Zone 3b is Retiring…

This blog has been slowly withering over the last few months, my posts infrequent and lacking oomph. I have neglected Zone 3b and some of other blogs in about the same proportion as I have been trying to develop in other areas. This is my last post, but I’ll let the blog remain until stray visits dry up. If you care about bugs, please visit Splendour Awaits, where garden bugs will still be displayed and where your can find links to other blogs and other online entomology resources.

Gardening is important for our lives and for the lives of the many species that share our environment. Gardening is a part of life, not a fad or a bit of bling to impress friends and the neighbors. For urban dwellers, it is one of the few things that can connect us to nature on a regular basis. For that reason we will keep gardening, and I hope you will too.

Cheers everyone. Keep gardening and remember the little guys that share our lives.

Adrian Thysse

P.S. – Contact me at naturalgardens@telus.net if you have any questions, or find me on Google +.

PPS. – Posted from my iPod…pls frgv errors.

Our Garden: Latest Edition

This the slide show I whipped together for the information booth I had at the  Blooming Art and Garden Sale a few weeks ago. The photographs were taken between 2008 and 2010, with a few from earlier years. It is generally (but not precisely) layed out in a seasonally progressive way, and it features more of the diversity of the garden–the bugs and birds–than the last slide show. It is almost 10 minutes long, and it can be watched full screen if you select the HD mode.

Photographs by Adrian Thysse and Yuet Chan. Music by Gu Zeung, a section from  ”Watching the Moon”.

Cool New Vegetable Garden Book – Honest, no guff!

Donna Balzer, Alberta’s Garden Guru and author of Blogs and Blooms has a cool new book out, No Guff Vegetable Gardening. Co-authored with Steven Biggs, a Toronto horticulturist, this new book is the first in a series that looks to put the fun back into gardening by taking all the Guff†out.

How do I know this?

Did they send me a book to review?

Dang nab it…NO!

They have artfully circumnavigated this common publisher’s ploy by posting a slide show with select pages for you to view!

Visit No Guff Vegetable Gardening for your preview of the first No Guff Gardening book. (View it full screen to appreciate the cheerful artwork by Mariko McCrae)

†I always thought ‘guff’ was the slime left behind by slugs after they have been sprinkled with salt…however, the authors describe Guff in the garden as -

think empty buzzwords
think pointless new products
think old theories passed off as new
think baseless over-the-fence tips
think greenwashing
think impractical theories
think about things that had you brimming with expectation…and let you down.

Taking the fads and misinformation out of gardening – a worthy goal.

No Guff Vegetable Gardening is now available directly from the web page: http://www.gardencoacheschat.com

Sunday Garden Links

As a semi-regular feature of this blog, I will be providing a roundup of some of the interesting articles that I come across in the previous week. Some will be plucked from my Google Reader subscriptions and all will be pertinent to the subjects I cover (or would like to cover) in Zone 3b.

It’s Spring!

Isn’t it?

• I have been expressing my cabin fever rather poorly – see how the Garden Ms. breaks loose in Mad as a March Hare at Gardening with Latitude
• And Calgarians? Forget about the joys of Spring, they’re celebrating Sprinter in Why snow at the end of March isn’t such a bad thing… really!
• Unicorns, apricots, plans, pi….What???“Is it SPRING yet?” she said with some desperation in her voice.

On a more serious note…

• Alberta is the only area in North America still populated with healthy elm trees – read why in - All About Elms and STOPDED from Garden Buzz
• If we can’t stop urban sprawl then we must at try by Helping Our Planet One Garden at a Time, from CWF

And some one has been breaking the rules and has forsaken their own garden for a trip to warmer climes…

• A Fine Home For Tarzan
  from Garden Buzz

Enjoy!