Welcome to Far North. Oh you will have sooooo much fun here. I also have a new yard, entering its third year. Jump in anytime. We don't bite and we're all a happy group. You won't feel like the "new girl" in a few days and you'll get to know us really fast.

Shauna

Hi! Welcome to our forum! We have many members from the mountains - from BC and also from cold mountain zones in the Montana, Oregon and Alaska. There are some Zone 1-ers kicking around. I'm glad you decided to join us. We might seem tight knit but we love newcomers.

-Gillian

Hey newgirl and welcome to the group. You will feel right at home here pretty quick. This is a great group and very helpful. Jump right in!

Sierra

Welcome to the group! You'll be absorbing lots of information here, so get ready.. :) I can't believe how much knowledge I've gained on this forum about gardening in the north. You must be just a few hours north of me, I'm in Mackenzie where we still have snow. :(

Syreeta

Hi and Welcome! Everyone here's really friendly (I found out when I came here a couple months ago). IMHO ;-) this is the best (most open, helpful, and active) forum on Gardenweb, and probably on the net. Enjoy!!

Verena

Welcome. This will probably become your virual second home.

Hi there and welcome to the Far North forum! You're gonna love it here, everyone is so friendly and helpful. I'm pretty new myself and I have learned so much from the wonderful people here in the last few months. Don't be afraid to ask questions if you have any. Being able to chat with people who also deal with gardening in a colder climate has been invaluable.

Cindy

Welcome to this site xtreme gardner. I'm zone 2. So our gardening experiences should be quite similar. I'm sure you'll
love the Far North Forum. I know that I do.
Shelley

A hardy welcome from those who represent the U.S. corner of the far north. This is my second season using this forum as a resource and the first year I will be planting things in the ground (containers last year). I am constantly amazed at the wealth of information and the speed of generating ideas or getting questions answered here.

Kim

Welcome from NWOntario too! We have a lot of fun here and learn so much - and there's absolutely NO enabling going on here. Uh uh. :>

Wow! What a great welcome:)! Not only are you all friendly, but you're funny too! Glad to be here.
Tootsie

Syreeta: I'm north off FSJ on the Alaska Highway - out in the boondocks!

Welcome xtreme gardener!....[I like that name]

It must me challenging for you being in 1b....can you grow any fruit trees?
Konrad

Welcome from west central Alberta and one of the few men on this forum. Just jump in and have fun!!! :>)

Cheers Al

Yes, what kind of fruit trees can you grow? I would imagine rhubarb and gooseberries will grow there? What kinds of perennials do you have? Peonies and delphiniums, just to name a few?

Welcome, from a zone2b down in Brandon, Manitoba.

Brenda

Yes fruit...mmmmm. I said once to my father inlaw, while we were talking about the attributes of living up here, that it would be the perfect place on earth if we could grow some fruit! He replied that everyone would want to live here then!

We have tons of wild berries (strawberries, rasberries, gooseberries, huckleberrys (the big bluish/black ones), stunted saskatoons, blueberries and a few currants, oh and highbush(my favorite)and lowbush cranberries, )I have yet to plant any tame varieties and I'm glad this came up because I would like to try some tame highbush cranberries, saskatoons, currants and rasberries if anyone has any suggestions on some real hardy varieties. For the flowers and for making jelly.

I've been contemplating trying a crabapple, too. Even if just for the flowers and to feed the birds! I don't know of anyone who has grown fruit trees close to home here, and I am assuming that if I can keep it alive I won't get fruit every year and will have winter kill some years. I saw a few varieties of regular apples and crabs hardy to zone 2 at our local nursey last year.
I'll try and get the names of them this year when they get in and maybe doing some camparisons would help me decide. On the bright side, I had family living in Whitehorse, Yukon that successfully grew some fruit trees, but its a mystery how they did it (they've both passed on now). Not sure what zone Whitehorse is in...Tootsie

Welcome to the forum! This is a great place to hang out and have fun! No enabling going on???? ***snickering***

I'd be very curious to learn how your relatives managed to grow fruit trees in Whitehouse too! I have cousins that live there... Hmmm... wonder if they do any gardening???

~Ang~

Ang,

I have cousins in Whitehorse also! I would ask her what she can grow but she doesn't have email and snail mail is sooo slow. Maybe I'll ask my aunt and uncle if they know what she has in her yard.

I also have the wild cranberry (high bush) here at my place. Each year I have to make wild cranberry jelly for my DH. He loves it with chicken and turkey. His mom always made it and over the years I have learned how to make it also. Tootsie, do you have to make it for your DH too?

Brenda

Hi Brenda!
A few years ago a friend of mine shared her perennials with me, so I've got some of the classic standbys going now...columbine(a double purple variety and some new Giants seedlings), cranesbill, monkshood, dianthus, red yarrow, daylillies, maltese cross, golden globe, shasta daisies, siberian iris(that has never bloomed for me), unnamed big purple irises, some poppies, lilacs, rhubarb and chives(which make excellent ornamentals when you're struggling in a tough zone!)I also have an unknown single yellow rose that has survived its 3rd winter, but has yet to bloom.

Some new ones I am trying are lillies (should do fine), heuchera(seems to have surrvived its 1st winter:)), creeping thyme (also survived), Dicentra spectabilis "Alba", Phlox "David", Blue Moon Catmint, and I know I should be able to grow delphiniums, but I have yet to succeed. I am really trying to succeed with Rudbeckias "Goldsturm", but they ended up winter killing on me(unmulched)after 2 years, but I did get to see them bloom!! I have some started inside now, as well as the wild variety...we'll see. They're so sunny when they bloom!

Just to let you know where I stand this spring, as of a couple days ago, I only had columbine, maltese cross, irises, the heuchera, creeping thyme and chives sprouting, and the grass is juuuuuust starting to sprout! Tootsie

Brenda,
Do you mean hibush cranberry jelly? LOVE IT!! I have to make it for DH (what exactly does that stand for?)and the neighbors too! A friend of mine has a great wild patch close to her place, so we fill a couple buckets every fall. Ohhhh...you can't beat the smell of the woods in a hibush cranberry patch in the fall!
Tootsie

Tootsie,

Welcome, you're only about 4 or 4.5 hours north of me then. Not that far. :) I haven't bothered planting hibush cranberry or blueberries in my yard. I figure with so many patches close to the house I'd rather devote that space to things I can't pick in the bush. Like raspberries, hubby figured that it was costing about $5 for each ounce of berries my friend and I were picking. There are suppose to be patches around here big enough to support homemade wine but we couldn't find them. We were doing good if we managed several inches in the bottom of an ice cream bucket. Hence I now have raspberries in my yard, well kind of. The dogs apparently thought they were sticks and chewed them back. Don't think I'll get berries this year, I think they took the top off every plant. :(

Syreeta

DH stands for Dear Husband. SIL is Sister in Law. MIL is Mother in Law. DD is Dear Daughter. DS is Dear Son.

HD is Home Depot.

Anyone have more abbreviations out there for her?

Brenda

IMO is In My Opinion. If it's IMHO it's a humble opinion.
GW is Gardenweb which is the website we're on.
IME is In My Experience.
FWIW is For What it's Worth
LMAO is Laughing My A** Off. We're not allowed to say any rude words or swears on the forum so I really shouldn't have explained that to you.
You might see DL for daylilies.
I can't think of any others, usually if we start to abbreviate we would have already typed it several times in the same post. Like sweet potato vine, that's an SPV.

Funny thing about DH, when I first came to the forums many years ago, people on the roses forum would always talk about the DH, and a lot of them seemed like real southern belles, and I thought what the heck, do ALL these women have Domestic Help? Haha.

Some DH can learn to be Domestic Help. I know mine is very good at letting me know things that need to be done around the house. Occasionally he will do the dishes and tidy a bit, but the dusting, vacuuming and cleaning of the kitchen and bathroom is mine.

Does anyone out there have a DH who makes their meals for them? Not me...although, occasionally he will barbeque something but the rest of the meal is mine to make..

Brenda

My DH cooks, right now I'm making the majority of dinners since I'm not working. When we were both working full time he cooked probably 75% of the time. In fact, he made Easter dinner for us and friends which included turkey, stuffing and all the veggies. The only thing I made was the apple pie. It was his first time cooking a turkey or even a roasted chicken and he did great. I'm quite lucky as his Dad doesn't cook and it seems if Dad doesn't cook, then neither does son.

Syreeta

Another abbreviation that I see on some sites that you ladies will like is: SWMBO -She Who Must Be Obeyed !! LOL

Cheers Al

Al, thanks for posting that - i've always wondered! LOL I'm pretty sure my DH doesn't call me that!

Brenda, my dh does most of the cooking. He's retired, and he actually likes to cook, so he does it. He makes great soups and stews too, not just meat and potatoes. :) He even started baking pies, brownies and cookies because he knew it was hopeless waiting for me to do it!

Ahaa! I thought maybe DH could be flexible depending on what it was he did that day!
He's dear today though cause he did cook for himself...didn't seem to be enough left over for me though :( , but I'm definately not complaining! He's been pretty good as far as getting himself fed at certain times of the year(this time of year for instance) because, I don't know about anyone else but I find early evening the nicest time of day to work in the garden or the yard. Suppertime really gets in the way! I seem to get a energy burst then or just want to finish what I've started.
I can't seem to get him onto baking though... or barbecuing for that matter! He hasn't progressed past the frying pan yet...but we have years ahead of us. One step at a time.

Thanks for enlightening me on the abreviations!

Welcome newgirl...from Zone 0...yes we can garden way up here in the north pole...
I love when people from the "warmer" forums come here to read and then post how surprised they are at what we can grow "all the way up there"

You'll love this place...I have learned almost everything I know about cold zone gardening from the gang here. They are an awesome bunch!

M DH would cook if I would let him, but he has the sanitary understanding of a cave man. I would seriously have food poisoning every day of my life. I do the cooking around here!

I thought of two more important abbreviations:
OMG is Oh My Gosh or Goodness or what have you.
BTW is By the Way
I assume everyone knows that LOL is Laughing out Loud.

DH used to cook (I used to go to work without a lunch...trying to look like a flusey...;-) and he'd bring bbq pork tenderloins wraped in bacon and well...I couldn't resist...I'm such a carnivor LOL)...Now it's been so long I think he may have forgotten how.

Xtreme, are you a newly wed? (You say 'yet' as though men will change ; ) j/k (just kidding)

Verena
(Who's been married two years and has already learned that one... ;-)

Hmm, this is against my better judgement, but I think I'll ask anyway... How does going to work without a lunch make one look like a "flusey" (i.e. floosy - usually defined as a girl of loose morals?) Is this a local cultural thing, LOL?!?!?

LOL!! I was in really good shape becaused I was working at a really physical job (I spent 8-10 hrs a day stacking 20lb-80lb boxes of meat...yeah we met at a slaughter house/meat packing plant...romantic hey... ; ) and I wasn't eating much and therefore I looked like a flusey.

House definition - according to DH women are categorized into five areas: (B*ST*RD...LOL)
Flusies - atractive young things
Hot Mamma's - the (IMO - Bags ; ) with children who look like they've never had a milkshake much less a kid
Hoochie Mammas - like Fluseys only trashier
Cougers - older attractive women
and OTHER...(again, B*ST*RD ; )

I used to be a Flusey, now I'm an other, but I'm working on becoming a Hot Mamma.

Aren't you glad you asked?? LOL!!!

Verena

?????????
Not really... I'm still just as mystified as I was before.... don't worry about it.

Welcome to the forum Tootsie! There's so much great info on here that I'm almost considering cancelling my garden magazine subscriptions.......almost. Some of the pictures in the magazines are great eye candy too, so will probably keep them comin' ;^)

Another very important abbreviation around here is WS, which stands for winter-sowing. There's an entire forum dedicated to this form of sowing outside in the winter, so you may want to check it out.

Laurie

Verena,
For some silly reason I still have some hope...Go figure. But I have this scheme...everytime we bbq for company I play the "I just can't seem to cook a good steak" girl (another category of women: Vixen ;> )and lo and behold the other husband (who usually bbq's a great steak and doesn't want to take a chance on mine!) Offers to do it! The point is, that if DH sees other men doing it then maybe it will look "cool" and become macho enough for him to take it on! The baking thing, well I was really kidding on that one!
PS: 4 years, 7 mos., 9 days and counting...the training must never stop--no matter what!

Hunnerbun,
My curiosity is piqued(?)! What does your garden grow?
Really, I'm learning we all have good things and bad things about our zones. My mom gardens in the Okanagan (must be Zone 6 at least) and watering is a constant battle for her, but hey, some years I don't have to water the garden at all! :) And you can't beat the hours of sunlight in the summer up here, eh?

Laurie, I've checked it out a little bit and I am facinated. I thought WS was Window Sill gardening at first and I thought I qualified! I'll post a question or two there, for sure.

Tootsie

Tootsie. we're a pretty good bunch to get addicted to, aren't we? By all means, read about wintersowing on the ws'ing forum. We all do, those of us that ws. It has a wonderful section of FAQ's (frequently asked questions) that are at the top of the ws forum main page. After you read them, feel free to come back and ask us any questions that you may have. Mostly, our schedule is really different that that of the general population over there. They get sprouts much earlier than us and it gets depressing to listen to all of the "crowing", while we are patiently awaiting our first sign of warmer temps and still sitting in 4' of snow. Btw, we all get lots of plants growing this way so don't think that you can't do it. Right, Hunnerbun?

Shauna

Tootsie, do you have a digital camera? We all like pictures!!!

Hunnerbun, how far north do you live in Manitoba?

Speaking of abbreviations...my DH was guessing what the different abbreviations stood for. 'DD' he guessed was Dead Dog. :) Wrong!

Brenda

Tootsie and Brenda I am in Thompson which is about 800 km north of Winnipeg. If you look at the Canadian hardiness zone map I fall pretty close to zone 1a, but not quite that warm...LOL!
I think I can grow pretty much everything most everyone else on here grows, I just have to mulch heavier and plant deeper!
As for winter sowing, I had huge success with it. I even had a lupin produce a flower bud in September...too bad it was the end of the season, I would have loved to see it bloom. No sign of it yet this season, but when I put the shovel in the soil it is still frozen solid about 4" down.
And after the freeze yesterday I am not convinced that it is spring yet.

No digital camera:( Not that I have any recent pics or much to take a pic of yet, but is there a way to post a pic from my scanned photos on file?

Tootsie, you can either upload your pictures directly to GW by following the directions in the Gallery, or what most of us do is use a web hosting site such as www.Photobucket.com or I believe some of us use Shutterfly. It's free to set up an account and I haven't had any problems with junk e-mail or anything.

If you set up a Photobucket account, let us know and we'll help you post the pics here. It's really easy.

I agree that posting pictures is easy. I also set up an account in Photobucket. A big thanks to Laurie who showed me how to post multiple pictures and now I can show you all my 'stuff' in the yard.

Scan your picture and then save it in a file in your computer. Set up an account with photobucket and when you are in your account, click on browse. It will take you to your computer and you just find your picture, double click on the file and it will download into photobucket. You will want to edit the picture once it is downloaded. I edit twice...once to give it a name and once to shrink the picture to about 50 ish in size. It's too bad one of us couldn't just pop over to help you thru it the first time (like Laurie did for me). But if you have any problems just ask and I'm sure someone will be able to respond to your question ASAP. When posting a picture, go to the tag line under your picture in photobucket. Highlight it, press the 'control' button at the same time as the 'C' on your keyboard to copy it. With another internet site opened up to Far North Gardening Forum, type your message, give yourself 2 lines worth of space, press 'control' and the 'V' to paste it. Then give yourself 2 lines of space underneath your picture. What I find takes the longest is to download and edit the pictures into photobucket.

Brenda (who is still downloading D's for the gallery and realizing that I need to start at the A's again...'cause I am not going to inundate everyone with over 100 daylilies in the D's or the same in the L's for lilies or the same in the I's for irises)

You're welcome Brenda. I was wondering where all your daylily, lily and iris pictures were for those letters ;o)

Tootsie, a good place to practice posting pictures is on the Test forum too. In there you can play around with picture size. Another tip, as scanned photos can be quite a large file and it takes a lot longer to upload to photobucket a big file, is to reduce the picture first on your computer. This is what I do because a lot of my pics are 1-2 MB, and I'd sit and wait for every picture to upload for up to a minute each. I'm not a terribly patient person!

Laurie

For some reason, i rarely can find the place in the Gallery where you can upload pics directly from your computer. I tried once and got rejected because the picture was too big. So the other night i was fooling around with pictures, reducing their size, and i couldn't find where to upload them. Does it come and go, i wonder?

Ok, thanks for the tips. I'll have to get some pics now. Of my big blank yard(: Maybe you all have some great ideas for a big blank yard!
Tootsie (who is spending way to much time on the computer and should be outside in this georgeous weather!)

Another thing you can do is have your pictures put on a DVD when you have them developed. Then it is a simple matter to put the DVD in the computer and upload them. I found that if you get the pictures done at Superstore or Extra Foods the DVD has a picture resizing program with the DVD.

Cheers Al

For anyone using windows xp, you can download a microsoft powertoy called, "Image Resizer". Then all you have to do is right click on the picture you want to make smaller and then click 'resize' and it's done in a second. It's sure made uploading to photobucket WAY faster for me, as I didn't have a photo program that would resize pics before.

Laurie
(it's about half way down the page on the right side)

Here is a link that might be useful: Image Resizer

Hi Tootsie..welcome..the more the merrier here,it is a great gardening place to learn and share...savona

Verena's post about her friend in Whitehorse reminded me of this thread and the question of what fruit my relatives grew there.

I understand that they tested different plants, for who I'm not sure whether it was for the province or a university or what. He (Great Uncle Fred)apparently had lots of berries, including saskatoons, and he did have apples (no one remembers what variety though :^( )but they were a smaller green apple. Sorry, but that's all I could find out.

Brenda and Ang, Any word from your cousins on what they grow there?

Toots

Welcome extreme gardener and Happy Gardening.

I love this forum, it is my virtual home ;-)

I was reading in the Calgary Horticultural Society's most recent publication that a series of new Cherry's were developed in Alberta over the past 50 years and are hardy to zone 2. You may be able to "push the zone" if you have the right micro-climate.

Kuzari Princess