It’s Showtime for Citadel’s ELM Program
Flowers!
Our flowers are making their appearance for
another year full of colour and vibrancy, all thanks to our ELM Program.
Was that a crazy spring while we were
caught in the middle of the fight between winter and summer? Actually…, for
Calgary, that was pretty normal! And for Citadel, our elevation plays a fairly
significant role. While Calgary weather forecasts typically do not include the
snow level, or the elevation above which snow accumulation is expected, this
phenomenon does play a role in Citadel as it does in our backyard mountains to
the west. Our elevation, amongst the highest in Calgary, results in cooler
evenings, higher snow accumulation, and longer frost seasons.
We certainly got our money’s worth from our
winter displays; they remained frozen into the pots well into April. Another
telltale sign of our microclimate here happens when the annual Lilac Festival
is celebrated often before we see any of our lilacs even leaf out!
We need to be careful when we plant our
delicate flowers to ensure no more killing frosts will occur, even if that
means delaying our flowers well into June. The ability to re-plant flowers to
the numbers that Citadel enjoys is not really possible, but our ELM program is
in good hands with Foothills Landscaping ready to take care of everything.
Flower selection is a lot more than colour
and texture choices. Through experience, selections are made based on our dry
air, high altitude, cool nights, hot days, aphids, and the ability to bounce
back from our inevitable hail and wind. No summer season has ever been the
same, so we look forward to this summer’s journey.
I have received some very good feedback for
small, localized improvements and will be addressing those in a timely manner.
Thank you for submitting them! If you see anything that needs attention, please
send me a note to [email protected]. A wonderful element of the ELM
Program is the ability to address issues rapidly.
Another hot topic this time of year are our
dandelions. They will occur and they are no longer considered a noxious or
restricted weed under the Alberta Weed Control Act. As such, chemical control
of them is not an option. The ELM Program addresses these with weekly mowing on
our medians to give turf a healthy advantage over dandelions, but please
understand that this will not prevent them.
Enjoy Citadel’s outdoors with the floral
scents of flowering trees, morning dew, and budding spruce trees, and the
return of the soothing sounds of our trembling aspens and delightful Robins
singing at dawn and dusk!
ELM
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