Calgary’s unique weather conditions and the water crisis we’ve faced in years past have made Calgarians rethink the way we use water. In the case of real estate, one of the activities that tends to demand more water usage is landscaping. This is why the City of Calgary has issued a guide to help homeowners, landlords, and tenants design and maintain a yard that is both beautiful and requires less maintenance and watering. We’re going to break down the city’s guide and give you more tips on how to landscape your rental property without losing curb appeal, and contribute to a more sustainable use of water.
How to Landscape Your Rental Property in Calgary
Calgary’s Weather and Landscaping
Before choosing the plants you want in your yard, it’s important to understand that you can’t pick randomly, as not every plant will thrive in the Calgary climate conditions. To determine which ones would be suitable, you have to get familiar with the concept of the Hardiness Zone, a geographic area with a determined average annual minimum temperature and precipitation, which is key for plant survival.
Calgary is considered to be Zone 4a, and the region limits our options for plants due to our cold, harsh winters of an average minimum temperature ranging from -34.4°C to -31.7 °C, historically low snowfall and precipitation and a short growing season of around 120 days. However, these adverse conditions don’t mean that we can’t have thriving plants in our yards.
Introducing Xeriscaping
Water-wise landscaping has its own term coined: Xeriscaping. This landscaping approach uses techniques to minimize or eliminate irrigation. On the property management side, xeriscaping translates into a well-maintained yard with little effort or even neglect periods. Here’s how the City’s landscaping plan, called YardSmart, integrates xeriscaping practices that suit our climate:
1 – Planning and Design
- Sketch your yard: Having a visual guide of how you want your yard to look will help you have better planning and use your space wisely. These are the steps for a thorough sketch:
- Make a layout of your yard, marking the areas that receive sun and shade, and identify spots that tend to stay dry or wet.
- Designate specific spaces for activities like play areas, outdoor dining, entertainment, composting, gardening, and where you’ll place rain barrels.
- Take note of designing your flowerbeds with a slight slope, positioning plants that require more water at the lower end. This will help maximize water efficiency by getting it absorbed by the plants that need it the most and is also a healthy plant grouping practice, called hydrozoning, as it minimizes the risks of over- or under-watering.
- Shape the beds to ensure they can be easily reached and efficiently watered with sprinklers or soaker hoses.
2 – Choose Planting Perennials
Perennials are more sturdy plants and flowers that die back to their base each fall but survive through the colder months, returning in the spring. Perennials are often more expensive than their annual counterparts (plants that germinate, bloom, set seed and die in one season,) but they can live for several years, demand less water, and planting Alberta-native perennials like Alpine Aster, Bearded Iris, Blanket Flowers, Blue Flax, Lamb’s Ear or Lungwort will help you achieve a yard filled with colour and create a welcoming habitat for pollinators and butterflies.
Perennials are a smart, sustainable choice that bring lasting beauty.
As for perennial ornamental grass species to add a more visually appealing and textured yard, the city recommends blue fescue, blue oat grass, and Karl Foerster feather reed grass. If you can’t afford a full perennial garden immediately, you can build it over time by buying a couple of your favourite ones, filling in the spaces and adding more colour with annuals. You can check out the complete list of perennials here.
3 – Water-Saving Trees and Shrubs
They will need extra water for the first two years, but after that period, rainfall will be enough to keep them healthy most of the year. Good picks that include ones with edible fruits are:
- Trees: Amur maple; amur cherry; autumn brilliance serviceberry; bristlecone pine; bur oak; Colorado blue spruce; columnar Colorado spruce tree; snowbird hawthorn; ivory silk tree lilac.
Amur maple trees have a vibrant red colour that will add charm to your yard. (Photo credit: F.D Richards)
- Shrubs: Wayfaring tree; American highbush cranberry; red barberry; ninebark; mugo pine; nannyberry; nest spruce; Preston lilac.
These are only a few of the options available. Read the full list here.
4 – Native Wildflowers
Calgary has a wide variety of native wildflowers to choose from to design your yard. These flowers are well-adapted to our climate and often require little maintenance once established, and have less water needs. The wildflowers you can choose from will depend on the sun your yard gets:
- Full Sun Wildflowers: This category includes the flowers that need direct sunlight for at least six hours per day to grow. Some of the options are the blue flax we mentioned above, yarrow, smooth aster, Canada goldenrod, shining arnica, etc.
- Part Shade: These wildflowers need to be in areas of your yard that receive 3 to 6 hours of direct sunlight per day, typically in the morning or late afternoon, or in areas that receive partially shaded sunlight throughout the day (like under trees with light canopy coverage): wild bergamot, sticky purple geranium, harebell, slender beardtongue, or smooth fleabane are good part shade options.
- Shade: Wildflowers like early blue violet, tall lungwort, showy aster and Canada anemone will thrive in areas with limited to no direct sunlight.
Adding wildflowers to your yard will also provide a home to pollinators and other local wildlife without sacrificing beauty and aesthetics. You can find these plants in local garden centres and specialized suppliers. If you want to know more, visit this link to get the full recommended wildflowers list.
4 – Lawn and Groundcover Alternatives
Switching to turf and groundcover alternatives is a good option to save water, minimize maintenance and support local pollinators. These are some of the options available at garden centres:
- Lawn Alternatives: Microclover and fescues. Both tolerate high foot traffic and offer different benefits. Microclover mixes well into existing lawns and enriches the soil with nitrogen, a crucial nutrient for plants’ growth and health. However, you may have to add hardscaping elements like stone, brick or wood to control its prolific growth.
On the other hand, fescue grasses need less fertilizers than conventional turf and grow slower, reducing the mowing needs. They mix well with other grasses and microclover, and there are some Alberta-native variants available.
- Groundcover Alternatives: Some of our favourite recommendations include arrow, creeping thyme, sedum, kinnikinnick, basket-of-gold, maidens pink or snow summer. These low-growing plants will add visual interest to your yard, preserving the soil’s water by reducing evaporation and keeping weeds at bay.
If you want to know more, including how to transition to a lawn alternative, go here.
How to Start Working On Your Rental Yard
As you can probably tell by now, designing and working on a yard are no easy tasks and involve many details to get the best result. As a landlord, you have two options:
The DIY Route
If you have knowledge about landscaping or are willing to learn, you can reduce costs by doing it yourself. The city offers in-person and online courses that help Calgarians get the fundamentals on how to design and create a beautiful, environmentally responsible and functional yard, including soil calculation, plant selection, how to access community resources like free compost, and irrigation best practices. Go to the city’s dedicated page to know material requirements, or visit the Calgary Horticultural Society website to register.
Hiring a Professional
If you don’t have the time to learn, investing in a professional landscaping service is a good option that offers many benefits:
- Increased Curb Appeal and Property Value: A professionally designed yard can make the property more attractive to potential tenants and boost its perceived value, which can justify a higher rent.
- Peace of Mind: You’ll be free from managing landscaping tasks or coordinating multiple contractors and will have the peace of mind of knowing that you can request changes until you get the desired results without the additional stress of doing it on your own.
- Liability Prevention: Landscapers are trained to identify and address hazards such as uneven walkways, dead tree limbs, or poor drainage, all issues that can cause slip, trip, and fall risks that can result in legal issues.
Yard Maintenance in Rental Properties
After the yard is ready before the property is occupied, you have to decide how you want to handle the maintenance. In Alberta, the responsibility for yard maintenance is defined by the lease agreement and is not automatically the tenant’s responsibility unless specifically stated. If you prefer it to be the tenant’s duty, you’ll have to add a clause in the lease contract to reduce the risks of neglect and provide the necessary tools as a courtesy. Another option is to keep the maintenance in the hands of the landscapers who design it and add that cost to the rent price.
Create a Beautiful and Sustainable Yard
Xeriscaping offers an excellent solution to do our part in using water wisely while creating attractive and low-maintenance outdoor spaces, which is especially ideal for rental properties. Lucky for us, The City of Calgary made a thorough guide to help all homeowners in their xeriscaping journey. All you have to do is get down to work!
