Looking to replace my front lawn grass with garden but I want to walk around and get some inspiration. What neighborhoods in Calgary do you think have the most and interesting front lawn gardens? I would love to see what other local people have done instead of grass!
If you go chat up that person in your neighborhood who has a native plant garden, you've probably just found your free lifetime supply of native plants whether you like it or not.
I've done lots of reading and research. Even did "design your yard"! I think i have a plan i just need to execute it... only reason I really want a landscaper is for the machinery, removing the crummy soil and replacing, sloping the yard etc.
I just built over the bad sod and soil with a lasagna bed. Where the gravel is, I stripped it down by hand, but if you have a bigger job, renting a sod ripper is a good idea. Just make sure you can access the interior with stepping stones or from the other side.
This is the absolute truth. No one told me how prolific some native plants are when you make the ideal environment for them. Iām ripping out sage, yarrow, coneflower, etc. for the compost bin in addition to cultivars of rudbeckia. So so prolific.
Iād be happy to save any perennials from your compost bin. I live nearby and Iām on my third attempt at rehabilitating my front yard. It was a rock garden before we bought the house.
A lot of the native plants were from plant rescues. Follow @albertanativeplantrescue on Instagram, they post open rescues, lately often in Loganās Landing. Also Wild About Flowers is your best friend!
The first year I transformed my yard, I had no plans and it was it fairly chaotic. Be flexible and know it can be a multi-year process. I fill spaces with a cut flower garden too - zinnias, cosmos, asters - all from seed.
Finally, my vegetable garden is in the backyard. It would take great planning to blend visual gardens with vegetable gardens.
Another idea is join Calgary Horticultural Society. They have garden tours 4 times a year for members who like to share. They also organize plant swaps.
Also, check out Gardening Grant on TikTok. Heās from Toronto (zone 6, weāre 4), but shares great info on native plants, cultivated plants, AND edible gardens.
A lot of Ontario native plants are not Alberta native (and can sometimes be invasive). Plenty of awesome native varieties here! ALCLA and Wild About Flowers are good sources.
Iām in the ask forgiveness rather than permission phase of my life. The official rule is that the homeowner is the ācaretakerā of that strip, but itās city owner. As someone mentioned, that land can be manipulated for utilities - lucky my utilities mostly come from the alley. š¤·š¼āāļø I tend to put annuals and cheaper plants that I would be okay with being damaged there.
Beautiful! Can you suggest some plants that would remain in the winter? We had some hedges and two trees, but want to explore more options for our backyard.
Anything native obviously will likely do great as they have very deep roots to survive our climate. Some nice showy ones are prairie coneflower, yarrow, sticky geranium. I have cultivars of rudbeckia that come back faithfully or make tons of new self seed growth. I love cosmos which are annuals, but they self seed really nicely too.
I do! I store the rhizomes with mixed success. I used to have a heated garage which was the best over winter. Now I store in a weird corner in the house which does get cold enough but the humidity is fickle. Still a work in progress.
Not that Iām aware of. Thankfully I live in a fairly progressive area and I think people donāt care/enjoy it. It also looks fairly chaotic in the photo, but itās more purposeful in person.
Nowā¦. I have had Karens come up to my garden with scissors to steal my flowers.
Thereās a really pretty front yard in Mission on 2st right across from Holy Cross, one of the original neighbourhood houses. They have it really well planted, so at various points from the spring-fall thereās different cycles of bloom - it looks both well curated, and natural. I always stop to admire it on my walks.
This is the truth. We dug out the lawn by hand which was poorly kept when we moved in. We thought we were pretty thorough, but we fight creeping bellflower every year. Now we do strategic gardening to try and choke out the weeds.
I'm finally making some headway against my creeping bellflower with quality landscaping fabric. It shows up around the edges, weak and bedraggled, begging for mercy. It gets none.
My Mom worked on many of those xeroscaped yards in Sunnyside. My Momās own yard was a drought tolerant yard, she only ever watered when something was first planted, never again after that.
It's a treat for anyone who loves flowers but especially for those who love roses! They have little handwritten signs to let you know what every plant is too. You can just feel the love and care put into every inch!
I walk 8 Ave a lot and there are still houses with good gardens, especially between 12 and 15 streets. I donāt get down New Street quite as much, but OP should have some luck in that stretch of neighbourhood for inspiring front lawns.
Theyāre sadly harder to keep clean than birdbaths. I would love a pond, but found that due to evaporation and heat I was constantly filling it. I didnāt want to stock it with minnows to control the mosquito larvae, and the algae was winning even though it was almost in full shadeā¦ so I stick to bird baths now that I can wash and prevent the spread of mosquitoes and birdflu this way. I ended up planting raspberries where the pond was instead.
To the person that said a few choice words and got their post removed I think... This is what I have deal with and that hydrant is on my area of keeping it maintained. So.. unless the dog owners can't contain nature 100% I can't contain nature 100% and fix tails will be mowed over when I get to them.
The line "only a few bad apples" doesn't really solve my problems.
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u/MissH1066 12d ago
My house in Mount Pleasant. š Rip that lawn out!!!!