Caragana? .. . Not any more.

There are many areas of Riel House with old unmaintained caragana. Caragana (actually the Siberian pea shrub) was introduced in the late 1880's by the federal government to be a shelter belt plant. It is likely that the Riel family added it to the property between 1900 and 1920, probably as a decorative hedge. Consequently, caragana is "not quite" appropriate to Riel House of 1886.

Before

This overgrown caragana is at the entrance to the Produce Garden. Most of the trunks that you see are quite old and only have leaves at the very end of each stem. If you look closely on the bottom right, you can see some virginia creeper trying to get to the fence. We decided it was time to put this clump out of its misery.

After

We kept the small shoots of caragana and trimmed them; we kept two Schubert Chokecherries that were buried in the middle; we are training two Virginia creepers to run along the fence.

Looking into the Produce Garden - 17 July 2015

There are many other caragana areas. We will eventually replace most of them.