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i Il ILI hand-pulled stili very Young. It's important toGac n note here that G r e when you use compost to prepare your beds, the soil does not com- pact as readily, resulting in a loose, friable soil that is easy to -~A ii.i.5tp One f the Loeaxt nleasurns of eardenng is to Ilile \sl, 1ootand One of the main remsous we re happy we waited to plant our garden is that it gave us a chance to reflect on the shapes of beds and lawn we had created and to walk through the garden and real- ly get a feel for thse spaces. We had the whole winter ahead of us to ponder what plants we would like to place in each of thse gar- den rooms and what character each area would have. Every day, we would drive past thse garden and talk about what the garden mnight look like. As we shovelled thse snow, we would pause and observe the dfferent views, deciding which ones to eses PLANNING on page 16 larger trees, and laying thse sod at our studio last faîl, we decided I to leave thse rest of thse planting until spning. Upon reflection, this decision was a very gond one. Leaving the beds open gave us the opportunity to properly maintain thse newly-planted trees without trampling ground covers or disturb- sng shrubs. We prepared a large watering dish around each tree to facilitate a tborough soaking of the root balîs. Watering dishes are buît by féinn a soil ring or dike around the tree, outside the rootball, on undisturbed soil. When you fil thse watening dish with water, Use water thoroughly soaks the moot bail, rather than running over Use i~soil surface away from Use tree. These watering dishes sbould be Sleft in place for several months to ensure the tree is kept consis- Stently moist wile it's developing new roots and moot hairs. 5Leaving thse beds open for several montbs also dramatically reduced the amounit of hand-weeding we Iad to do. As you know, we always use compost to prepare our planting beds, raUser than topsoil or triple mix. Compost usually contains a very generous supply of weed seeds and our compost was no exception. Because we did not S plant Use smaller sbrubs and perennials right away, as Use weeds germinated, we simply used a hoe to upmoot Ue weeds. Leaving b them on Use soil surface a few days, Usey quickly dried up and formed a new layer of compost for Use soil. Once we planted Use garden in the spring, there were very few Sweed seeds left to germinate. Thse odd weed that popped up was Terms and Conditions *Represents heating energy savings when comparing electric baseboard, electric forced air furnace or a new il furnace with a high-efficiency naturai gas furnace. Any applicable taxes are fot inciuded in the calculatiofls. Natural gas price as of Jane 198 was $0.230385/cu.m. The iowest surveyed rate used in calculations for electricity was $0.0690/kWh (Jan. 198) and for fuel oil $0.359Iitre (APL. '98). Rates vary across the Union Gas service area. t Deferred paymnents, financing and discounts are availabie to Union Gas residentiai customners .A.C. through Union GMs. Ail other offers flot applicable. $350 discount applies to a high-efficiency furnace and air conditioner purchased together. 0 Union Gas Limted 1998 0 uiongas energy for you I r e o mf or ts o h mI The Canaclian Champion, Friday, September 4,1998 - 7 Compst i as ood as gold in gardens C o m os is as g il .- Aan 45it . .**Si]VSidOtO r Switch ta, natural gas heating and lower pour monthly heating bis! Switching from electricity? Save up to 55%/* Switching from oïl? Save up ta 25%/* Convert before October 17 '98 and Sav:e up ta $350t on your equipmeiit purchase Nopayments until Cali Union Gas today 1 800 860-2223