A relaxing and stunning nook to while away the hours.


which also sets the stage for the plants. But more than this, this award


winning garden has that feeling of happiness that exists in a space where the owners really love what they are doing. Not that they started out as master gardeners or anything. At the beginning, the back yard was home to a couple of little boys (now 30 and 32) where the most compelling feature in the space was a large trampoline. Still, Cathy got the bug early, mainly after admiring the garden of a neighbour, Linda Goh, who lives two doors down the street. Linda was a member of the Calgary Horticulture Society and helped Cathy get started on her garden career. “We began a little at a time,” she says. “I started going to plant exchang-


localgardener.net


es and sales.” She remembers that she got her lovely alpine Clematis ‘Ruby’ from one of the Calgary Horticultural Society’s plant shares. The clematis now covers a good section of fence. A Blueboy clematis sprawls over a tall obelisk providing a stunning colorful accent to one bed all summer. Many varieties of clematis have found homes in her yard, some climbing trees or obelisks


and others sprawling over


bushes. They planted trees and shrubs,


studying books and choosing variet- ies that were hardy as well as beauti- ful. They are proud of their Red Jade crab that has a lovely spring flower followed by red berries and enjoy their large Laurel Leaf willows and spruce trees that provide welcome privacy and


shade to their expansive yard. A new Thunderchild crab is thriving in one bed. That they let their cotoneasters to


grow in their natural shape and that the Mayday tree planted itself, just like the potentillas, is a mark of the kind of gardeners the Schlossers are. “Neigh- bours used to marvel that I let the boys and their friends trample flowers while playing when they were young,” Cathy says, but she knew the plants would grow back and that boys will be boys. Growing and changing and thriv-


ing is what a garden is all about and as Cathy knows, that’s what life is about, too. K


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Beautiful Gardens 2015 • 19


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