Recreation

High altitude gardeners face a short but productive growing season-but few places are lovelier than McCall in the summertime. The air is pure, colors more vivid and our gardens thrive.

Our cool nights and short season makes gardening with perennials more effective than frost sensitive annuals. We buy our annual flowers as large as possible and plant them in pots for the most productive and effective display of color. In addition to Rite-Aid, Ridley's, Albertson's and Cherrie's on 3rd Street, we find many good annuals, perennials and quality nursery stock at the Farmer's Market, High Mountain Nursery and Franz Witte.

Fall is an excellent time to plant trees, shrubs and perennials-the milder temperatures of fall and winter months of dormancy allow plantings to take root for a head start going into the spring and summer growing seasons.

Watering, sometimes daily, is essential for many plants and potted flowers in our drier mountain air making sprinkler systems a necessity rather than a luxury for us seriously focused high mountain gardeners. On the other hand, over watering is as harmful as not watering enough. The McCall Magazine article "Growing Gardens in the Mountains" (.pdf download) by Gusti Laidlaw explains more.

In our challenging climate, pick your plantings wisely, plant in the right place and tend your high altitude garden with advice from our talented landscape and gardening professionals. If you require the service of landscaping professionals for larger projects, you'll want to find and schedule this work early on-everyone in this industry is very busy, and are often booked out months ahead.