For avid home gardeners keen to make an early start on the growing season, March is a busy month. Outdoor seedings are often begun this month, with broad beans, peas, carrots, beets, lettuce and spinach. Calendula, poppies and sweet peas can be seeded outdoors this month.
Indoors, many flower and vegetable seeds can be started. They include petunias, impatiens, cosmos, aster, lavatera, celosia, dahlia, alyssum, lobelia, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. Seed tomatoes indoors after mid-month.
March, while temperatures are still cool and the soil moist, is prime time for planting trees, shrubs, and most perennials, including food plants like rhubarb, blueberries and strawberries. Check out local garden centres also for starter plants of hardy flowers and vegetables like sweet peas, leeks, lettuce cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower.
Consider acquiring a few pansies and primroses to brighten a deck, patio or balcony.
Sign of the times. A recent cluster of emails expressed laments over a popular and highly esteemed seed company becoming out or reach for most home gardeners with an imposition of a $250 minimum charge.
Jean wrote from Port Alberni to “vent” her disappointment after both she and her father had been life-long customers of Stokes Seeds.
Peter, who gardens in North Saanich, had been a Stokes customer for over 45 years. He valued the excellent quality of their seeds. Peter added that the change in customer service at Stokes Seeds was “a sign of the times.”
I could see it coming, from the time the company stopped putting out the usual all-purpose catalogue and produced instead one for growers and another listing only selected varieties for home gardeners. I suppose it was just a matter of time before they targeted large-order customers exclusively.
It’s the way the world turns now, it seems. Big entities expanding into more financially fruitful territory or gobbling up smaller enterprises, often squeezing out local family businesses in an endless pursuit of proliferating profit.
Peter does point out an up-side — that more customers will turn to smaller sources for the seeds they need, which will mean support for local and family-run seed companies specializing in the needs of home gardeners.
GARDEN EVENTS
VHS meeting. The Victoria Horticultural Society will met on Tuesday, March 5, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Garth Homer Centre, 813 Darwin Ave. Jeff de Jong will explore ways to keep our gardens as places of pleasure and beauty amid challenges of a changing climate. The meeting will open with a seed exchange. Non-member drop-in fee $5. More information at vichortsociety.org.
Gordon Head meeting. The Gordon Head Garden Club will meet on Wednesday, March 6, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Gordon Head Lawn Bowling club, 4105 Lambrick Way. Sharon Jack will describe the process of starting seeds, including soil considerations, in “Building Better Plants.” Visitors are welcome at no charge.
Dahlia meeting. The Victoria Dahlia Society will meet on Thursday, March 7, at 7 p.m. in St. Michael’s Church, 4733 West Saanich Rd. Jennifer Hawke will demonstrate how to take dahlia cuttings from your tubers. Guests are welcome.
Orchid show and sale. The Central Vancouver Island Orchid Society is hosting a show and sale on Friday, March 8, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, March 9, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, March 10, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Nanaimo North Town Centre rotunda, 4750 Rutherford Rd. Admission is free. Nanaimo, Vancouver and Victoria orchid societies will be showing their beautiful orchids in this American Orchid Society judged show. Local vendors will be present. Society members will be available to answer questions and offer advice.
Seedy in Tofino. Celebrate the beginning of spring at West Coast Seedy Saturday on March 9, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Wickaninnish Community School Garden, 431 Gibson St. in Tofino. Vendors will offer seeds, seedlings, and plants. The event includes children’s activities and tool sharpening.
Native plants. Dinter Nursery, 2205 Phipps Rd. in Duncan, is offering a workshop on Gardening with Native Plants on Sunday, March 10, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Emony Nicholls will explore the world of these locally adapted, water-thrifty, low-maintenance plants to create a beautiful garden that provides habitat and nourishment for pollinators. Space is limited. Register in person at the nursery or by phone: 250-748-2023. Cost is $10, payable at registration.
