Tofino Gardening in July
by Trina Mattson, Tofino

June… June…June… Hey, what happened to May? I guess between fighting off horsetails and dandelions, not to mention ginormous mosquitoes and black flies, the time just drifted past.

Hey it’s July and as I sit here trying to rack my brain as to what could possibly be humorous in a gardeners life this month, it suddenly occurs to me, what could be funnier than people almost pulling out their hair as they battle, weeds, water, bugs, deer, lose of plant life, black spot, pruning, shovelling, mowing, fertilizing, and all the other things that go along with gardening, just for the sake of relaxing. How much relaxing do you do while you are trying to perfect your Eden ?

Now if you are in your garden and you’re not saying I love my garden, then you’re probably not spending enough time in it. Do you not love your because, you’re not an outdoors type person, because your allergic to it, or at least the work that’s associated with it, because it’s the only place that you feel you can fully relax and that scares you or you may simply not love your garden because you‚ve run out of ideas and need a little zip, well here’s some ideas for summer zip.

Roses in containers, keep them dead headed and they’ll put out continuous blooms, Martha geraniums, ultra spectacular colour all season long, Clematis coming into bloom and for all summer, and Dahlias. For the scentsational, how about lavender, or citronella, tea tree, or apple and nutmeg scented geraniums, again with the roses and the sweeeet smell of honeysuckle. If inspiration is what you need, take a garden tour around town, check out all the different gardens, most gardeners love to share information with each other, to share tips and techniques, pitfall and bruises. Then get back to your garden there’s plenty of time and relaxing to do, there’s still time to relax while you plant up some vegetable seeds for fall and winter harvest, time to relax while you trim up some perennials for a second flush of blooms in the fall. And time to relax while you stake any tall growing vines, vegetable, and perennials before they fall over.

Indoor plants can be moved outside so that they may relax in the garden as well.

Remember while you are relaxing to check an eye out for aphids, and slugs as they too like to relax in your garden, Continue fertilizing your bedding plants and baskets for continuous blooms all summer and if you find they are getting a little leggy, trim them up, they’ll recover and be thicker and send out more blossoms as well.

By now any fall blooming perennials will have their foliage out and so you can see if you have any bald spots that may need bulking up, and for the fall we recommend grasses, rudbeckia, fall blooming heathers, don’t forget your foliage plants as well, these are best put into the ground soon so they will be ready for fall. Speaking of fall and who wants to think about that now, but it‚s also time to make a list of all the bulbs you may want for next years spring display, and yeah it‚s early, but I’ve already got orders in, and am expecting delivery early September.

The hummingbirds are back so refill that feeder, keep an eye out for blue treasure in your garden, we spotted an robins egg shell that was dropped in our lawn, so their hatching, and the starlings have been making their rounds. Big butterflies have been frequenting the yard, and the frogs just won’t quit.

Ahhhhh, relaxing in the garden never was so sweet. It‚s July relax. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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Trina Mattson runs the Ordinary Corner Nursery in Tofino.