Plants

Weeds that look like dandelions trip up even experienced gardeners, since the combination of a low rosette of leaves, a bright yellow flower head, and a fluffy white seed puff turns out to be one of the most common survival strategies in the entire sunflower family. That shared appearance isn’t a coincidence: yellow flower heads … Read more

Weeds with thorns cause a specific kind of frustration for gardeners, farmers, and hikers alike, since unlike a woody shrub that announces its defenses year-round, many of these plants start out as an unassuming rosette of leaves before bolting into a genuinely painful obstacle within a single growing season. That fast life cycle is part … Read more

Grasses with white flowers bring a soft, airy texture to the landscape that few other plants can match, especially once their feathery plumes catch late afternoon light or sway in a breeze. Most true grasses actually have small, inconspicuous, wind-pollinated flowers in shades of green, tan, or purple, which makes the genuinely white-blooming species on … Read more

Bushes with stickers show up in nearly every region of the world, having independently evolved thorns, spines, and prickles as a defense against grazing animals across completely unrelated plant families. That independent evolution is part of what makes this group so varied, since a “sticker” on one shrub might be a modified leaf, on another … Read more

Manitoba may be known for its wide-open prairie landscapes, but much of the province is covered by forests, parkland, and mixedwood ecosystems. From the agricultural regions around Winnipeg and Brandon to the boreal forests farther north, Manitoba offers a surprisingly wide range of conditions for growing trees. The challenge is that Manitoba has a short … Read more

Canada is one of the world’s great forest nations. The country has about 369 million hectares of forest, representing roughly 9% of the world’s total forest area. Canada’s forests stretch from the Atlantic provinces through the boreal forests of Quebec, Ontario, and the Prairies to the enormous temperate and coastal forests of British Columbia and … Read more

Alberta is a challenging but rewarding place to grow trees. The province stretches from prairie grasslands and dry foothills to mountain valleys and the boreal forest, creating enormous differences in temperature, rainfall, elevation, soil, and growing-season length. A tree that grows rapidly in a sheltered Edmonton yard may perform very differently on an exposed Calgary … Read more

Types of ash trees range from towering hardwoods once prized for baseball bats and tool handles to compact shrubby species barely tall enough to qualify as trees at all, spanning nearly every temperate region of the Northern Hemisphere. For most of the 20th century, ash trees were among the most widely planted street and shade … Read more

Nova Scotia has a remarkably diverse tree-growing environment. From the warmer Annapolis Valley and South Shore to the cooler Cape Breton Highlands, trees face different combinations of winter cold, wind, moisture, soil depth, and growing-season length. The province is part of the Acadian Forest region, where red spruce, balsam fir, white pine, red maple, birches, … Read more

Quebec has an enormous range of growing conditions. A tree that grows rapidly around Montréal or Gatineau may perform very differently in the Laurentians, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Abitibi-Témiscamingue or farther north. Winter temperatures, the length of the growing season, soil moisture and exposure all have a major influence on how quickly a tree develops. For gardeners and … Read more