A green revolution is underway as more Calgarians seek to reduce their carbon footprint with increasingly energy-efficient homes

No one can accuse Chris Stevenson of being all talk and no action when it comes to living green. The 51-year-old Calgarian is walking the walk when it comes to reducing his carbon footprint.

So much so he built his own net-zero home – that is, one that generates as much energy from renewables, such as solar panels, as it consumes.

"I like to do things right, and I'm cheap: I didn't want to be paying a lot for utilities," joked Stevenson, who, until recently, made a living investing in real estate.

The trials and tribulations of dealing with scale in the yard and garden

Last week, I was outside in the shed sorting last year's plastic pots before bringing them inside for cleaning.
When I came in, I noticed a sticky mess on my little lime tree. Sadly, I knew what the trouble was. It was the same trouble I have been tackling since I bought the tree a year ago.

The trouble was scale — insects that have a crawling stage where they march up stems to new leaves, insert their pointy beaks into the leaf and build a hard tortoise cover over themselves, often looking like bumps on a branch.

Slithering serpents can be very helpful in the garden

My neighbour George, now in his late 80s, told me he had to tear down his old greenhouse because it was full of snakes.

His wife Barbara was very afraid of the small serpents. The only place I have seen an overabundance of garter snakes in Calgary is in a rock garden in Edgemont. The rocks, seemingly alive with slithering serpents, were a little unsettling.