Edmonton Home and Garden Show: Perfect pick perennials

If you want to be a successful gardener in Edmonton, grow what belongs here in the first place.

There’s a movement toward growing native species that are best suited for Canada’s Parkland Region, which extends east from Alberta to Manitoba. These are plants and shrubs that have adapted to the local climate and soil conditions. They have a relationship with the wildlife and easily regenerate after floods or fires. Organizations like the Edmonton Native Plant Society like to collect seeds from native plants in the wild that produce plants that are hardier and more drought tolerant that their domesticated cousins. But those same benefits can be hard from new varieties of tough perennials and native-adjacent plant species as Carla Martin of Salisbury Greenhouse likes to call them.

“With native-adjacent species, the original plant was native but then someone along the way thought it was pretty, harvested the seed, grew it in their yard and cross pollinated it with something else. That’s how a lot of our new varieties came about. The blanket flower, for example, has been bred over the years for prettier flowers. We carry a lot of those,” says Martin, a nursery and perennial associate at Salisbury in Sherwood Park. “If you’ve got a tough area where nothing else will grow, these would be awesome.”

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Here are some of the native and native-adjacent perennials she recommends.

The legendary prairie crocus, that precious little flower that signals the true arrival of spring. It’s slow-growing and may not bloom for three to four years after planting. Plants can be purchased or grown from seed with difficulty. Crocuses in the wild are rare and digging them up is damaging with no guarantee of successful transplant.

Anise hyssop, a fragrant herb used in salads or teas with flowers that attract hummingbirds and butterflies.

Smooth fleabane, which can be most successfully grown in sunny spots in the garden. Butterflies and bees love the small delicate flowers. It blooms late spring to early fall.

Golden aster is drought-tolerant and adds a burst of yellow to garden in late summer.

Veronica, known commonly as speedwell, is native to North America and is low maintenance and easy to grow. It has long spikes of tiny flowers, which are blue, pink, purple or white.

Creeping flox is native to Eastern Canada but it’s a woodland plant so grows well in Edmonton. This perennial is up and blooming early in the season.

Lobelia/cardinal flower is in the bellflower family. It grows tall with showy red blossoms, but it’s thirsty and the soil needs to be moist.

Monarda or bee balm can grow several feet tall with tubular flowers that grow in clusters. They look good at the back of a perennial bed and are a valuable food source for bees.

Scilla are fall bulbs that are up early in the spring and are perfect for borders. They’re not native to Edmonton, however, they are native to alpine areas and Siberia, so they do well in cold, erratic spring conditions.

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