If my father were alive today, he’d be looking forward to calls from his five children, and a spot of relaxing in his garden.
My father loved cooking, and growing gladioli. His favourite dahlia was Park Princess, a bushy little (60-cm) cactus-flowered dahlia in pink that he grew along one edge of a vegetable plot in his Lochside Drive garden in Sidney.
If my father were alive, I’d have been looking for a gift to further the enjoyment of his wholesome proclivities — a collection of culinary herb plants perhaps; a comfortable lounge chair; a container of bright flowers to set beside his preferred sitting-out place; a beautiful vase for his flowers.
What activities and habits most delight the gardening father in your home? These will light a clear pathway to an ideal gift.
My father is never far from mind in the garden, where I use the fine old tools I inherited from his collection. They include an iron rake, a “push” hoe and a more common “pull” hoe, a long-handled shovel, an intrepid brass hose-end nozzle, an “asparagus knife” type weeder with a notched end.
There’s another idea. Most men I know love tools and gadgets. A vast plethora of such items exists for gardeners.
A Happy Father’s Day to gardening dads and to all who gently nurture life on this good Earth.
June: the good life. The explosion of juicy flavour transported me momentarily into a world of pure bliss when, on the first day in June, I popped the first large, fully ripe, sun-warmed strawberry into my mouth.
The next day, another. Just the beginning of a splendid strawberry harvest and sumptuous feasting on strawberry shortcake and halved strawberries set on a chocolate ganache-covered cheesecake — and more. Through the winter, frozen sliced strawberries will be quickly cooked, with minimal amounts of sugar, into sauces and jams.
This is a month of plenty. Roses, peonies, vivid blooms of easily grown Siberian irises all abound. Fresh garden salads are daily treats as waves of red and green lettuces wait to be harvested and enjoyed. Young, juicy garlic scapes, finely minced, add zest to leafy green salads.
A peony called Therese, planted in front of my daughter’s now demolished playhouse, has been laden with large double pink blooms. The pieces of root from a Red Charm peony, planted late last summer, are all up and growing well.
Best of all, a seed-grown “Woodward’s” form of Veitch’s peony (Paeonia veitchii var. woodwardii) has bloomed. This is a compact peony, just 30 cm high, with single shell pink flowers. A simple charmer.
I like to mark and celebrate peonies as they rise splendidly from the soil in the spring by planting small early-blooming flower bulbs around them. As the bulb growth dies down after blooming, the peony foliage and flowers take over.
Small botanical tulips are a fine choice for this. Most bloom in March and April. Some, like Little Beauty and Little Princess, grow just 10 cm high.
For my Veitch’s peony, I chose Tulipa praestans ‘Shogum’ — a striking multi-flowered gold and orange miniature tulip.
GARDEN EVENTS
Fruit tree pruning. The Compost Education Centre, 1216 North Park St. in Victoria, is offering a workshop on Summer Fruit Tree Pruning on Saturday, June 24, from 1 to 3 p.m. Learn about the many advantages of summer pruning. For details and registration, call 250-386-9676, email [email protected], or go online at compost.bc.ca/publicworkshops.
Nanaimo garden tour. Alltrusa Nanaimo is hosting their annual garden tour on Sunday, June 25, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The seven gardens on the tour include woodland and rose gardens, and one focussed on food production, including chickens and bees. Money raised provides scholarships for students needing funding for secondary education and for women re-entering the work force. Tickets at $25 are available at most nurseries and KC’s Boutique in Nanaimo and Buckerfield’s in Parksville. districttwelve.altrusa.org/nanaimo.
Plant sales. The Friends of Government House Gardens Society open the Plant Nursery, across from the Tea Room at Government House, 1401 Rockland Ave. in Victoria, from Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Most of the plants are sold for $8, payable by debit or credit cards only.
