Today is a special day for gardens and gardening across Canada as it is the start of the annual national three-day Garden Days event.
The event has been organized by the Canadian Garden Council, with the support of the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association and various other gardening groups across Canada.
What it all comes down to is that this weekend you are encouraged to spend time in the garden with family and friends or visit one of our excellent public gardens (you’d be surprised how many people have yet to step inside VanDusen Botanical Garden) or pop down to the local garden centre, pick up a few beautiful plants and have a go at growing a little garden of your own.
This Sunday also happens to be Father’s Day.
Basket of Fire peppers
To connect the two events, Ed Leong, of Leong’s Nursery in Burnaby, has grown a few crops of specialty food plants specifically as gifts for Dads who love to barbecue.
“What are you going to give Dad for Father’s Day? Well, most people perhaps think of tools, beer or hockey tickets, but fathers who like to barbecue also love to have nice food plants right next to the barbecue,” says Leong.
Patio Snacker cucumbers
“It’s sort of a bragging right to have a plant right there that produces food you have grown yourself. I know dads love it.
“Many people stay home and cook in their backyard during the summer months. They don’t go out. So a food plant would be ideal.”
Leong has grown three top-performance plants for Dads: Patio Baby eggplant, Patio Snacker cucumber, and Basket of Fire pepper.
“They’re all big producers,” says Leong. “The key is they have to deliver, they must produce, if we are to keep Dad happy.”
Ed Leong says barbecuing fathers will love his food plants
Thousands of these plants have been grown to perfection in Leong’s greenhouses and will be on sale this weekend for less than $20 at IGA and Choices stores.
To ensure success, Leong has packed pots with more than one plant, creating an impressive bush appearance, even as plants arrive in stores.
The Basket of Fire plant produces dozens of small red and yellow peppers.
But don’t be fooled by their diminutive size — these peppers pack a powerful punch, ranking only second on the hot scale to Bhut Jolokia Red, and being twice as hot as most other garden peppers.
Nitobe Memorial Garden
The Patio Snacker cucumber plants are not only famous for prolific yields, but also for producing sleek, compact, crunchy, snack-size, dark-skinned cukes that have no bitterness.
Patio Baby eggplant is an All-American winner that produces a generous yield of baby-size eggplants over a long period.
Contests are also a big part of this year’s Garden Days.
Century Garden, Burnaby
In B.C., you can win a prize from Gardens B.C. by answering the following question: How has a garden made your life better?
On Twitter, go to @Garden_BC and give your succinct 140-word answer including #GardendDaysCanada.
The deadline is 11:59 p.m., June 19. Full details can be found at www.gardensbc.com. The winner will be announced on Twitter on June 20.
Century Garden, Burnaby
The prize is two adult admissions to all the top B.C. gardens, including VanDusen, Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden, UBC Botanical Garden, Tofino Botanical Garden, Milner Gardens and Woodland, Gardens at Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, Butchart Gardens, and Victoria Butterfly Gardens.
The prize also includes transportation from downtown Victoria to Butchart, plus a $100 gift card from Minter Country Garden.
Garden Days is also running a national prize draw on its website at www.gardendays.ca with the chance to win one of eight prizes: a $500 travel voucher on VIA Rail; a $350 17-piece set of garden tools from Garant; a $300 credit from Garden Décor; and one of five gift packages from Scotts Miracle-Gro.
Contest closes at 11 pm on Sunday. The winner will be announced on June 27.
For a full list of Garden Days activities across the country go to the official website at www.gardendays.ca.
My suggestion for Garden Days is that you take time this weekend to discover one of the lovely public gardens in the Lower Mainland.
If the weather co-operates, you can find the perfect spot for a picnic. But I am sure it will be just fun being with friends or family, walking together in a gorgeous garden.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen Garden
The Dr. Sun Yat-sen Chinese Garden in downtown Vancouver is wonderful anytime — especially when it is raining — and the Nitobe Japanese Memorial Garden at UBC is fun because it is a story-garden with amusing life lessons: Take the right path and life is calm and effortless. Take the wrong path and you end up hiking over rough ground or coming to a dead end. But whatever path you take, it all works out in the end, and your walk is always beautiful and pleasant.
The Century Garden at Deer Lake is another of my favourites, a gorgeous little garden next to Burnaby Art Gallery.
It has picturesque views over Deer Lake. Walk the garden, walk the lake boardwalk. You’ll feel like you’re in a Jane Austen story. It’s really like a little piece of English countryside with deciduous woodlands and serene lake views.
In Vancouver, the 2.4-hectare Ted and Mary Greig Garden in Stanley Park is always well worth discovering. It encircles the pitch and putt golf course off Lagoon Drive next to Vancouver Park Board headquarters and contains a first-class assortment of trees, shrubs and perennials.
But perhaps the best way to participate in Garden Days this weekend is to do some gardening.
It’s not as much work as you perhaps think, and the rewards are significant. Just ask you gardening pals.
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