Don't make the mistake; plant your bulbs now

It's simple garden envy, but there is a cure.

And it doesn't matter if your patch is just a tiny spot beside a townhome or a broad sweeping patch in a big country acreage.

If you are in a new garden and don't add bulbs now, you will regret it next spring. There is no shortcut to the blooming beauty we welcome with spring bulbs.

Here are some further tips:

Advice from the experts

Buying a home will be the biggest purchasing decision most of us will face in our lifetimes. Adding to the weight of that decision is going through it the first time.

"Buying a home can bring together both excitement and stress, especially for a first-time homebuyer," said RBC Financial regional vice-president Joshua Johner.

"First-time homebuyers often need extra advice throughout the process. It's difficult to know exactly what to expect, but most issues can be resolved by doing a little homework at the outset."

Housing market offers some surprises, different perceptions, say local experts

A quick look at today's real estate market might not exactly fill first-time homebuyers with optimistic anticipation. Yet dig deeper and there's plenty of reason to get excited, say housing experts.

Even though home sales are down by double-digit percentages in terms of units sold and money spent compared to a year ago, the average selling price is up slightly — about two per cent, to $474,605 in August, according to CREB®.

Try a last-minute salad crop

It was well after her neighbour had finished their veggie harvest and late into November last year when my daughter, Chelsie, allowed her son, Cohen, to fulfill his final garden wish of the season.

First, she asked eight-year old Cohen to fill eight more bags of Kale from their patch.

The next morning, when the temperatures crashed and the remaining crop was crisply covered with frosty icing, Chelsie gave Cohen the go-ahead. He bounced high on his trampoline and lept off into the frozen kale patch. The kale cracked into shards on impact, and the still-soft soil broke his fall as he tumbled like a gymnast down the row. You couldn't imagine a bigger smile and a better way to say goodbye to summer.

But beware of Calgary's famous hail belt

What's with crazy gardening terms like "deadheading?" It sounds like something done in a dark alley, in private, after midnight.

Patrick Horner, a reader and fairly new gardener, wasn't sure at first, but he figured out from an online search that it meant cutting flowers off after they fade to encourage more flowers. He sent me an email: "If I am deadheading [my dianthus], what do I remove?"

Horner's plant in question is a perennial dianthus – a hardy dwarf relative of the common-cut flower the carnation. If he deadheads it, it may bloom again a bit this season, and will certainly bloom more heavily next year because it won't use up its energy making seeds this year.

When you know it's too good to be true

"Help! This plant is growing behind my office in Calgary and I can't identify it" tweeted Christene.

Gloria had some "wonderful old flowers" suddenly appear in her Canmore yard, so she sent photos by email. Mehran fell in love with a beautiful plant he saw in a Springbank ditch. He texted me a photo. Pretty and mysterious plants were suddenly on all my media.

"Our office building is about two blocks west of the Bow River. There's always a bunch of interesting plants growing out back behind the warehouse loading dock so I'm always trying to identify them, see if there are any plants I can steal to put in my garden. I had never seen anything like this one before and probably spent a good hour trying to figure out what it was," said Christene by follow-up email. But of course anything this exotic and pretty and springing out of nowhere could only be one thing. Christene and Gloria and Mehran all had or wanted to know more about weeds. Pretty, vigorous weeds.

Finding a gardener that matches your mindset

Maybe you are getting your house ready for sale, expecting the in-laws to visit or you just brought home a new baby and now the shrubs are threatening to eat the front door. Either way, you need a gardener.

Hiring a gardener is not the same as hiring a house cleaner. Most indoor cleaning jobs follow an accepted system for removing dirt and fluffing pillows. They leave the home the same, but cleaner than before.

Outdoors, your personal style and sensitivity have to match the person you hire as a gardener because a garden evolves and changes over time. Your gardener has to be going in the same direction as you.

Tips on how to see if you're bank account is ready for your first home

So you're ready to be a homeowner. But is your bank account?

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) offers the following tips to help first-time homebuyers determine if their financially ready to take that first step:

Buyers, sellers encouraged to do their research before picking a real estate professional

Purchasing a home will be one of the biggest financial decisions most of us will ever make in our lifetimes. Getting it right can mean the difference between moving into your dream home and living in a house of horrors.

Whether a first-time buyer/seller or not, the first step is to find the right real estate professional or service to help you on your journey to homeownership, said CREB® president Cliff Stevenson. A good place to start is through referral.

"If there was an analysis done on the largest referral source, it's probably from people you know and come across. It's word-of-mouth referral," said Stevenson, adding online searches are also important tools for buyers and sellers when looking for a real estate professional or service. "But they're looking for some type of social proof and social validation out there as well."

Five tips on how to add some wow factor to your outdoor space

It is possible to plant your balcony using leftover plastic containers and old grocery bags. That said, it is also possible to wear old coffee sacks as clothing.

If you want beauty on your balcony or your body, plan ahead and look for the right pieces to make a statement because even a small space deserves to be beautiful.

Here are five tips to boost your balcony's beauty this spring:

1. Cover the balcony floor

If you have old, tired outdoor rugs or a concrete balcony, laying outdoor floor decking can quickly change the ambiance. Outdoor floor decking can be cut to size to fit your space. It doesn't need to be glued down, so it is easily lifted for winter or when you move. If your balcony is the same size of a woven plastic rug, skip the wood floor and buy a new area rug to cover the existing surface.