Gardening Alerts

Japanese Knotweed has been available to gardeners in Alberta for many years. Only recently has the plant been reported and identified as growing and invading neighboring properties in this province. Find out more....

Used with the permission of the Alberta Invasive Plant Council. Originally printed in their newsletter The Invader, Spring 2012

For the past six years a scarlet red beetle has been building in numbers in southern Alberta, with many reports coming from the Airdrie and eastern Calgary locales. First confirmed and identified by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, after an Airdrie resident contacted me and subsequently sent a pill bottle crawling with the beetles on May 1, 2007. Since then I have been contacted by phone and email numerous times to confirm the beetle presence in other gardens in and around Airdrie, Calgary, and Red Deer. My first report from Edmonton came in 2009 with more reported each year since. Find out more....

A plant that was just declared Prohibited Noxious in the new Weed Control Act was found in two forested areas in Edmonton and St. Albert. Included in the new Act as a precaution, because it is known to be highly invasive in forested areas in Ontario and the Northeastern US, garlic mustard was not known to be present in Alberta prior to the discovery of the two plots earlier this spring. Find out more....

For more information, consult the Alberta Invasive Plants Council.

In 2010, the Alberta Government passed new legislation on weed control which includes two new lists of plants: "prohibited noxious" and "noxious". Plants designated as "prohibited noxious" are deemed to be nasty invaders and are illegal under the Alberta Weed Control Act. Find out which are which....

For more information, consult the Alberta Invasive Plants Council.

Identification of Potato/Tomato Late Blight Symptoms (pdf). See also Alberta Agriculture for more information.

Tomato and Potato Late Blight Disease Alert, September 2010

Are Edmonton gardeners planning on killing a few robins this spring? Of course not, but gardeners who spread granular "Weed and Feed" products on their lawn this spring might inadvertently kill some birds.Find out how....