Garden season has finally arrived in Calgary, and boy, are we excited!
While your local garden store may be filled with beautiful plants and flowers for you to grow, many are not local plant species.
Planting native species in your garden is a fantastic way to enhance your yard’s biodiversity and the environment overall. Bees love them, and they’re extremely simple to maintain because they are already primed for our climate.
Check out some of these beautiful flowers native to Calgary that you can plant to spruce up your garden.
Wild Bergamot
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Wild bergamot is easy to grow, likes full sun, and is drought tolerant. With the exception of the Maritimes, most Canadian provinces have this flower. Blooming in mid-summer, wild bergamot is an important source of nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
Blazing Star
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Blazing Stars are native to the Prairies and bloom from the top down. Butterflies love these plants. They require full sun and look stunning in any garden.
Blanket flower
Rachel Brown/Edmonton Native Plant Society
These pretty yellow flowers prefer full sunlight and can be found across Canada. Pollinators love them, and they grow really well in sandy, dry spots. They are drought tolerant, and they bloom from late summer through the fall.
Cranesbill
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These plants grow clusters of delicate flowers that bloom throughout the summer. They work well in borders and require full sun.
Asters
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Some aster species, common across Canada, thrive in full sun and moderate shade. The petals of the flowers are blue or purple, and the centres are golden. Typically, asters blossom pretty late in the season. They are great plants for bees and butterflies.
Bearded Iris
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These will stand out in your garden They bloom mid-May to mid-June and can grow 16 to 30 inches tall and 10 to 24 inches wide. They require full sun.
Violets
Rachel Brown/Edmonton Native Plant Society
Violets flower early in the season, thrive in the shade, and attract bees and butterflies. Because they bloom so early, they are an important food source for bees once they wake up.
Blue Flax
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They are prolific self-seeders in an un-mulched bed, but it is easy to weed out unwanted plants. They do best in full sun and work in all soils as long as they are well-drained.
Tall Lungwort
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The plant, also known as tall bluebells, is indigenous to Northwestern North America and prefers shaded areas. They can grow to four feet tall.
Daylily
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This species grows well in partial shade to full sun. You can get them in a wide range of colours and blooming times throughout the season.
You can check out even more incredible plants native to the Calgary area on the City of Calgary website.
With files from Allison Stephen