Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
My wife planted haskaps and saskatoons a couple years ago, should be a better harvest this year. We tried blueberries a few times, and even after getting the laugh and "good luck" from the plant store on the last time, we still had hope. False hope. The guy was right. I think it must be my clay.
Wife also planted an arctic kiwi this year, so that'll be interesting when it starts putting out. It's got some good space to vine up. I wish the fig tree provided more than a fig every 6 months, too. Off the tree figs are so good. But they obviously don't survive Calgary, so it's just a little dwarfy one for indoors.
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I assume the arctic kiwi are indoors? Seems like a neat plant.
I don't think blueberries do well here at all. It seems it needs acidic soil. I quickly looked up what types of plants like acidic soil and acidify soil and strangely enough I have quite a few of those in my back yard. I have ferns, lily of the valley, oaks (or maybe elm?), conifers, dogwood etc. I wonder if the mulch is contributing to it too. Hmm... might be worth trying it out one day.
Haskaps in Calgary seem to take quite a bit of time to get established IMO. Saskatoons are great and grow fast. The biggest issue with Haskaps is that the birds love them. My parents planted two 1/2 ft Haskap bushes about a decade ago and I think they're only around 4/5ft tall now. We've never gotten more than about a dozen Haskap per year and it's kinda obvious when the birds have rushed the plant for the ripening fruit.
They also have 8-12ft tall Saskatoons after around 10-15 years. Those are going great.
Wolfberry/goji are also doing well for them at around 6ft tall after 3 years from a clipping from a friend's plant.
If I had more time and space to do it, I'd love to redo my landscaping and plant a ton of fruit bushes/vines etc. in my front yard and backyard. I have around 14 trees on my property and more than half of them are starting to get to the size that they might become problems in the coming years. I just have to figure out a way to convince the wife because she doesn't want to lose the privacy from the trees... and I don't think she'd be on board with the thousands of dollars it would cost to take them down without a suitable replacement.
I'd probably do some stuff like Raspberries, Wolfberries, gut cherries, Saskatoons, Seaberry etc. Maybe even rip out some of the larger trees that are potentially becoming a problem and see if I can create a berry bush hedge. See what types of creatures it attracts if I have a backyard full of large fruit bearing plants. I'd perhaps love to do the same out front, create a sort of softscape in the front that looks nice and allow people to feel free to enjoy any fruits they can reach from the sidewalk. I just have to decide whether I care/don't care that it's a plant that can go completely crazy and take over the lawn like raspberries, strawberries, goji etc. within 3+ years.
I'm no green thumb. I like plants, but also plants I can sorta set and forget.
TBH, I've occasionally imagined of an idea of "horticultural graffiti". Find some semi ignored public space/along a commute and put down some plants and hope it is ignored enough to just grow like crazy over the years to add some color and variety. It'd be kinda cool to see random rhubarb, goji, raspberries, strawberries etc. near parks or on Nose hill etc. Kinda like the mint and saskatoon bushes in Nose creek valley. I guess a huge chunk of the issue is herbicide/pesticide on edible plants, hence the restrictions and fines for doing so.
Indoors, I'd also love to have a small hydroponics type of set up with herbs, heirloom tomatoes etc. I can harvest/freeze to regularly spruce up meals/pickling. Maybe even convert the deck into a sort of sun room as something between indoors and greenhouse for the occasional plants as well such as fun stuff like figs, kumquat, pineberry, Cuca melons, chives etc.