Happy Canada Day!  I hope you are enjoying yourself in a garden. Perhaps you are puttering around your own garden deadheading or adding new plants, or just enjoying a cup of coffee and admiring its beauty.

Or you might be out enjoying one of our many public gardens like Abkhazi Garden in Victoria (www.conservancy.bc.ca/content.asp?sectionack=abkhazi), Hatley Park in Colwood (www.hatleypark.ca), Finnerty Garden at the University of Victoria (www.uvic.ca/garden) or Bowen Park in Nanaimo ( http://www.nanaimoinformation.com/bowen-park.php). There are so many lovely gardens on southern Vancouver Island. It’s a shame so many of us wait for out-of-town visitors to see them!

Wherever you spend Canada Day, all of us at Dig This wish you a wonderful holiday.

Elizabeth Cull, Franchise President
 

Do you want to take your garden to another level beyond just pretty flowers and well-behaved plants?  Then, stage a garden scene!  Create some drama in your garden by the use of mirrors, art, water features and other objects that set the stage for the garden view.

Have you been on any of the garden tours this summer? One of the best reasons for viewing other people’s gardens is to get new ideas on how to add that extra pizzazz to your garden – things beyond the gorgeous plants and well manicured pathways. Recently on the Teeny Tiny Garden Tour, I found lots of inspiration for those of us who want to stage a garden scene:

Mirrors

A number of the gardens had mirrors mounted in various places around the garden. A mirror tricks the eye into thinking there is another path or entrance, a secret part of the garden still to be explored. Mirrors can make small gardens look and feel much larger, and enhance the beauty of large gardens.

Water Features

Water adds light and sound to the garden and provides a great habitat for wildlife. While ponds are popular, a fountain can provide the same value with less hassle. Fountains come in every size and every price range and in styles to suit all gardens. The beautiful old-world fountain shown here is perfect in a formal garden, but another part of this delightful garden with a more Oriental flavour, has a column of rock that gently weeps water down it’s face. A simple bowl with a bamboo spitter and a few water plants looks great on a deck or patio.

Add a Dramatic Focal Point

Garden art – whether it is a sculpture, a statue, a large colourful planter, or a whimsical abstract piece – creates a strong focal point. It draws the eye and helps frame a scene. A well-located piece of garden art can distract the eye from other elements that detract from your garden – such as a neighbouring house.

The choice of garden art is endless. Consider a large urn or a grouping of strong coloured pots. Or a peaceful bench sited for quiet contemplation. Paint an Adirondack chair a bright colour for instant pizzazz. I have three in my garden in “raincoat” yellow, “sky” blue and “fire-engine” red. Placed in a sunny part of my garden they call out to you to come and relax with friends.

Garden art can be “serious” or “whimsical”. Bronze herons are classical, but goofy metal birds or animals create a focal point while bringing a smile to your face.  I have a Happy Buddha situated where I see it every morning.  I never fail to smile at this joyful figure and it starts my day off right!

Don’t Forget Colour

You can set the tone for your garden by the colours you use for plants and garden accessories. A calm garden might have a limited palette of flowers and plants, with benches and statuary in complimentary colours. In contrast, bright splashes of colour in the garden adds energy. Try painting your tomato cages and obelisks in bright colours, or add whimsical plant stakes with a colourful heads.  Right now we have some wonderfully whimsical, bright painted frogs, lizards and butterflies on stakes that would add a splash of colourful to your summer borders.

Light is Magical

As the day draws to a close, light in the garden adds magic.  There are many options to choose from, but some of the nicest are the "glow-in-the-dark" stakes and globes that absorb light from the sun during the day and glow after dark.  Or try solar string lights or lanterns - an easy way to add light to the garden without the hassle of electrical cords.

There are many ways to create drama in the garden, so gather inspiration in other people's gardens, in public gardens, in garden magazines ... and then set your imagination free!

Elizabeth Cull, Franchise President

Tomato plants are growing like crazy with all this lovely weather. But sometimes, too much growth isn’t a good thing.

For the first month or so of a tomato plant’s life, they grow very rapidly, doubling their size every 12 to 15 days. At this point, the plants begin to put out side shoots, which, if left to grow, will turn your tomato into an unsightly, impenetrable, disease-wracked tangle by the end of the summer.

A properly pruned and supported single-stem tomato plant presents all of its leaves to the sun. Most of the sugar produced is directed to the developing fruit, since the only competition is a single growing tip. The result is large fruits that are steadily produced until frost. If more stems are allowed to develop, some of the precious sugar production is diverted from fruit to multiple growing tips. Fruit production, although slowed, never stops. The result is a nearly continuous supply of fruits throughout the season. In general, more stems means more but smaller fruits, which are produced increasingly later in the season.

While determinate tomatoes (bush type as opposed to vining) need less pruning, it is always good to follow these three rules:

1. Get the plant off the ground. Make sure you stake or cage your tomato. Remove lower leaves that are touching the ground.

2. Give your plants room. Hopefully you haven’t planted them too close together, but if you have, some judicious pruning of branches that crowd its neighbour will help.

3. Never prune or tie plants when the leaves are wet. This encourages disease.

For a great, detailed article and a video (!) on pruning tomatoes, go to http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/pruning-tomatoes.aspx
 

Our great $9.95 Hummingbird Feeders are back again. If you are wondering how the hummingbirds like them, read this from one of our customer’s in Seattle:

“We live in Seattle and were at your store a month or so ago and bought one of these feeders - it's awesome and I'd like to order more as gifts plus have one myself as a backup - we have hummingbird nest in the hedge next to our house and the feeder is right in front of my home office window - the birds love it and hang out by the feeder all day...” Brice

This photo was taken by Brice in his garden. Thanks, Brice.
 

• July is a time for sitting back and enjoying your garden and all that hard work you have put in. Relax in your deckchair, put your feet up and listen to the birds singing and the insects buzzing. Remember to put your sun-block on when you are working outdoors.
   
• Mulch! Try to keep all bare soil covered either with plants or use mulches on the surface to keep moisture in. Grass clippings can be piled onto beds, several inches thick. Don't cover young seedlings (apart from weeds) and don't pile up too close to plant stems.
   
• Check compost bins from time to time. If the contents appear too dry, add some water and 'wet' waste, such as kitchen peelings and grass clippings. Take the opportunity to turn the contents too, this will help to aerate it and activate the bacteria that help to decompose all your waste into lovely rich, dark humus to put back on the garden.
   
• Spend some time having a good tidy up, deadheading and cutting back of spent flowering shoots and seed heads. Deadheading many plants will encourage them to flower again.
   
• Water baskets and small containers daily, even during rain! Water bounces off a leaf canopy, and, even in a downpour, little rain will reach the potting compost. Moist compost takes in water more readily than dry compost.
   
• Don’t cut your lawn too short, it will take the hot dry weather much better if it is a little longer.
   
• Keep plants well watered during dry spells to avoid them becoming stressed and susceptible to pests and diseases. Collect seeds as they ripen and sow them straight away.
   
• Make sure your greenhouse is well ventilated and provide shade if necessary. The summer sun will scorch tender leaves, and lack of air flow will allow humidity to increase, a sure way to encourage fungal diseases such as botrytis.
   
• Make sure plants don't go short of water or nutrients - a stressed plant is more likely to succumb to pest or disease attack. Fertilize with organic fertilizer!
   
• Keep your pond topped up in hot weather and make sure you have oxygenating plants in your pond so creatures can breath. Rake out any blanket weed that has formed, make sure you leave it by the side of the pond for a couple of days, so any creatures caught in it can return to the water.
   
• Take cuttings from hardy Fuchsias and Penstemons, particularly if you have bought a beautiful specimen All these plant are very easy to propagate from cuttings. Choose a non-flowering stem and simply cut below a node (leaf joint), strip off all the lower leaves except the top tip and put in a 5 to 7cm pot with cutting compost, place in a shady spot and 4-6 weeks later, pot up.
   
• With regards to watering your vegetables, the golden rule is 'soak not splash', giving plants an occasional thorough soaking rather than little and often. Apply water directly to the soil in the mornings to prevent leaf scorch. For more tips follow the link: watering vegetables.
   
• Continue to make regular sowings of salad crops to see you into the autumn.  Consult our Planting Chart at www.digthis.com to see what vegetables can be planted this month, and stop by one of our stores for our Winter Planting Guide.
   

Newsletter reader, Diane in Victoria, wrote us to say:  "Did you know that you can effectively stop blight in its tracks by putting a small copper wire through the base of the tomato plants?" 

We haven't tried it, but apparently it works.

“For the Love of Africa” Water Garden Tour
Saturday, July 11th, 2009. 10:00 am to 5:30 pm
A self-guided tour of some of Victoria’s finest water gardens. Tickets $20 at all Dig This Market Square, Oak Bay, Broadmead and Sidney.
 

Check out TLC’s 2009 Conservation Holidays. Conservations holidays are a unique way to travel, learn many things and do something meaningful at the same time. www.conservationholidays.ca