Cory McInnis | Contributed
“Let’s talk about the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees, and the moon up above, and a thing called love” – a song by Jewel Akens has stood the test of time. It just needs to add butterflies to the lyrics and you have the perfect song for gardeners to hum, as they get ready to wake up their gardens for spring.
This month the Sooke Garden Club invites Claudia Copley as the guest speaker.
Copley will describe the various ways you can attract diverse wildlife through landscape choices. With a few simple changes, your garden will be a haven for you, native pollinators, beautiful birds, gorgeous butterflies, and beneficial insects.
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As a biologist and naturalist, Copley spends as much time as possible exploring the natural world.
She’s employed by the Royal B.C. Museum, where she is responsible for the entomology collection, which contains more than 500,000 specimens that are available for researchers from around the world. She is also an avid gardener, particularly vegetable gardening
With a new perennial garden to plan, one of my all time favorites for spring flowering will be the cushion spurge, bright yellow flowers that last and last, bringing bees out of hibernation. Other favorites include forsythia, phlox, coneflower, bee balm, Joe pie weed, sunflower, lavender, alpine aster; the list goes on and on.
February’s meeting is changed to the third Wednesday, so join us Feb. 19, 7 p.m., at the St. Rose of Lima Church on Townsend Road. Annual membership is $15; new members are welcome.
If you’re a seed collector, please check out the Seedy Saturdays on Feb. 15, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Victoria Conference Center, 720 Douglas St. and the Sooke Seedy Saturday on Feb. 29, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Sooke Community Hall, 2037 Shields Rd. Visit our website at sookegardenclub.ca for more information, or email us at sookegc@gmail.com.
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Cory McInnis writes for the Sooke Garden Club. Her email is sookegc@gmail.com.