As I was setting up a string of Christmas lights at the living room window one dreary day last month, a glance into the outdoor world unveiled a cheering sight. A Pink Dawn viburnum, planted against a side fence in the front garden, had become festooned with red buds, prelude to clusters of small, lightly fragrant pink blooms.
The weather was unusually mild; the buds quickly opened into little nosegays of waxy flowers.
Nearby, growing against the same side fence, a tall Oregon grape (Maonia media) had produced three imposing sprays of bright yellow flowers. They’ll be followed in late spring and early summer by strings of colourful berries.
These are intrepid shrubs. The Mahonia begins producing a few flower clusters early in the fall and blooms through the winter, even in snowy weather.
Both shrubs are decades old now, and the ground they were planted in has become full of tree roots from cedar and fir trees growing next to the fence in a neighbour’s yard. Even so, the plants remain in reasonably good condition and still bloom reliably.
A wake-up call: That’s what my garden in 2023 became. Observing various plants’ reactions to weather conditions made it obvious that measures never before required to grow certain plants well now needed to be set in place.
Last year’s spring season arrived following a long period of drought. Sparse fall and winter rains did little to replenish soils dried out from a long, dry summer. Light, sandy soils that drain speedily of moisture were the most adversely affected.
Thankfully, there has been rainfall over this past autumn and in winter so far, though the snowfall needed to keep summer water resources at adequate levels has been lacking.
Last spring and early summer, for the first time ever, the peas and carrots that routinely flourish in this garden faltered badly. The first, late winter outdoor seeding I usually make is broad beans, followed in March by a double row of peas and then a carrot seeding.
This month I’ll be preparing these plots for seeding next month, weather permitting. I’ll scratch lime, fertilizer and compost into the soil and then re-cover the plots with leaves until planting time.
All the weather predictions I’ve researched forecast continuing milder than usual temperatures into spring, with the odd dip into frosty weather. If that pattern does persist, it bodes well for early seeding. My hope is to have heat-sensitive plantings up and developing well before hot weather. Then, shade cloth will be at hand to place over the plants.
Last summer I tried several materials, like old lightweight curtaining that I had on hand, to shade plants, but shade cloth I purchased proved to be more convenient to handle, and effective enough to keep salad greens in good condition. I’ve now acquired enough of the cloth to protect the peas, carrots, and green leafy vegetables as temperatures rise.
Notice to gardening organizations. Once again, in this new year, I am inviting gardening groups throughout Vancouver Island and on the Gulf Islands to send along details of 2024 activities and programs for inclusion in the Events portion of columns.
If your group has finalized plans for meetings, a flower show, plant sale or other events of interest to the wider community of home gardeners, please send details to [email protected]. Note there is no “t” in the middle of Chesnut. This email address also appears at the end of each column.
To be sure of reserving space in a column for your event, send the information well ahead of its date. To allow for computer issues and other assorted life glitches I submit columns to the paper a week to 10 days ahead of publication dates.
Include a description of the meeting or other event with the location, time, cost of admission (if any) and points of interest. Please do provide both the day of the week as well as the date. It’s easy to type in a wrong number, and a check between day and date allows me to pick up conflicts that sometimes occur between them. A phone number as well as the email address is helpful. If the group has a website, include that too.
Please place the information in the body of the email rather than in attachments. I look forward to hearing from you.
