Latest news with #urban gardening
The Independent
a day ago
- General
- The Independent
Transform your tiny garden into a lush haven with these creative tips
When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle grew tomatoes in plastic buckets lined up like soldiers on the cement patio in their tiny Queens, New York, backyard. They also grew dozens of vegetables in their 10-by-10 foot (3-by-3 meter) patch of soil and installed a pergola they made from green metal fence posts above a picnic table. While it provided much-needed shade, it more importantly supported grapevines that produced enough fruit for their annual homemade vintage. Space — or the lack of it — doesn't have to stand between you and a fruitful garden. You just have to be creative. Start by looking up Vertical space is a horizontally challenged gardener's best friend. String up a trellis, hang baskets or attach planters to a fence or wall. You might be surprised at how much you can grow when you consider the third dimension. Vines, herbs and even strawberries are content climbers or danglers. Create visual interest by strategically grouping containers in clusters of odd numbers rather than lining them up in straight rows or placing them all separately. Try staggering their heights by perching them on decorative pedestals, overturned crates or stone slabs to draw the eye up and out. Compact and colorful crops Of course, size matters. If your space is limited, seek out compact or dwarf varieties of your favorite plants. They've been bred to thrive in tight spaces, and many are prolific producers of flowers, fruits or vegetables. These days, it's easy to grow roses, blueberries, tomatoes, peppers — even apple and fig trees — in containers. And don't sleep on plants that multitask as both beautiful ornamentals and nutritious crops. I've grown amaranth, cherry tomatoes and rainbow chard in my perennial beds. Other edibles with attractive foliage or flowers like chives, fancy lettuces and sage would be equally at home among my coneflowers, zinnias and roses. And sweet potatoes make a nice ground cover or trailing vine in a mixed container. Make the most of a single vegetable bed If you have a small, designated bed for vegetables, you can maximize your yield by planting a succession of crops throughout the season. Start by planting early-maturing plants like peas, beets, kale and lettuces. Then, after harvesting, replace them with warm-season crops, such as tomatoes, peppers, summer squash and beans. As they fade and fall approaches, use the space for another round of cool-season plants. Even a narrow strip or window box can feel lush if you plant it in layers. Place tall, upright plants in the back, midsized growers in the middle, and low bloomers in front to create visual depth that can help transform even a balcony or front stoop into your own personal nature retreat. ___ Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice. ___ For more AP gardening stories, go to
Associated Press
a day ago
- General
- Associated Press
Transform your tiny garden into a lush haven with these creative tips
When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle grew tomatoes in plastic buckets lined up like soldiers on the cement patio in their tiny Queens, New York, backyard. They also grew dozens of vegetables in their 10-by-10 foot (3-by-3 meter) patch of soil and installed a pergola they made from green metal fence posts above a picnic table. While it provided much-needed shade, it more importantly supported grapevines that produced enough fruit for their annual homemade vintage. Space — or the lack of it — doesn't have to stand between you and a fruitful garden. You just have to be creative. Start by looking up Vertical space is a horizontally challenged gardener's best friend. String up a trellis, hang baskets or attach planters to a fence or wall. You might be surprised at how much you can grow when you consider the third dimension. Vines, herbs and even strawberries are content climbers or danglers. Create visual interest by strategically grouping containers in clusters of odd numbers rather than lining them up in straight rows or placing them all separately. Try staggering their heights by perching them on decorative pedestals, overturned crates or stone slabs to draw the eye up and out. Compact and colorful crops Of course, size matters. If your space is limited, seek out compact or dwarf varieties of your favorite plants. They've been bred to thrive in tight spaces, and many are prolific producers of flowers, fruits or vegetables. These days, it's easy to grow roses, blueberries, tomatoes, peppers — even apple and fig trees — in containers. And don't sleep on plants that multitask as both beautiful ornamentals and nutritious crops. I've grown amaranth, cherry tomatoes and rainbow chard in my perennial beds. Other edibles with attractive foliage or flowers like chives, fancy lettuces and sage would be equally at home among my coneflowers, zinnias and roses. And sweet potatoes make a nice ground cover or trailing vine in a mixed container. Make the most of a single vegetable bed If you have a small, designated bed for vegetables, you can maximize your yield by planting a succession of crops throughout the season. Start by planting early-maturing plants like peas, beets, kale and lettuces. Then, after harvesting, replace them with warm-season crops, such as tomatoes, peppers, summer squash and beans. As they fade and fall approaches, use the space for another round of cool-season plants. Even a narrow strip or window box can feel lush if you plant it in layers. Place tall, upright plants in the back, midsized growers in the middle, and low bloomers in front to create visual depth that can help transform even a balcony or front stoop into your own personal nature retreat. ___ Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice. ___ For more AP gardening stories, go to
CBC
17-06-2025
- Science
- CBC
From roundabout gardens to park meadows, how cities across Canada are encouraging pollinators
Social Sharing It's taken a lot of work to rehabilitate the tiny patch of land at the centre of the small roundabout on Glen Drive and 10th Ave. in Vancouver, but for Katie Berlinguette, it was a labour of love. "I live in an apartment, like a lot of Vancouverites, and I don't have a patio or a yard," she said, adding that when she went looking for space in a community garden earlier this spring, she found the wait list was long — about three to five years on average. "During my internet search, I found the Green Streets Program, which is the next best thing." Soon, she had adopted the roundabout near her apartment that had a single overgrown rosebush that was almost six feet high. Now, the space she passes every day is a pollinator garden, filled with native plants like red-flowering currant and lupine, as well as edible plants and herbs. She also installed a solar-powered fountain. She wanted to fill the space with drought tolerant plants, a huge priority, because it's difficult to get water to the space. "And then being environmentally conscious with native plants is very, very important, and it's also what people in the neighbourhood have asked for." For the past few weeks, Berlinguette has been documenting her journey on TikTok in hopes of encouraging others to find ways to garden in the city. "It's a very busy cycle route and people are stopping every day that they see me and saying thank you." Small changes make a difference to urban spaces To Kaushal Rathnayake, a pollinator biologist at the University of New Brunswick, protecting the habitat of pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths is crucial to protecting our own well-being. Pollinators are an important part of healthy ecosystems, with almost three-quarters of the world's plants relying on pollinators. "We are destroying their habitats and we are destroying their food sources and we are creating inhospitable environments for these insects," he said. "Climate change is a big driver for their extinction, therefore, we have to conserve them and we have to take action to improve their well-being." No-Mow May, where residents are encouraged to let their lawns grow for the month so pollinators can thrive when they come out of hibernation, is an idea that's caught on across Canada, as have pollinator gardens like the one Berlinguette tends to. But to properly support pollinators, experts say biodiversity is key, and that requires longer-term change on a larger scale. That's the heart of Jens Ulrich's work as a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia, where he just wrapped a three-year study showing that even small changes to urban green spaces — such as adding a small meadow in a city park — can make a huge difference for pollinator diversity. WATCH | Jens Ulrich on the importance of pollinator meadows: UBC study shows 'park for bugs' increased wild bee and hoverfly diversity in Vancouver 1 month ago Duration 3:56 A new study from UBC shows planting wildflower meadows and reducing mowing in city parks increased wild bee and hoverfly diversity. The findings from so-called 'parks for bugs' are shaping city planning to make urban spaces more pollinator-friendly. Danielle Piper reports. Ulrich has been collaborating with the City of Vancouver to see how park management impacts pollinators. Eighteen parks were surveyed over the course of the study, with half maintained as they normally would be. For the other parks, Ulrich and his team created pollinator meadows by reducing mowing and adding wildflower seeds. They chose areas within the parks that had less foot traffic so the meadows would be less disruptive for those using the parks. Oak Meadows Park, one of the nine areas that the team modified with pollinators in mind, now includes a meadow beside a soccer field. It features some taller vegetation, including some native plants like lupine. The results of the study, published in Ecology Letters late last year, showed that the meadows had a huge impact. Many pollinators, such as bumblebees, sweat bees, honey bees, miner bees and hoverflies, came to the parks once the meadows were introduced, and stayed over the course of the three years. "I believe we estimated that there's about maybe 60 species per park in the parks with the meadows, versus closer to 30 species per park in our conventionally managed spaces," said Ulrich. The success of the project has resulted in the city keeping the nine meadows, and expanding the project to include meadows in more parks as well. Vancouver Parks Board landscape architect Jack Tupper, who worked with Ulrich, says that the city intends to change some of its six million square metres of lawn into a more beneficial habitat. "This is something that every city should be doing," said Tupper. "We found that the meadows that we've implemented between 2020 and 2023 were significantly beneficial to our city's ecology." He said that the soil beneath the meadows retained moisture and stayed cooler — it also acted like a carbon sink, an area that absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. They also found that the fungi and earthworm communities increased in the parks with meadows. "We're finding that the meadows are much more balanced environmentally and ecologically, which is really important through our summer months," said Tupper. He says seven per cent of the city's lawns — around 42 hectares — have been transitioned to meadows, with the goal being to transition 10 per cent by 2030. The city has also shared its findings with municipal colleagues across the country in the hope that they will do the same. The importance of public pollinator spaces Rathnayake, the pollinator biologist in N.B., first saw an uptick in pollinator gardens in the province around 2019. He has since seen municipalities, and the province, take initiative to create pollinator spaces. Because there are more backyards than city parks, Rathnayake thinks both cities and individuals can help. His dream is to create a vast network of pollinator gardens and meadows that can be used to encourage pollinators in urban settings. He says every municipality has a responsibility, "not only to have beautiful landscapes, but to support local biodiversity." He says Fredericton is doing a good job of setting an example and educating the public. "If you go to the city and go to every roundabout, you would see that they are planting a lot of pollinator plants and they're giving a little example for the people passing by every day that we need to take action." Rathnayake, who is also a volunteer educator for the Fredericton Botanical Garden, stresses that striving for biodiversity doesn't have to mean sacrificing esthetics by leaving a whole yard left unmowed. Through this volunteer work, he teaches people what plants to use to create and maintain spaces in their own yards. "You only need to have a little dedicated patch where you can have a nicely arranged pollinator garden." WATCH | It's not just bees that benefit from what you plant this spring: How to please a pollinator 1 month ago Duration 2:36 Moths, beetles, hummingbirds and flies are all pollinators — along with bees, of course — that can be helped by planting pollinator gardens.
