Tidying up your yard and garden for a more attractive sell

It is pretty standard practice to tidy your house before resale, so I was surprised when my 30-year-old son, a newly minted professional, emailed me a photo of a house he was buying in Smithers, B.C.

There were clothes on the floor in one shot and people lounging on the couch in another. It didn't seem like there was any tidying evident, and he wasn't the least bit worried about it.

A look at the beneficial - and not so beneficial - insects in your garden

Aphids are considered bad bugs. They multiply in the garden and are visible on the tips of rose bushes and highly fertilized annuals. The first line of defence against aphids is water. Hose off plants or clip off and throw away aphidcovered growing tips. Another option is to let the good bugs get rid of the bad bugs for you.

A look at the beneficial - and not so beneficial - insects in your garden

Aphids are considered bad bugs. They multiply in the garden and are visible on the tips of rose bushes and highly fertilized annuals. The first line of defence against aphids is water. Hose off plants or clip off and throw away aphidcovered growing tips. Another option is to let the good bugs get rid of the bad bugs for you.

A lesson for all gardeners following the flooding of June 2013

Caenie's new plant floated away, Laurie lost her large wooden planter and at least one golf course lost all the sand from the bunkers and never got it back. For gardeners and golf courses in the affected areas, the aftermath of the last year's floods is still being dealt with.

When I asked my daughter Chelsie Anderson, who is also a gardener, if there was anything different in her client's yards after last year's floods, she told me about Caenie and Laurie, and was quick to add: "(There are also) lots of dead lawns. The silt was too thick for it to benefit the lawns, so there are lots of dead patches in people's gardens.

Five tips for big gardens in small spaces

A dog needs to bark and a cat needs to meow. Does that mean a gardener needs a garden to garden?

Not really.

Some of the best gardeners have tiny balconies or do all their gardening on their front step. I learned this lesson in Dubrovnik, a centuries-old city in Europe where entire gardens are built on front steps.

Hardy flowers for the cool spring season

A giant cardboard box of flowers arrived last week. Every plant was primly upright and not a drop of soil had escaped a single pot.

What?

Who gets their annuals shipped in?

Some garden tips for Calgary's spring season

Spring dashes in and out of Calgary like a mouse checking for crumbs at the cabin. Winter is gone and the earth is warming. Suddenly, winter is back again with flurries and frost.

As the snow melts, jobs in the garden include raking the lawn, cleaning leaves off outdoor beds and making compost. These jobs seem simple enough but wait —
not so fast. The surface of the lawn has to be thawed and that takes longer on
the shady side of the yard.

Slithering serpents can be very helpful in the garden

My neighbour George, now in his late 80s, told me he had to tear down his old greenhouse because it was full of snakes.

His wife Barbara was very afraid of the small serpents. The only place I have seen an overabundance of garter snakes in Calgary is in a rock garden in Edgemont. The rocks, seemingly alive with slithering serpents, were a little unsettling.