2024 Root Garden Plantings

2023 was the year the Root Garden began to take form. Beds, terraces and paths were built, cover crops were planted, then mulched. A total of 50 varieties of plants were planted including trees, berries, medicinal and culinary herbs, native plants, and a few perennial edibles and flowers. 

In 2024, we plan to double the number of varieties of edible, medicinal, and native plants, working toward building tree guilds for a total of 15 fruit and nut trees. We have a good number of plants already donated for this, and we are looking for volunteers to help with the installation. This installation will move the garden forward to being a little over half full.

To volunteer please email: wendts@telus.net

What we will be planting this Spring with your help:

Trees: Desert King Fig, Airlie Red Fleshed Apple, Black Elderberry, Persimmon, Mulberry, Walnut.

Berries: Sea buckthorn, Black Currant, strawberries, Josta Berry, Lingonberry.

Herbs: Calendula, arnica, goldenrod, lady’s bedstraw, chervil, chamomile, tansy, rue, other kinds of thyme, catmint, St. Johns’ wort.

Native plants: fireweed, pearly everlasting, gum weed, Saskatoon berry, red flowering currant, camas, Sea Blush, Sea Thrift, all-heal, Oregon Grape, Kinnickinnick,

Other edibles: mache, French sorrel, sea kale, salad burnet, Maximillian sunflower, Other flowers, etc: meadow foam, Jupiter’s beard, low growing comfrey

Plants we would like, but have yet to source are below. If you or anyone you know has plants they'd like to donate we're looking for:

Trees: 2 pears, Frost Peach, a second fig variety (Violet de Bordeaux?), Medlar, Ginkgo, Cottonwood, Pomegranate.

Berries: Aronia Berry, additional raspberries, gooseberry.

Herbs: echinacea, angelica, germander, wormwood, rhodiola.

Native plants: Yampah, desert parsley

Other edibles: artichoke, Good King Henry, mountain spinach, oca.

Other flowers: daylily, baptisia, Cistus, Nepeta.

We look forward to seeing you this season!

April at the permaculture garden

The months of February and March saw some good changes at the Root permaculture teaching and display garden. Volunteers showed up to help me on every other Sunday morning and on most Tuesdays, late afternoon.

Six of the ten tree guilds planned for the two large terraces have now received their tree: two heritage apples, two black elderberries, a fig, and a mulberry. The four remaining trees have yet to be sourced, but hopefully will be planted this coming autumn.

Companions are beginning to be planted in these guilds. So far we have more skirret (an edible perennial root) to hold the slope, some flowers to attract the pollinators, like this beautiful pasque flower, a lupine to fix nitrogen, and some comfrey as a dynamic accumulator. I am hoping to get many more companion planted this spring with help from volunteers.

Native plants have begun to be planted along the perimeters of the upper garden as well as in the lower garden. We have added pearly everlasting, trailing strawberry, Saskatoon Berry, fireweed, red flowering currant, and Oregon Grape, and more wooly sunflower.

Native plants are also the focus of the newly constructed rock wall terraces in the upper garden. In time, this will showcase a Garry Oak tree with camas bulbs, sea blush, a second red flowering currant, gum weed and more. The oak tree is planted but it is less than a foot tall at this point. Gardens require much patience!

Berry gardens are developing on the upper terraces. Eight black currants were planted one sunny Sunday, plus two Josta berries, an Aronia berry, and more raspberries. More berries will be added, but perhaps not until the fall.

Some companion sedums have been planted at the edge of this rock wall.

The lower of these terraces is planted to medicinal herbs. With volunteer help, the lemon balm has been moved to the pond area where it can stretch out more comfortably, as it likes to do. Instead we will plant motherwort, echinacea, and arnica there sometime this spring.

Eventually many of these herbs will be incorporated into the tree guilds, but the idea of having an herb section, with signage, to teach about the herbs is also desirable. Both are possible with time.

The Root Gardens: September Update

A garden full of diversity, healthful food and medicine, abundant flowers and other plants that support one another in various ways. That’s what is growing at the top of the hill at the Root. Here’s a little progress report.

By the end of spring, we had planted trees for seven guilds in the space where eventually we will have ten guilds. Those trees are two apples, two figs, two black elderberries, and a white mulberry. Numerous companions have been added including nitrogen fixers, beneficial insect attractors, harmful insect repellers, and dynamic accumulators. I’ll break down those categories.

Nitrogen fixers: Taking nitrogen from the air and depositing on the roots for other plants to use. Fava bean, Autumn Olive, Goumi, Lupine, and several kinds of clover. In time, we hope to add Baptisia, Siberian Pea Shrub, Ku-Shen, Astragalus, Alfalfa, and Beach Pea.

Beneficial insect attractors: Supporting pollinators and predatory insects such as parasitic wasps, hover flies, and ladybugs. Especially supportive are plants with small flowers such as oregano, thyme, sweet alyssum, wild carrot, parsley, skirret, Joe Pye Weed, yarrow, self-heal and hyssop. But also lots of other wonderful flowering plants: poppies, mallow, columbine, dahlia, coreopsis, rose campion, asters, Monarda (Bee Balm), Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist) and Shasta Daisy.

Insect repellers that confuse harmful insects: garlic, chives, walking onion, feverfew, and the native nodding onion.

Dynamic accumulators: Pulling up minerals from deep down and breaking up clay and subsoil: comfrey, dock, parsnip, evening primrose, horseradish, garden sorrel, and mullein. We hope to add rhubarb and chicory soon.

Permaculturists Nigel Kay and Megan Flury added an abundance of winter squash to the elderberry/fig terrace. Ten plants each of the three major squash categories: Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita moschata, and Cucurbita maxima will allow the seed to be collected and added to the Seed Sanctuary for use by other growers.

They also added josta berries to the edges of this terrace and willow trees (to be coppiced) which will benefit the soil.

The medicinal herb garden is nearly full showcasing the following herbs: arnica, echinacea, marshmallow, motherwort, wood sage, figwort, wormwood, gypsywort, and elecampane. We have chamomile planted near the apple trees and mint growing near the mulberry and hazel.

Sea buckthorn has been planted along the fence line helping to hide the view of Windsor Plywood’s yard, and someday provide nutritional berries. Fireweed, a valuable native plant, is now planted along the fence line in the back obscuring the view of the neighbour’s house.

This winter, the berry gardens will expand with the addition of more raspberries and more Aronia berries. The black currant, gooseberries, and josta berries have been given some companion plants which should help them to thrive.

The steep slope, just below the Refillery, has received a planting of the native shrubby groundcover, Kinnickinnick. Because the slope is so steep, and was covered in thistle, we used cardboard over the thistle and then wooden pallets with rebar stakes holding them in place. Dirt was put into the pallets so the plants have a chance at a good start. Eventually the Kinnickinnick  will spread and make a lovely ground cover that supports insects and makes an edible berry. It will cover over the pallets which will eventually rot away, feeding the soil.