Date Sept.23rd /2023
Location: Rose Valley, West Kelowna, BC
Time: 13:30
Weather: Overcast 17’c
General Overview of Site:
• Front Yard- North side is flat with thick vegetated green screen providing privacy from road. South side has gradual slope with small shrubs, primarily West facing receiving hot late afternoon sun. I do not water the front yard which has resulted in drought mortality of most grasses and shrubs. Several large fir and yellow pine present.
• Backyard- Flat at bottom, 45% slope up to back fence. East aspect receives morning and midday sunlight. Several varieties of shrubs, trees and ornamental flowers are present.
Size: 0.3acre
Vegetation: Douglas Fir, Yellow Pine, Ornamental flowers, Grass, Oregon Grape, Juniper, Cedar Hedges, Maple, Alder, Saskatoon Berry, Ivy, Virginia Creeper, Balsam Popular, Dog Wood, Privet, Dog Wood
The area of study I chose is my front and backyard located in the city of West Kelowna in the neighborhood called Rose Valley. Compared to Kelowna at 344m of elevation my yard sits at 583m. I have only been living on this property for 11 months and the previous owners neglected the yards; no grass or flowers were present, and the entire yard was covered with 1-3 inches of leaves and pine needles. Since living here, I have spent a lot of time weeding, raking, trimming and watering the plants I planted to bring it to a more presentable state. I have put a lot of work into the backyard and left the front yard in a natural state and only weed wacked, trimmed some trees and raked up needles and branches to reduce the fire hazard. Quails, deer and the occasional bear frequent the front yard. This is due to the thick vegetation compared to the neighboring houses on the street and the proximity to Rose Valley Regional Park.
Recently the McDougall Creek wildfire came within 200m of my house and all the surrounding green space and parks were burnt. We were evacuated for 2 weeks during the fires and as a result the plants in my backyard were not able to be watered during that time.
Questions:
• How does grass seed and fertilization affect the growth of grass? Some areas of the yard were spread with seed while other parts of the yard no seeding took place.
• How does the tree health of the yellow pine in the shadier northeast facing back yard compared to the yellow pine in the south west facing front yard?
• Birds are often present in both the front yard and backyard. If there a difference in which bird species and quantity are present between the front yard and backyard?
Hi, welcome to the course. Your yard is certainly large enough and diverse enough for a study. I am sorry to hear about the fires, that must have been stressful and I am happy to hear your property was not affected.
Make sure you tag me in your blog posts so I don’t miss them.
As you work through the next few modules you will start thinking more about experimental design and which questions may work better than others. You will not be able to do the yellow pine question for example if you only have 2 trees to compare as you can’t compare 1 sample to 1 sample. Also, I would encourage something a bit more complex than the grass question as I think we would expect additional seed and fertilizer to result in more grass. I find students find it challenging to write a whole paper if a topic is not intriguing where you are not sure of the answer when you start out. Also, in your case the fact that areas were not watered may be the larger influence on grass and could make it difficult to ask about seeding/fertilization. The bird question could work if that is something you are interested in. You would have to keep in mind that at this point you are comparing resident species.
Good luck as you keep thinking of questions!