Kootenay Gardening

Earth friendly gardening in the Kootenays region of British Columbia, Canada

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Gardening Information

Some of our Finest Gardens

Garden Festivals and Tours

Gardening Events - Schedule


Freshly dug garlic	Tied in bunches for curing	Curing garlic

Tiny, six weeks old Strawberry runner wants to produce, too.

Love It Wildly Lawn and Garden Photo Contest in Kimberley and Cranbrook

Great Prizes for Pictures of Pretty, Pesticide-Free Yards!

An interesting specimen of Tulip tree growing in one of the Castlegar gardens.

At this time of year (end of June) the tree is covered with tulip sized and shaped yellow flowers with an orange flare inside.

Tulip trees, also known as Tulip Poplars or Yellow Poplars, in the family Magnoliaceae, native to eastern North America, are rare in the West.

There is always something out of ordinary to be seen during the Kootenays garden tours!

Here is an interesting comment from one of my visitors:

Hello,

I appreciate your article on the tulip tree in Castlegar. Long ago an old specimen stood near Hwy. 3 on the western outskirts of town. It survived the droughts but was razed along with everything else on its property around 1990.

This species is not hard to find in the West if you know where to look. There are many in Vancouver and Victoria. Thousands are cultivated in California. Greatest concentration in the BC interior seems to be at Creston although none in that town are particularly large. Nelson is more to its liking -- there used to be a gigantic one near the lake, another big specimen planted in 1897 was doing well last time I looked (in 1994), and several younger specimens were very vigorous.

Best,
Tony Perodeau

Link of interest

Gardening by the Moon

"Plants respond to the same gravitational pull of tides that affect the oceans, which alternately stimulates root and leaf growth. Seeds sprout more quickly, plants grow vigorously and at an optimum rate, harvests are larger and they don't go to seed as fast. This method has been practiced by many for hundreds of years."

"We are facing a problem that literally has never been faced in human history - we don't have enough people who know how to feed us to keep going forward. And for the most part, we're not even fully aware of the problem. We have no plan going forward. And our children are being taught that farming is unworthy of them. This, folks, is a crisis..."
Sharon Astyk writes about the coming demographic crisis in agriculture in the US. The same applies to Canada.

Who Will Grow Your Food?

Is life without plastic possible?

Find out at

Dispatch from Germany: Visiting three farm-to-table enterprises

My first ever very own peach ready to pick.

Want to know how to grow a lush vegetable garden? Ask a gardener in Trail.

Did you know?

   "Farmers have cross-bred between crops for a long time, but GE crops are different.
    First, they are produced and controlled by large corporations, which are largely unaccountable to the public.
    Second, they mix genes from non-plant species with crops – and, unlike cross-breeding by farmers, this science is new and unpredictable.
    Third, corporations can patent GE seeds, which damages traditional forms of seed sharing among farmers.
   The Society for a G.E. Free B.C. is a social justice coalition of groups and individuals across BC/Yukon working for local, community based agriculture, and against genetic engineering of plants and trees. GE Free BC envisions a food-sovereign Canada where no genetically engineered life forms are created, patented, approved, bought, sold or traded."

Join gefreebc.org

    Producing and growing GE foods represents tampering with nature on an unprecedented scale.
    GE foods were first introduced in the early 1990s. During eight year period between 1997 and 2005 the land occupied by GE crops has increased 50 times from 4.2 million acres to 222 million acres.
    Lack of mandatory labeling of GE products not only prevents the consumer from making informed choice whether to consume genetically modified food but also makes it practically impossible to monitor the impact of such controversial food products on the health of the population.

Learn about genetic engineering at

Abuses of Biotechnology posing Threats to Survival

What do you think, is it a good idea that one multinational corporation controls the majority of the food supply on the Planet?

Learn more about GE (GMO):

Pharmaceutical Food Crops in a Field Near You

Millions Against Monsanto Campaign

Wordpress GE Free BC

What you can do?

Support your local farmers, buy local, buy organic, grow what you can yourself, save and share your seeds, buy seeds from seed companies and nurseries that sell heirloom and rare or endangered varieties, demand mandatory labeling of GE foods, join gefreebc.org

Non-GMO Shopping Guide

Gardeners to Gardeners

Have you been thinking of building a pvc pipe hoop-house but did not know exactly how? A friendly gardener from the Creston Valley shares his expertise on this and other topics at Dan's Album

Photo by Dan McMurray

Many people have asked about my daylilies and recently the local newspaper ran a two page article on my garden which is now around 1000 different daylilies. About 135 are named varieties and the rest are seedlings or unnamed. I live in zone 3 and I do nothing to protect my plants other than leaving the foliage on for the winter. We have high winds and little snow cover as well as repeated freeze-thaw cycles so you know that these are VERY hardy plants. Please click on the link to my pages . I hope that you can find something you like.
- Sherry Kuystermans, Crowsnest Pass, S-W Alberta.

Kootenays GE Free Zones:

Nelson - 2008
Kaslo - 2009
Rossland - 2009
New Denver - 2009

Is something interesting happening or going to happen in your garden or in other gardens in your area? Would you like our visitors to know about that?

Do you grow a heirloom or a native garden here in the Kootenays? I would like to hear from you!

Iris World Premier

Garden Humor

    My daughter Bonnie knew how much I loved flowers and when she was nine years old felt this justified taking some branches from our neighbor's blossoming fruit tree.
    Realizing where she had got them, but recognizing her intention to please me, I didn't scold her but chose a different approach. "These are lovely, Bonnie, but do you realize that if you had left them on the tree, each of these blossoms would have become a cherry?"
    "No, they wouldn't have," she stated firmly.
    "Oh, yes, they would have. Each of these blossoms would have grown into a cherry."
    "No, they wouldn't," she said again stubbornly.
    "Bonnie," I said, somewhat angrily, "each one of these blossoms would have become a cherry!"
    "Well, okay," she finally conceded, "but they were plums last year!"

courtesy of www.becquet.ca/laughter/14.htm

Poetry Corner

Prayer in a Garden

Today the world seemed cruel, but evening hours
Were filled with perfume from forgotten flowers.
I saw again familiar filigree
Of moonlight through my lacy Lilac tree;

I heard the robins stirring in their nest;
And saw the path that fairy feet had pressed;
Reflected stars were in my garden pool;
On my warm face the breeze was kind and cool.

The silence seemed to speak, my head was bowed,
Then ramblers that had grown into a cloud
Lifted my eyes that, tear-washed, now could see
The beauty that today was lost to me.

Dear God, who is so near to flowers, and birds,
Be nearer still, as I shall search for words
To thank Thee for the blessings night revealed,
Which through the day discouragement concealed.

- Eva Sparks Taylor

Kootenays location

The Kootenays region of British Columbia, Canada, marked white

The Kootenays region is located in the S-E triangle of British Columbia, Canada, in-between the two majestic mountain ranges: the Monashee Mountains in the West and the Rocky Mountains in the East.

Cranbrook, Elkford, Fernie, Invermere, Kimberley, Sparwood and Radium Hot Springs are major cities/towns in the East Kootenay. Castlegar, Creston, Greenwood, Grand Forks, Kaslo, Midway, Nakusp, Nelson, New Denver, Rossland, Salmo and Trail are major cities/towns in the West Kootenay (including Kootenay-Boundary).

Because of its mountainous location, the region encompasses several gardening zones, from zone 6 in the South, close to big tables of water, to zone 1 in the high elevations.

Gardening is one of the favourite activities in the Kootenays. There are many beautiful flower as well as vegetable gardens in the region.

Each summer we have garden tours and garden festivals in the Beaver Valley, Castlegar, Cranbrook, Creston, Grand Forks, Kaslo, Kimberley, Nelson, Rossland, the Slocan Valley, the Slocan Lake area, Trail and Warfield.

To support sustainability and help local farmers sell their products directly to consumers, outdoor markets become more and more popular. The largest outdoor community market in the Kootenays, Cottonwood Falls Outdoor Market is located in Nelson. There are also farmers markets operating during summer in Creston, Fernie, Grand Forks, Invermere, New Denver, and Silverton.

Blueberries Northland.

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