GardenWise Garden Challenge Contest - Honourable Mentions

| 08 Jan 2008

When faced with quandaries in the garden, our readers show they are up to the challenge!

We received such an inspiring response to our Garden Challenge Contest, announced in the Fall 07 issue of GardenWise, that we felt our readers were deserving of their own special feature! Congratulations to our Grand Prize Winner, chosen by our panel of judges, who wins a $250 package Lee Valley Garden Tools. Six runners up will receive a $25 gift certificate from Lee Valley, and a further selection of entries has been selected for publication.

Here are the GardenWise Garden Challenge Contest Honourable Mentions. Congratulations to all the winners and a big thank-you to everyone who entered the contest.

DEER DEFENCE

We have a large garden and love gardening, but it was expensive, as most of what we planted became the deer's next meal. A small garden between our house and the neighbour's was fenced, but the deer could jump it quite easily; many a time we looked out to see a deer munching away. Finally we decided to add lattice to the existing fence, raising it high enough to stop the deer from getting in. We also made the gate higher. Along the lattice, we have planted clematis and climbing hydrangea. We now have a lovely spot to sit, and we garden to our hearts’ content, watching our plants grow instead of being devoured. Here is a picture of our “secret garden.”
Ann & Alan Newman, Victoria

WHERE CIVILIZATION AND NATURE MEET

Because I didn't like the abrupt change going from our parking space to the wooded area of our property, I decided that it would be a great place to use the zillions of small and medium-sized rocks I keep pulling out of the ground as I’m landscaping our small acreage. I carefully picked, shovelled and "cleaned" a wide strip, taking care not to harm tree roots and the desired ferns. I laid down landscape cloth and cut holes for some plants toward the back of the strip where there's a bit of a rise. Toward the front, as the level gets flatter, I created long, shallow "islands" of soil. I planted in the cut-out holes and in the two islands, then I kept adding rocks to cover the landscape cloth and border the islands. As you can see in the third photo, I have done only a little less than half of the edge of the parking area. I'm always working on a number of projects at once and the rocks are now piling up, so I may be able to complete the rest of the area (perhaps this winter?). I was absolutely thrilled with this idea as it softens the edge where "civilization and nature" meet and it gave me another opportunity to plant! The planting was done in the spring, starting with small plants and seeds, and these photos were taken at the end of the summer.
Jocelyne Bourque, Courtenay

WEST WING

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Challenge: 2.4- by 8.5-m (8- by 28-ft.) strip of land running north and south beside the house with morning and afternoon shade, but hot midday sun. Very poor soil and a large cedar tree needing to be removed.

Solution: Remove tree with neighbour's logging truck. Dig and remove all soil and replace with good stuff (all by hand). Build pergola, walkway and sitting corner. Reduce heat of noonday sun with shade cloth. Complete garden with plants and hanging pots.

Enjoy: Remove cork from bottle, pour and relax.

All the work was done by two grey-haired old gardeners from March to July 2007. We call this new room The West Wing.
Darlene Whitbread, Lumby

FRENCH CONNECTION

The shady strip between our house and the one next door had two challenges: the wind continually blew through the breezeway and we looked straight through the opening at our neighbour’s house.

To address both these problems we designed and made a set of French-style doors out of recycled cedar we purchased from BC Parks, which had replaced picnic tabletops and seats with new cedar and sold off the old wood. We then bought two sheets of tempered glass with a bamboo design and installed them in the doors, finishing them off with a set of old brass Oriental-style latches and black gate hinges from Lee Valley. The structure complements the Japanese theme we have between our houses. The doors have stopped the wind from blowing through, making the patio more usable during spring and fall, and we now have privacy from our neighbour's house.
Gord & Joyce Grenon, Parksville

CLAY FEAT

I live on the west side of Richmond where the soil is basically hard clay. I have battled with it for 30 years by replacing the topsoil, applying gypsum and rototilling, to no avail. The garden is west facing and is very dry in summer. I found through trial and error that Japanese anemones and dusty miller thrive there with very little attention. The corner nearer the house is more shaded and a fuchsia shrub performs beautifully there, along with cranesbill geraniums. In the spring azaleas and rhododendrons give colour along with daffodils and crocuses along the driveway. Echinacea does well also.
Sylvia Steede, Richmond

BEAUTIFUL BUFFER

The challenge: 7.5 m (25 ft.) of hedging on either side of a walkway, for a total of 15 m (50 ft.) along the front of our property. Mostly Escallonia, the hedge was decimated as a result of the harsh winter we experienced in 2006-07. By spring, we were staring at a 1.8-m-high (6-ft.) tangle of leafless wood that looked awful. Rather than clean it up and wait for regrowth (and possibly another harsh winter), we decided to use the opportunity to rethink the landscaping and do something that would provide a buffer from the street but be more interesting and less imposing than a hedge or a fence.

The result: 1.2-m (4-ft.) sections of decorative lattice formed the foundation, two sections installed on each side of the walkway. We planted clematis in front of each section, boxwood in the 1.5-m (5-ft.) gap between them, weigela on each end abutting the walkway and mostly groundcover in front. When the clematis, boxwood and weigela mature, they will provide the visual break we were seeking, yet the overall effect is much more open and interesting than the hedge we replaced.
Hélène Cameron, White Rock

BEACH TREAT

My acreage in Errington on Vancouver Island presents many landscaping challenges. In the summer it is very hot and dry. Because we are on a well, I have to conserve water, and I really don’t want to spend a lot of time watering. This spring I decided to bring a little piece of the beach to our yard and created a rock driftwood garden. I incorporated white landscape rocks as well as rocks I gathered from the beaches around Parksville into the display. My special piece of driftwood came from a beach we visited last summer, and looking at it brings back fond memories. To add some color to the garden I planted shrubs and flowers in containers. My garden is not only beautiful to look at from my living room window, but it is also low maintenance. I hope you like it as much as I do.
Brenda Gough, Errington

SHADE SERENADE

When I bought my house 3 years ago, the front garden was completely overgrown and you could not see what was behind it. A huge cedar to the side had not been pruned for years, if ever. It is much taller than my house and can be seen for blocks. Below the cedar was out-of-control boxwood and laurel.

Because of the cedar, the soil was depleted, bone dry, very acidic and coarse, filled with needles and wood chips. I dug out the boxwood and laurel and hired a professional tree pruner to take out dead and lower branches from the cedar.

In the course of all this, I discovered a cement retaining wall that I didn’t even know existed. As it wasn’t attractive, I needed to put in plants that would cover the cement. First I amended the soil with topsoil and a lot of compost. The area gets morning sun but is shady the rest of the day. I planted Japanese coltsfoot at the back. Its immense leaves hide the retaining wall and make a spectacular backdrop. In winter the wall is now covered with ivy. On either side of it are Rogersia, one variegated and one not. In front of that are many different kinds of hostas and ferns (royal fern, hart's tongue fern, bird's nest fern, ostrich fern, holly fern, sword fern, Japanese painted fern and maidenhair fern). To add some sparkle and colour I planted lady’s mantle and coralbells. There are also lots of lily of the valley and white astilbe. In between creeping charlie makes a good groundcover.

I am quite happy with the new look, although it will be added to and changed through the next years, of course. My cedar tree is thriving, and provides a cool shady spot to sit in summer. The cedar is also a favourite refuge for birds, so I hear birdsong all day.
Elaine Erickson, Vancouver

HARD CORNER

The enclosed picture shows how I solved a difficult landscaping challenge. At the front of our house there is a jog in the wall, and the walkway is right along the edge of the front. That meant there was a triangular corner against the house that was bare. It gets the full afternoon sun so is a bit of a hot spot. I built a small pond and surrounded it with rocks and some groundcover. I added some fish and a bamboo water feature and now it is a real conversation piece when visitors come over.
Sylvia Vodden, Parksville

ROAD SHOW

The challenge in this case was two-fold: a cedar of Lebanon planted some 40 years previously had grown to the point of totally shading the strip between my driveway and the neighbour’s property. As well, the root structure was seriously depleting the soil of both nutrients and water, causing the lawn to become little more than a weed patch. A secondary problem was irrigation of the area, as hose outlets were a distance away, and watering was made difficult due to the long and irregular shape of the plot (approximately 20 m/ 66 ft. long and 5 m/16 ft. wide at the widest part, 1.2 m/4 ft. at the narrow end, and shaped to the driveway contours).

To avoid using herbicides to kill off undesirables, I opted to place landscape fabric over the entire plot, then developed a list of plants suited for the shady area. These, in part, consisted of Skimmia, Sarcococca, ferns, Fuchsia, Hydrangea and Astilbe. A grouping of Helleborus was located in the deepest shade for early spring color, along with a selection of spring bulbs. A 5-cm (2-in.) layer of bark mulch was then placed over the entire area.

After planting was completed a drip irrigation system was installed.

Aside from fine-tuning the plant selection and the irrigation, the installation has proven trouble free and has developed into an attractive shade garden that has improved both the appearance and upkeep of the area.
Bruce McCallum, Victoria

A TREAT OF GREEN AND PURPLE

This little garden is north facing and receives very little rain, not only because this is the dry Okanagan but also because of the roof overhang. For the last three years, I have been adding compost and peat moss to the extremely dry soil and experimenting with many different shade-loving plants. I have had the most success with hostas, lily of the valley and violets (dug up from my weed-infested grass). This spring the garden was a treat of dark green and purple, and most of the garden patch has stayed lush all summer. The garden withstands constant traffic from boys, bicycles and dogs, but it is becoming the green space I envisioned when I first began to dig in it.
Rachael Fleming, Kelowna

GRAND ENTRANCE

We live on a slope facing the water and our home had little (or no) curb appeal. It was also hard for visitors to find the path to the front door. As a picture is worth a thousand words I am including a couple of before and after shots.

The landscaping challenge seemed insurmountable until we consulted a professional. I am an ardent bonsai enthusiast and I wanted a good display area to enjoy from my kitchen window. We are absolutely delighted with the results so far – even if it is still a work in progress. Our back garden has a decidedly Oriental theme, which we wanted to echo, and we hope to put in a bamboo handrail on the side of the path to complete this. There is always something more to do....
Helen Ayers, Victoria

ZEN SOLUTION

The strip between our neighbours’ home and ours is 2 m (7 ft.) wide by 9 m (30 ft.) long. The previous homeowners used it for a dog run, thus a lot of rocks remained in the soil and needed to be removed. Once that was done, I levelled the pea gravel and designed a Zen garden, which I’ve wanted for some time now and seemed the perfect solution for this area.
Marlene Rempel, Abbotsford

UNEARTHING POSSIBILITIES

I have been gardening for 40 years. The challenge I faced was my back garden.
When we bought the property, the backyard was completely covered with a huge blue tarp, it was September and it was raining.

The previous owner, an elderly lady, was an organic gardener; she had died and her husband didn’t want anything to do with the yard. Because of the fall season, I didn’t want to tackle this big job until spring.

Spring came and, to my delight, there were 80 to 100 tulips blooming, as well as a large variety of perennials. My job was to dig, divide and save as many of the plants as possible. We then put in landscape blocks to divide the lawn from the future flowerbeds and made two raised veggie beds. We found rhubarb, blueberry bushes, raspberries, hostas, a peach tree and an apple tree around the outside of the yard, which was already enclosed with a chain link fence and cedar hedging. Two other projects we were removing the southwest-facing solarium (too hot) and enclosing the RV carport to make a workshop for my husband.

Now the yard is neat as a pin, maintenance free and a real gem.
Maureen Westman, Chilliwack

PORTABLE PLEASURES

Here’s a garden-challenge solver for a bottom-floor apartment with a hard-to-get-over balcony fence: assemble two children’s swimming pools, lilacs, Solomon’s seal, hostas, and ornamental plants and grasses, along with some feather lava rock, river rock and a Chinese lantern.
Carole Graham, Port Coquitlam

Click here for the Winner's page.

Click here for the Runners-up page.