Creating and maintaining the perfect yard in the chinook zone isn’t as hard as you might think, but the short growing season doesn’t give you much time to transform your winter-weary yard into a glorious garden. To help Calgary-area homeowners get the jump on the short season, popular gardening expert Lyndon Penner has created the essential guide to a quick and beautiful yard in the chinook zone.

With gardening smarts, style and wit, Lyndon covers everything both novice and expert gardeners need to know, along with tips you won’t find anywhere else. Contains more than 200 beautiful, colour photos.

• Quickly find what you need to know about climate zones, soil, colour, texture and shade.
• Understand your yard’s potential.
• Pick the best bulbs, perennials, trees and shrubs for your yard.
• Deal with insects and plant diseases in environmentally friendly ways.
• Shop smarter at garden centres.
• Attract animals you want to your garden, and keep away the ones you don’t.

Lyndon Penner has been gardening since the age of three and has never forgotten the thrill of growing his first flowers from seed. Few people match the enthusiasm for gardening that Lyndon has! Starting in the greenhouse industry at the age of 16, he has become well known as a garden speaker and writer for CBC Radio, The Gardener for the Prairies magazine, the University of Saskatchewan, Olds College, the University of British Columbia, and the Calgary Zoo Botanical Garden. Lyndon also does botanical interpretive work in Waterton Lakes National Park.

Lyndon Penner's profile page

When you read The Chinook Short Season Yard, you will know you have found a gem; definitely a book that belongs in your personal library. It’s in mine!

The Gardener for the Prairies Magazine

This is the ideal book for the hundreds of new gardeners that descend upon the garden centres each year.… For novice as well as veteran gardeners, this book is sure to be an agent for positive change in terms of how we approach gardening.

Lorna McIlroy, Alberta Horticultural Association