Parks and Recreation: Keeping up with outdoor work amid seasonal change
By Keziah Lesko-Gosselin on October 7, 2019.
As migratory birds fly south and leaves change colour, the transition to autumn may feel bittersweet. While the season is stunning, warm and sunny days will soon be replaced with windy grey skies, confining many of us to school and office desks until spring. However, autumn brings more than just sweater weather, and is a great time to implement conservation and landscaping practices that will help come springtime. In your own backyard Fall is the perfect time to prep gardens for next spring, as unfrozen ground can make work easier than during spring melt. Some plants like native trees and shrubs can even be planted before winter; warm soils and low evapotranspiration rates make great conditions for root growth. It is also a good time to bring warm weather plants indoors, cover outdoor perennials, and collect annual seeds for next year. If you grow a food garden, harvest tender aboveground vegetables soon, but root vegetables can be kept underground for some time – they may even taste better after a frost or two. Conservation can help Composting is a tool that reduces waste, increases moisture retention in soils, and recycles nutrients back to the earth for plant uptake. Compost and mulch also help protect plants from harsh winter conditions – just remember to keep weeds and diseased plants out. Pruning trees and shrubs not only helps with plant growth, but gives extra ingredients for compost as well. Fall fertilizing can help make the most of your product come growing season; but mind application rates, as too much will prevent plants from slowing their metabolisms leading into winter. Collecting autumn and winter precipitation for irrigation will also minimize water requirements come spring. Parks wrapping up for the winter As people ease their gardens into hibernation, City of Medicine Hat Parks and Recreation also undergoes seasonal change. Flowerbeds are prepped for winter, and tree service focus shifts to elms as the provincial pruning ban ends Oct. 1. City yard waste collection ends the Friday of the second full week in November, so there is still plenty of time to clean up. Feeling SAD about Seasonal Affective Disorder If crisp temperatures and shorter days bring you down as they do for many, autumn can be an optimistic reminder of how positive change, like good landscaping practice, can have lasting impacts, like a better garden. If all else fails, small comforts can be found in a morning tea, walking amongst golden trees, or devouring a huge slice of pumpkin pie. Keziah Lesko-Gosselin works with the City’s Parks and Recreation department, leading research initiatives and providing technical support for parks projects and operations. 12-11
