Everything you need to know for a quick and beautiful yard on the Canadian prairies.

Creating and maintaining the perfect yard on the prairies 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 homeowners in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba 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 prairie provinces.

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.

Another version of this book, The Chinook Short Season Yard, is available for gardeners who live in the southern Alberta chinook zone. Get a free ebook through the Shelfie app with the purchase of a print copy.

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

Finally, a gardening book with humor! Lyndon Penner has done a marvelous job creating a garden book any person, whether just a beginner or a master gardener, can enjoy reading.

Saskatoon Horticultural Society

It is beautifully illustrated, very entertaining…, but most importantly, filled with practical advice on the full spectrum of yard planning and maintenance.

The Gardener Magazine

Lyndon Penner has given an essential guide to help gardeners overcome a short gardening season in his concise but informative book.

Master Gardeners Association of Alberta

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.

Alberta Horticultural Association

The Prairie Short Season Yard is a terrific treatise on gardening for prairie gardeners.… [Lyndon’s] book is a reflection of his style: wildly entertaining and enormously informative.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

This book was a joy to read. There is so much great information on so many topics related to the prairie garden that it may well become the gold standard on short season gardening here in Manitoba.

Manitoba Master Gardener Association

I hadn’t even finished the book, when an issue arose in our garden this spring. My immediate response: let’s see what Lyndon has to say!… [A] new guru is in town.

Edmonton Horticultural Society