EDMONTON - Last February, Stacey and Don Hansen lived in a mature neighbourhood in an older house with large shady trees and a developed backyard they had been working on for eight years. In April, they’ll be living in a brand new house in a new subdivision with no trees, no landscaping, except they haven’t moved.

It sounds like something out of the Twilight Zone, unless you live in Slave Lake, where a lot people are doing the same thing after a $700-million wildfire swept through town last May. About 7,000 people were evacuated and 400 homes and other buildings, including the Hansens’, were destroyed.

More than anything, Stacey Hansen wants the privacy she lost with her trees. She wants to plant new trees that will grow fast and mature quickly and she came to St. Albert, Sunday, looking for advice from gardening guru Jim Hole. Eighty-three other Slave Lake residents also made the 3-1/2 hour trek to the gardening extraordinaire Enjoy Centre for a free crash course in landscaping arranged by Karen Plourde, co-ordinator of the town’s adult education committee.

Mary Kupsch, who lives on an acreage, didn’t lose her house, but her husband’s shop, the couple’s office, garden shed, and a mini green house where she grew tomatoes in the backyard were all destroyed.

“A lot of us are looking for information on where to start because, basically, we’re starting over,” she said. “A lot of people ended up with a lot and a hole in the ground. We want to regrow things. We want things that grow fast. We want to make things look nice again.”

Helen and Jeff Taylor had nothing left on their property after the fire. Jeff calls it “ground zero.”

They’re currently renting a house, and their friend Kelly Oliver is living with her partner in a seniors’ lodge in Slave Lake while they wait for their homes to be rebuilt.

“Wherever you find a place, you stay,” Helen Taylor said.

Since they literally have to redesign their yard from the bottom up, she said, they’re planning more water-efficient, eco-minded landscaping.

Sherman Horsman, who also lost everything, calls his property “a blank slate.

“We had a lot of really nice shade trees, we had done a lot of work, removed a lot of older shrubs and planted back a lot of roses, added perennials every year, planted a few vegetables,” Horsman said.

He and his wife expect to be in their new house by the end of May. They see this as a fresh start. “My wife wants to do it right and she’s quite excited about this opportunity.

“Our yard is going to be better laid out, it’s not going to be as haphazard as before. Now it’s going to be a full vision kind of thing.”

Horsman said he likes Hole’s idea for xerigardening, designed to use less water.

“The saddest part about the whole landscaping is the trees because you’re not going to have any for a long time. It’s not going to be the same.”

Oliver wondered about the contaminants left in the soil after the fire.

But Horsman said the topsoil was scraped off during the cleanup to remove any contaminants.

Hole advised the group that choosing high-quality topsoil is critical in yard design. He told them to expect to spend five to 10 per cent of the value of their house on landscaping. And reaffirming their desire for trees, Hole added that planting just one tree raises a property’s value by nine per cent.

The last stat drew a “Whoo hoo!” from one of the group.

Stacey Hansen and her husband, whom she calls “Mr. Green Thumb,” left the talk with plans to plant poplars in their yard. They also intend to put a pond back in, as well as a fountain and flower beds.

They’re starting over, but now they’ll have the yard they want instead of having to tinker with someone else’s design, Don Hansen said.

“It’s a little overwhelming at time,” said Stacey.

“But it’s so exciting!” both say.

czdeb@edmontonjournal.com" TARGET="_blank">czdeb@edmontonjournal.com