Preparing a garden for a garden show

This gardening blog may really only be for myself to serve as a useful record of the progress of my garden from the first of the year through to June.  It may also be a worthwhile read for gardeners of the Pacific Northwest as a reminder of ongoing duties in the garden from the time period January to June OR it may be a good source of education and fun as I stress about getting my garden in tip top shape as a participant in the Cowichan Valley Family Services annual Garden Tour on June 6, 2010.

To start, I garden on a small acreage (just under 2 acres) that includes the Shawnigan River running through the property, a rather large natural pond, a beautiful winding driveway, a conifer rim, and small, soggy forest.  In times of heavy rainfall, there is also a little river that runs from the natural pond into the larger river as a drainage requirement.

Throughout these blogs I’ll include some pictures of the property and individual beds so you’ll have an understanding of the scope of the garden.  This is the west side of the property looking back over one of the three outside areas towards what I call the Parthenon (rose arbour) and the river which is to the east of the Parthenon.

This looks north to the front of the property.  You can see that no matter what I do with the garden, the lovely aspects of the property make it a pleasing walk-through.  When we were searching for a house with a little property in the area (Cobble Hill, Mill Bay, Shawnigan Lake, on Vancouver Island) in the summer of 2003, the moment we drove over the bridge and up the driveway we knew this would make a spectacular setting for amateur gardeners to go wild!  The real estate market on Vancouver Island was very hot at that point and we didn’t get much of a bargain on the selling price, but we’ve never regretted it.

A picture of the river.  There is lots of potential to develop the slopes along the river but I haven’t tackled that as yet.  Also, when we arrived in 2003 we came from the city.  City Slickers who didn’t really believe that those lovely bambis would dare eat our lovely plants.  It took us 2 years to fence 1 1/2 sides of the property, another year of chomped up plants to finally fence a full 3 sides of the property and finally, after a particularly aggressive chew-up of some of my most favourite roses, we finally fenced all sides of the property including along the river.  The river has that black chicken-wire looking deer fence so it doesn’t prevent the viewscapes along the river.  It does, however, change the ‘completely natural’ look of the place and its a compromise I mostly live with but occasionally regret.

I would call myself a decent gardener.  I am certainly not a complete amateur but neither am I a master gardener.  I can identify a decent number of plant species (some even in Latin!), I know the growth habits and pruning requirements of some, but not all, shrubs and trees, and I am very familiar and a fan of herbaceous perennials.  I have too many hellebores (can you ever have too many of any plant???), hostas and heucharas. (sp?) I am an Iris manic, my husband has totally overloaded the property with rhododendrons.  Did I mention I love roses??

This year I am serving as President for the Mill Bay Garden Club after six years of serving as Flower Show Chairman, Secretary, and Vice President.  I am the Host Garden Coordinator for the 2011 American Iris Society’s Convention in Victoria, BC, and a member of the BC Heather Society.  I have an entirely different career that involves retail recruitment consulting and I’m an avid Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn user – but my real passion is gardening.

So……………here goes.  My garden has been chosen as one of 6 gardens on the Cowichan Family Services Association fund-raising garden tour.  It’s a very well known tour always featuring excellent gardens.  For $15 on a self-directed tour, visitors enjoy the gardens, can interact with the owners, have Master Gardener advice, and overall enjoy a lovely day.  The gardens have to be SPOTLESS in terms of trimming, weeds, etc. and because my garden is by far the largest on the tour, I will indeed be the most stressed – maybe.

I know blogs should not be this long, but if you are still with me, here is a bit more information so you can fully enjoy and understand future blogs.

Firstly, I am regularly out in the garden pruning and weeding now and its only February 15th!  This will be shocking to anyone that doesn’t reside on Vancouver Island or southwest BC.  We had a hideous winter last year and at this time last year we were still staring at 2 feet of snow.  My precious hellebores (I am going to count them tomorrow) were still huddled under the leaves.  Today the hellbores are blooming to beat the band, the snowdrops (galanthus) are nearly over and just about everything is sprouting or poking up.  The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver are taking place to the pure delight of every Canadian and visitors from around the world are stunned that the same locale where downhill skiing can be competed is close to the same place where there is a beautiful bed of tulips!

I’ve already done a fair amount of pruning, weeding and clipping but starting tomorrow I’ll record the ongoing progress.  The pcitures in this blog are just scene-setters.  We’ll talk bed by bed and preparation by prepartion.  Not everybody’s fun way to read a blog, but if you’re into NorthWest gardening the journey will be educational and fun.  And, I’ll be looking for opinions,

Still LOTS of weeding left to go!