Canmore - 51° 4' 60" N 115° 22' 7" W
Gardening in AgCan Zone 3b I am the daughter (and grand-daughter) of farmers. Both my sisters are farmers. A significant proportion of my uncles, aunts and cousins are farmers. My DNA is farm girl. I understand the cycle of the seasons, time of the year, the wet years, the dry years, the years with a caterpillar plague, the affect of hail on fruit crops and taste the winter turnips in the milk. A vegetable garden is second nature, fruit trees grace the backyard and flowers and a lawn, a year round pleasure. But I grew up on the Mornington Peninsula; Australian Plant Hardiness Zone 4 (or AgCan Zone 9) where snow is non-existent and a frost is rare. Now I live in Canmore; AgCan Hardiness Zone 3b . This is a foreign world. The trees are bare branches from October to May. Perennials are the plants that poke through the dirt in late April and die in the first frost in September. Annuals are plants we buy each year to fill our pots and hanging baskets. They last the summer and