Big bloomers add extra punch to the garden

This week when crabapple and plum trees are at their fragrant best, it’s hard not to think of fruit-bearing trees. But look past the orchard to find other blooming trees and shrubs that will make a big difference in your garden not just this year, but for many summers to come.

For anyone who loves spring-blooming fruit trees but...

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Ants! Ants! Ants!

Ant fossils have been found in amber that is dated almost 100 million years old so there have been ants much longer than there have been humans on Earth.
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Greenhouses add length to gardener's summer

For gardeners like Bob Russell, Derrick Harrison and Carol Rankin, spring is a frenzied time of shifting hundreds of plants from inside the house to their backyard greenhouses. The payoff for all that work is a savings of thousands of dollars on the price of bedding plants and the opportunity to...
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Growing non-stop

Derrick Harrison hasn’t planted his own vegetable plot as yet this spring, but during his Growing an Edible Garden lecture at the St. Albert Public Library last week, he certainly seeded some inspiring gardening tips.
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Perennial favourites

The bent leaves of the winter-crushed irises are showing green against the last heaps of snow in the garden. The tiniest bulb flowers are poking their heads out against a backdrop of grey/brown leaves. So it must be spring, but without question, this prolonged winter tries the soul of the gardener.
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Build your gnome a home

If you can imagine a wee terrarium-sized garden, built to scale and complete with tiny patio chairs and swings, you’re halfway to designing your very first fairy garden.
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Making the ideal garden soil

For much of his life Dr. Ieuan Evans has examined the properties of soil but in spite of that love and study of all things earthen, he did not get mushy or even poetic about the stuff beneath his feet when he kicked off the St. Albert Botanic Park’s lecture series last week. Instead, Evans dished...
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Building with dirt

Heather Noakes and Ashley Lubyk haven’t exactly cleaned up on dirt but they certainly have learned how to make a living using it as a building material.
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Good airflow important for homes

With spring around the corner, some people with older homes may consider filling the cracks and sealing the windows to avoid drafty rooms next winter.
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