Native Alberta Plants Garden

 Here is the Alberta native plants garden my sweetie has made. As the yard needed to be re-graded he moved the sidewalk off to the right to build the garden between the evergreens where it gets more light. So much nicer having stepping blocks rather than a solid sidewalk straight up to the house and rather than striving for perfection on placement of stones we chose not to cut out evergreen roots that were near the surface and went around them instead. Grass has been planted between the stepping blocks which is now coming up.

The view from our steps towards the street.

To build me this garden my sweetie went out and invested volunteer weeding time with the Edmonton Naturalization Group. I helped gather seeds and took hundreds of photos out at the garden. Now comes the work of sorting through the photos and putting the better ones onto disc for the group to use as they see fit. I enjoy going out to the garden where they grow natural Alberta plants. Its refreshing, and as a bonus the goldfinches are abundant.

Flowers at the Edmonton Naturalization Group Nursery Garden. There are goldfinches in these flowers though hard to spot as they blend right in.

A gift at our feet in the garden.

Alberta Wild Rye, we planted a small tuft of this in our natural garden by the stones that are outside the garden perimeter. The seed head colour is lovely.

We planted Prairie Blazing Star. I sure hope ours take as isn't it lovely. The resident jackrabbit ate one though thankfully left me with two plants. The White Prairie Asters are a different story though, he ate all of those yet left the yellow ones alone, and my Tall Wild Sunflowers, all gone. Ole Jack better watch out or he may become rabbit stew, just kidding; we will encircle the next bunch we get with wire to protect them.

There are quite a variety of wild asters , I cannot remember if we planted these type which are quite showy as a group.

Prairie Clover blossom.

Goldfinch on Wild Sunflower, this type is a southern Alberta flower.

Joe Pye Weed in foreground and Common Tall Sunflower behind, a sunflower that likes wet areas though I am told its pretty hardy and will acclimatize to gardens. These sunflowers are about 6 feet tall.

White Prairie Aster growing amidst Sweetgrass.

Garden Dragons.

Asters, the soft colour behind is Sage.

Bee and Gaillardia Aristata blossom.

Giant Anise Hyssop, a member of the Mint family that can be used as a tea that heralds a liquorice flavour.

Hopefully my garden will be sporting many of these wild blossoms next year.

Big Hugs, hope you enjoyed the mini-garden tour.