I'm Canadian zone 5B, What plants and veggies would do well?!

[lupinfarm]

Well I know a lot of the things I planted last year did well, but I'm curious.. what else have ya got for me. I'm in zone 5B (Canada), and most of my property gets good sunlight, but with the garden looking north it gets less sunlight than my vegetable patch, especially since the south is blocked by the house.

We are planning a knot garden out front, and I need some shade okay plants that are also pretty, traditional, and NOT BEGONIAS, I hate begonias.

 

[patandchickens]

For a general answer, I'd recommend a trip to the library and make sure you get books written for CANADIANS. Or to the bookstore. Lois Hole's series will be helpful to you, especially "Lois Hole's Favorite Perennials" and "Lois hole's Favorite Vegetables" (I may have those titles slightly wrong). Because she is writing from an Edmonton perspective, if it's hardy for her it'll be hardy for you, almost without exception. (Of course there are some things you can grow that they can't out there). And the books are very straightforward and easy to learn from. There are also books more Ontario-centric that are useful, just don't remember titles offhand.

Any veggies will do fine as long as they are early enough maturing and tolerate whatever your summer challenges are (cool snaps, overall cool weather, drought, whatever you got). Don't plan on growing things that need a real long growing season; even things with early maturity may need to be started inside and put out early with protection in order to get much crop.

Shade plants for knot garden (if I understand your question right): do you want perennials or annuals? And how much shade, and how much moisture?


Pat

 

[lupinfarm]

For a general answer, I'd recommend a trip to the library and make sure you get books written for CANADIANS. Or to the bookstore. Lois Hole's series will be helpful to you, especially "Lois Hole's Favorite Perennials" and "Lois hole's Favorite Vegetables" (I may have those titles slightly wrong). Because she is writing from an Edmonton perspective, if it's hardy for her it'll be hardy for you, almost without exception. (Of course there are some things you can grow that they can't out there). And the books are very straightforward and easy to learn from. There are also books more Ontario-centric that are useful, just don't remember titles offhand.

Any veggies will do fine as long as they are early enough maturing and tolerate whatever your summer challenges are (cool snaps, overall cool weather, drought, whatever you got). Don't plan on growing things that need a real long growing season; even things with early maturity may need to be started inside and put out early with protection in order to get much crop.

Shade plants for knot garden (if I understand your question right): do you want perennials or annuals? And how much shade, and how much moisture?


Pat

Yup, a knot garden. Sun is blocked by the house, but we DO get full sun at least half the time. I'm going victorian here, mixing my periennials and vegetables in the knot garden, we have sandy loam soil, it's fairly moist and we do divert water from the rain barrels to the garden.

Weather is consistently warm or hot out in the summertime, but last year we got like 2 months of rain LOL.

I'm starting inside early obviously, as 5b means you can't plant outside until like May.

 

[patandchickens]

Yup, a knot garden. Sun is blocked by the house, but we DO get full sun at least half the time. I'm going victorian here, mixing my periennials and vegetables in the knot garden, we have sandy loam soil, it's fairly moist and we do divert water from the rain barrels to the garden.

So, for low bushy things to make the knot out of, you got yer thymes (Richters has an excellent selection if you are ever in the Goodwood area, S of Uxbridge - you can browse their greenhouse and choose the ones that smell the nicest to you); winter savory is good for that kind of thing too. I'd stay away from lavender or santolina as being not quite hardy enough for a reliable hedge or knot garden. Lettuces, parsley and some of the small-leaved compact basils I've seen used for knots too, but of course they are not perennial (especially lettuce!) and are somewhat taller and *wider* than the above, so will not make as traditional a knot.

To fill in the spaces in the knot, it just depends how tall a plant you do/don't want. As long as you stay away from hardcore sun-and-drought lovers you should be able to grow more or less whatever you want there.

I'm starting inside early obviously, as 5b means you can't plant outside until like May.

I know that's what many people say but it's not really true at ALL. (For some reason all of Canada seems to think that the Victoria Day long weekend is the magic time it becomes safe for putting tender plants out ) There are things that can go outside earlier (some significantly earlier), with or without varying degrees of protection depending on the plant. There are other things that can't go out til sometime in June. Plus, your own last frost date may be rather different than maps suggest. (Ours is in the first week of June, tho maps etc say it ought to be the third week in May)

Til you have a firmer idea what your particular property's last frost date is likely to be, I'd suggest putting some things out earlier (with lots of protection on hand for frosty nights!!!) and some of the same things out later, and see what happens. Distributes the risk.

Have fun,

Pat

 

[lupinfarm]

Yup, a knot garden. Sun is blocked by the house, but we DO get full sun at least half the time. I'm going victorian here, mixing my periennials and vegetables in the knot garden, we have sandy loam soil, it's fairly moist and we do divert water from the rain barrels to the garden.

So, for low bushy things to make the knot out of, you got yer thymes (Richters has an excellent selection if you are ever in the Goodwood area, S of Uxbridge - you can browse their greenhouse and choose the ones that smell the nicest to you); winter savory is good for that kind of thing too. I'd stay away from lavender or santolina as being not quite hardy enough for a reliable hedge or knot garden. Lettuces, parsley and some of the small-leaved compact basils I've seen used for knots too, but of course they are not perennial (especially lettuce!) and are somewhat taller and *wider* than the above, so will not make as traditional a knot.

To fill in the spaces in the knot, it just depends how tall a plant you do/don't want. As long as you stay away from hardcore sun-and-drought lovers you should be able to grow more or less whatever you want there.

I'm starting inside early obviously, as 5b means you can't plant outside until like May.

I know that's what many people say but it's not really true at ALL. (For some reason all of Canada seems to think that the Victoria Day long weekend is the magic time it becomes safe for putting tender plants out ) There are things that can go outside earlier (some significantly earlier), with or without varying degrees of protection depending on the plant. There are other things that can't go out til sometime in June. Plus, your own last frost date may be rather different than maps suggest. (Ours is in the first week of June, tho maps etc say it ought to be the third week in May)

Til you have a firmer idea what your particular property's last frost date is likely to be, I'd suggest putting some things out earlier (with lots of protection on hand for frosty nights!!!) and some of the same things out later, and see what happens. Distributes the risk.

Have fun,

Pat

Yeah, it was very warm here out in like March and April last year LOL. We were thinking of rather than boxwood or thymes for the knot, using limestone which we have PLENTY of. We have a lot of flat field limestone we can use to make low dry stone walls.