Oldford-Down, Laurelle (January 16, 2025)
Laurelle loved playing in the dirt and remembers watching her Grandfather in his veggie garden. She completed a landscaping certificate from Kwantlen and has been a landscape designer for close to 30 years. Laurelle owned and operated her own design and install company. About five years ago, she got into grafting and selling heritage apple trees and buying and reselling berry bushes (blueberries, lingonberries, Goji berries, tayberries, raspberries, huckleberries, sea buckthorn, grapes, sour bush cherries (U Sask), and cranberries) at Seedy Saturday, the VanDusen Plant Sale, etc. She works part-time in Art's Nursery in Port Kells https://www.artsnursery.com/default.aspx and also writes garden articles, runs garden workshops, still dabbles in landscape design and delights in exciting people about gardening especially edible gardening.
She spoke on the topic of: "Creating Garden Magic in a Small Space"
By the year 2050 - 7 out of 10 people will be living in cities - a garden is a precious thing. To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.
Laurelle addressed some of the challenges of growing a garden in small spaces:
Consideration to define your space:
What do you want to do in your garden?
- Seating area
- Creating privacy
- Growing food
- Water garden
- Encourage insects and birds
- Fragrance
How do you fit it all in?
- Try growing things together - companion planting
- Succession planting for interest throughout the seasons
Lighting
- Work with what you have
- If there is too much light - create a canopy, add taller plants and privacy screens to shade or block the light.
- If there is too little light - add mirrors, use white or golden plants, add water with lights.
Making your garden healthy:
- Start with the soil - choose the best soil you can afford.
- Compost if you can.
- Mix bloom times - annuals can help with this.
- Use native plants to invite the insects and birds.
Gardening with containers:
- Choose the colours and patterns - earthy colours blend in, black pots show up your plants well.
- Size of containers - the bigger the better - wider is good.
- Beware of the small space container trap when you end up with a multitude of small containers.
Schanfarber, Lucretia (February 20, 2025)
Speaker: Lucretia Schanfarber
Topic: The Power of no-dig gardening.
Lucretia Schanfarber is a dedicated organic gardener, motivational speaker and writer. Her mission is to motivate and teach people to Cultivate Edible Landscapes & Superfood Gardens while Building Soil Health & Fertility. She has worked as a writer for "alive magazine," Canada's most popular health magazine and as a contributing editor to the award-winning "Encyclopedia of Natural Healing." Lucretia's simple message is: "We will all live longer, healthier and happier lives when we grow more of our own food & work together to build a lasting culture of organic gardening communities." She creatively blends her expertise in natural healing and organic gardening to deliver an entertaining, educational and uplifting presentation. She has written two mini-books "How to Grow Your Own SuperFoods" and “How to Build Your Own SuperSoil".
Why should you follow the principles of no-dig?
It leaves the soil microbiome undisturbed.
It reduces weed growth.
It feeds the soil life with organic matter.
It works on all kinds of soil.
Do:
add compost to your soil yearly
grow cover crops
chop and drop
harvest mulched pathways
use available biomass and resources
keep the soil covered - mulch
use only organic soil amendments
grow and use comfrey
make compost tea
use the power of pee
leave annual roots in the soil
use grey water
Don't
rototill or dig your soil
use toxins
waste any biomass
use questionable amendments and resources
burn healthy garden pruning and weeds
leave soil bare
go ew! about pee
pull annual plant roots out of the soil
freak out about weeds
do anything that hurts the soil structure
Crouch, Jason (March 20, 2025)
Speaker: Jason Crouch from Fraser Valley Rose Farm
Topic: Roses
We’re Jason and Lisa, and about a dozen years ago we took the plunge and bought a small acreage on Nicomen Island. Money was tight at the time, the girls were young, the learning curve was steep, and the property needed some major TLC. It was hard to see at first, but even in those tough early years we were forming the impression of what Fraser Valley Rose Farm could be. Although we had to hold our day jobs to make ends meet, make no mistake: from the time we sold our first plants from a folding table at the farmers market, we were no longer a part of the “9 to 5” work force. It took me nearly another decade to hand in my resignation, and now I’m so excited to invite the world to our little farm.
Site/Soil:
- Roses need 6 to 8 hours of sun a day
- They do not tolerate rocky soil, direct tree roots, poor drainage and high pH otherwise they will be fine in any other condition.
- It is best to plant a new rose 3 ‘ away from where another rose had been planted.
- The best time to plant them are from February to May and September/October ( when the danger of high frost has gone and not during the very hot weather in the summer)
The family tree of roses goes back 2500 years!
Good roses for small spaces and containers:
- Miniatures
- Polyanthas
- Floribundas
- Shrub roses
Good roses for large spaces:
- Hybrid teas
- Climbers/ramblers
- Old garden roses
- Some larger shrub roses
Solitary flowering:
- Hybrid teas
- Some modern climbers
Cluster flowering:
- Floribundas
- Grandifloras
- Hybrid musk
- Ramblers
- Many others
Drought tolerant roses:
- Scots roses
- Rugosa roses
- Compact floribundas
- Shrub roses
Rosapedia is a good site to help you find the type of rose you need/want. On this site you can start with your priorities and search the data base.
What is the difference between a grafted rose and one that is grown on its own roots?
Grafted roses tend to live 10 -15 years, whereas those grown on their own roots live longer and are healthier over time.
Feeding your rose: the NPK ratio needs to follow the 3-1-2 or 3-1-3 ratio
Pruning is usually done in February or March.
Important to prepare roses for winter:
- Stop fertilising in August
- Limit the pruning
- Shelter potted roses
- Clean up diseased foliage
- Replace mulch as needed