Landscaping Mississauga Gardens – Best trees for dry conditions: Honey locust, Turkish hazel & Russian olive

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honey locust
honey-locust is a drought resistant shade tree

Honey locust

A great choice if you want a hassle-free, attractive, fast-growing (18”+ annually) ornamental tree that won’t shade out your lawn and landscaping as it has small leaflets that produce a filtered shade.

This native to central North America, deciduous tree requires very little maintenance once planted and established. In fact, it performs best if not fertilized or watered, since optimal growth conditions in the summer and rapid growth may increases susceptibility to winter dieback of some of the new branches.

Honey locust can reach a height of 20–30 m (66–100 ft). Its leaves are bright green in spring and turn yellow in the fall. The leaves are small and in the fall they simply disappear into the lawn and decompose, without any need for raking. The strongly scented cream-colored flowers appear in clusters by late spring. The name of this tree derives from the sweet taste of its fruit, flat legume pulp that matures in early autumn. The pulp is used for food by Native American people, and it can also be fermented to make beer. The long pods, which eventually dry and ripen to brown or maroon, make a striking visual statement against the winter snow.

This ornamental tree is your best choice in dry areas, where few other trees can survive and prosper and it also tolerates urban conditions, compacted soil, road salt, alkaline soil, heat and drought. The fast growth rate and tolerance of poor site conditions make it valued in areas where shade is wanted quickly.

 

Fast growing drought-tolerant shady tree

Fast growing drought-tolerant shady tree

Turkish hazel

 

 

Another excellent small tree choice for drier sites.  It is drought-tolerant, but it also does well in wet conditions. This a tree for all challenging landscaping condition. It grows up to 40’ tall and has a broad, distinctive and refined pyramidal shape with interesting corky bark, and dark green foliage throughout the season. The crinkled round leaves turn yellow in October.  The foliage is dense and the tree provides a nice shade in summer right from the beginning.

 

 

Russian olive can be grown as a small tree or a shrub

Russian olive can be grown as a small tree or a shrub

Russian olive

Russian olive, commonly called silver berry, oleaster or Persian olive is a native to the western and central Asia, an area stretching from southern Russia and Kazakhstan to Turkey and Iran, which is becoming very popular in Ontario as introduced species.

Russian olive can be grown either as a large thorny shrub if you trim it regularly or it can grow to the size of a small tree up to 5 metres in height. This drought-resistant ornamental plant is a very attractive addition to any garden with its dense covering of silvery to rusty leaves and highly scented flowers that appear in early spring and are followed by clusters of small cherry-like orange-red fruit covered in silvery scales. The fruits are edible, and in Iran, the dried power of Russian olive fruits mixed with milk is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and joint pains.

Russian olive needs to be planted with caution. Because it thrives in very poor soil conditions, has low seeding mortality and matures in a few years it often outcompetes the other plants and can become invasive.

Please see our previous entries for landscaping in dry soil conditions and the best evergreens to plant in these conditions.

Landscaping Mississauga Gardens – lawn care tips

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lawnWhen the snow melts, your first impulse may be to get working on your lawn – but hold on your horses ………. starting too soon may actually do more harm than good.  If your lawn feels spongy underfoot, that means that it is still too early.  Wait until the ground feels firm.   That’s the time to start working on your lawn.

The secret to a grassy yard all year-around are the following easy 8 easy steps:

1. Clean up the yard  Remove all fallen stems, branches and leaves by gently raking your lawn and gathering all the debris.  If there is more than 1cm (1/2 in.) of brown, matted blades of grass located where the soil meets the roots of your lawn, you will need to dethatch using a fan rake (if you have a large space, you may want to rent a motorized dethacher from RONA or Home Depot).

2. Curb local critters  Check the yard for any evidence of tunneling moles: little raised hills and underground tunnels in your lawn.  Fix the damage by tamping down tunnels and applying blood meal (you can find it in any garden centre). True to its name blood meal is a dry, inert powder actually made from animal blood as a slaughterhouse by-product.  It is one of the highest non-synthetic sources of nitrogen used as a composting activator as well as it can be spread on gardens to deter animals.  Used on your lawn it should discourage repeat visits from moles. Once the weather warms up, getting rid of the grubs moles feed on will also control future tunneling.

3. Aerate  Buy or rent a manual or power aerator (tip: share the cost with your  neighbours!) to remove little plugs of compacted soil from your lawn, so that air, water and nutrients can flow to the root zone, improving your lawn’s look and overall health. Aeration is especially essential in high-traffic areas, such as common paths and in areas with clay-based soil (which is most of Mississauga).

4. Top dress and reseed  This step will make your lawn thick and lush – and, as a result, naturally weed resistant.  “Top dressing” means spreading an even layer of of soil across your lawn, filling holes and leveling out uneven spots. Don’t cover the blades on your grass entirely in the process though! Then spread a good quality grass seed across your lawn (read the labels on the package carefully to make sure that the grass seed you apply is properly suited to the amount of light in your yard – sun or shade).  Rake it gently (there is no need to cover it again with more soil), and water very well.  Grass seed need soil that is warmer than 15 deg. C to germinate or you will be just wasting seed or money.  A great and simple way to check the soil’s temperature is to stick a kitchen meat thermometer in the ground and measure the temperature…. 🙂

5. Fertilize  Apply lawn fertilizer that’s high in nitrogen (the first number on the bag) early in the season. Choose a “slow release” formula so your lawn gets a consistent feeding of nutrients over time, while limiting the release of of fertilizer into the water with rain and preventing fertilizer’s burns on  your lawn.  My favourite is Scott’s Turf Builder Pro.

6. Water wisely  Lawns love water. The average lawn needs at least 30 to 40 mm (11/2 to 2 in.) of water per week.  If mother nature isn’t providing enough in the form of a rain, you will h ave to supplement it with a hose and a sprinkler.  Water regularly during the early morning hours when it’s cooler.  To figure out how long you need to water your lawn do a simple experiment the first time you are watering: set out a wide, empty container, such as margarine tub) in the centre of your lawn and check the time before you start watering; when the water in the container reaches 30 to 40 mm, you can turn off your water. Check the time again – now you know how long you need to water your lawn…. 🙂

7. Deal with the weeds  To get rid of weeds, you can apply an environmentally friendly herbicide like Scotts Eco Sense Weed B Gon, or remove them by hand.  If you choose the latter, I recommend doing so after a rain – weeding is a breeze when the ground is wet. Take care to ensure you’ve removed the plant and its entire taproot, And get to them before they go to seed , or you will only have more dandelions to pull in the weeks ahead.  Note that crabgrass control products prevent germination, so if you’ve used it on your lawn, you must wait up to 8 weeks before reseeding.

8. Cut the lawn with care  Mow your lawn to a height of 5 or 6 cm (2.5 – 3 in.)  This ensures the blades are just tall enough to shade out and prevent weeds from germinating, and also to keep roots pf your lawn cool. Plan on mowing once a week, alternating the direction each time. so if you run the mower up and down perpendicular to your house this weekend, you should run it back and forth parallel with your house next time.

If you have any questions or need help, just get in touch.  We are here to help

Soil preparation for gardening & landscaping in Mississauga & GTA area

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soil preparationAs the weather teases us one day into believing that spring is already here; and the other day reminding us that the winter still rules, the green thumbs amongst us are eager to do something for their gardens.  Perhaps the best thing one can do while going through the ups and downs of undecided weather is to devote the time to the preparation of the soil for planting at a later time.  This is an important task as the success or failure of a garden largely depends on the soil where the plants live and grow.

There are basically three kinds of soil:  sandy, clayey and loamy.  Loam is a combination of clay and enough sand to offset the cohesive properties of the clay. It also contains considerable amount of decomposed organic matter or humus, which provides fertility, moisture retention, and hospitable environment for friendly bacteria and other organisms.  In our part of Ontario, and especially in Mississauga, the soil is mostly clayey – formed by extremely fine and compacted soil particles.  This type of soil impedes drainage, becoming a hard, solid crusted mass when dry and turning swampy when wet.  It  does not hold much air to support growth, just like sandy soils contain too  much air and not enough water to sustain growth.

We should strive to prepare garden beds that are composed of a felicitous combination of sand, clay, and humus – soil that is able to breathe, drain, and still retain enough moisture to feed the plants without drowning them.  Good soil holds the minerals and chemicals delivered by water, does not pack or clod when wet and warms up in the spring.  It should contain at least 18 inches of workable loam.   The more humus mulches, and compost are added over time, the softer and richer the soil becomes. And now, when the weather is nice,  is the perfect time to work on preparing the soil, mixing it properly.  Experts opine that one should start preparing the soil anywhere between 2-4 months before planting.   At Landpol Landscaping, we routinely add topsoil with all flowerbeds that we create, but you can start improving the quality of soil in your garden now….. 🙂

Eco-friendly gardening in Mississauga with native perennials

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With the coming of spring many of us are planning to have a beautiful, eco-friendly paradise on our backyard.  None wants to redo a garden every year, but we all want it to be sustasinable and enjoy once planted flowers and shrubs for many years to come.  This is best achieved with fuss free native perennials.

The longevity of perennials is the main reason why people choose to plant them in their gardens.   If selected well and planted in the right way, they will provide you year after year with colour and foliage for about 15 years on average.  And you can usually share your perennial plants with your friends and neighbours by splitting either the root or the green part of the plant. You can also ) and share the success of your healthy plant with your neighbor without going to buy a new plant all together.

One of the hardiest perennials that also thrive in shady moist areas is hosta in its many varieties:

hostas