled with juniper branches, and unsightly juniper stumps that are very difficult to remove without the aid of a garden tractor and a lot of physical strain!

Just like when it’s time for a haircut, and our hair goes from manageable one day to “bad-hair-day” the next, vibrant juniper growth creeps up on many gardeners, passing very quickly from manageable and attractive to unkempt and out of control. It is a continual lesson to all of us that we must choose the right plant for the right space, and be vigilant about dealing with it before it takes over. Do some homework, read up on the shrub you think you want, then ask the greenhouse experts for their recommendations. It will save a lot of work and disappointment!

Visit the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society at www.yorktonhort.ca to see what’s new.
Have a great week!