sprig to twig

Stachys ‘Helen Von Styne’ is running rampant and overtaking Eremurus ‘Cleopatra’, and while I like the look, I’m afraid an intervention is called for.

Most of the conifers look like they have been to the salon for a frosting job. The new tips of fresh spring green give them that youthful glow.

The cones were the attraction on Abies Koreana ‘Horstmann’s Silberlocke’, and finally, after planting it in a pot in 2010, the first cones are putting in an appearance.

Huge, stripy grasses are the backbone of several beds here, purchased before I started paying attention to ID beyond Miscanthus.

Same story with a couple of ferns that always have a wonderful, swirling presence in the woodland, but are almost magical now as they unfurl.

I’m thinking they just might be Osmunda regalis or European Royal Fern. Can anyone out there confirm or deny? Thanks, Pam, for the monthly opportunity to salute foliage in our gardens.

I had to lead with this, even though my many attempts yielded no very good image of Disporum cantoniense ‘Night Heron’. This is new, and just a baby being coddled on the deck until the new bed I am working on is ready for it. The flowers are subtle, but well worth the effort of close inspection.

We are right in the middle of Rhody season, bloom-wise. Although our shopping is based on leaf forms, some of them are spectacular in bloom. Rododendron Loderi ‘Saint George’, above, is like a giant bridal bouquet.

The passalong orange geum had little chance to bloom last year because the deer nipped off most of the buds. A preemptive strike with nasty hot spray did the trick and it is going great guns.

‘Fire Charm’ is the latest addition to my Euphorbia collection.

I am glad you couldn’t see the contortions I went through to get this shot of Epimedium x warleyense. Suffice it to say that the entire plant is only a foot high.

This is not a bouquet that will appeal to everyone, but it does to me. It has been fun to watch the Nectaroscorum siculum emerge from its carapace like a butterfly, and let’s zoom in on that Iris…

so that you can appreciate the delicate pale lavender. On my monitor, at least, it is pretty true to the real color.

Finally, I hope you can help me to identify these newcomers that sprinkled themselves beneath some shrubs in the berm on the east side of our house. They almost look like wildflowers, but so far I’ve had no luck in tracking them down.

All of the usual suspects are blooming their little hearts out. It is May, after all. I’ve tried to be selective and show you what is new (to me, at least) or outstanding. Carol has made it her mission to introduce us to bloomers world-wide.

It goes by many names: Arugula, Rocket Salad, Roquette, Eruca sativa, but whatever you want to call it, it perks up salads no end and can even be strewn atop a pizza. We had devoted our half-barrels to chard and kale with great success, but the last couple of years velvety green worms got to them before we could. I thought maybe arugula would be too spicy for them, and I guess I was right. Nothing has interfered with this crop and now it is time to begin harvesting. My latest favorite dressing for these greens and a cubed avocado goes something like this: 6T mayo (Best Foods is best), 3 T rice vinegar, 2T orange juice, crushed garlic to taste. It can be a meal with some freshly toasted cashews strewn on top and some biscuits or cornbread on the side.

Don’t miss Wendy’s recipes that appear each Monday. I have found all sorts of imaginative ways to use the garden’s bounty by following her and the links I find there. Happy Grazing!

When I wrote about Janet’s sale a couple of years ago, I included photos of her garden, so this time around I thought I would take you on a tour of her immediate neighborhood.

Hers is a long-established neighborhood, shaded by many mature trees and landscaped yards. The architecture is varied, but largely camouflaged by flowers and greenery.

Strolling down the street takes one past a variety of styles. This is very close to the look I am aiming for along our entry drive.

Looking back along that same border.

I felt fortunate to be there at this dogwood tree’s peak of perfection.

A typical layout is a streetside border (no sidewalks) through which can be glimpsed an expanse of lawn, with the house beyond.

Once I had made my selections: a claret day lily, two monkshoods, a Syrinchium striatum, a fall aster and a Heliantum maximillianii, there was a lull in the buying frenzy. I had brought Janet a copy of BeBop Garden and we posted an “out to lunch” sign and headed to neighbor Mike Darcy’s place to take him a copy. Do you know about Mike? He has been the voice of gardening at 101 on the FM radio dial for years. Tune in on a Saturday morning at 9 am, and he can carry you through your weekend chores with garden talk, a call-in section if you have a burning question and, for instance, last Saturday’s fascinating interview with Richard Turner, editor emeritus of Pacific Horticulture magazine. Mike has a glorious mature garden which I would have loved to point my camera at, but we were in a rush to get back to the plant sale. Maybe another time. I can tell you that Mike’s newest preoccupation is a hive of bees, which he has discovered holds a fascination for his grandson. I didn’t get to see Nick in his own little beekeeper suit, but I have a mental picture and am told he is reading everything he can get his hands on regarding apiary pursuits. What a great, educational bonding experience.

Having a “native guide” is always an asset. Taking a shortcut back to Janet’s, we were able to take in this view. I will leave you with this image…no word required.

I just rang your virtual bell and left you this fragrant bouquet of lilacs to celebrate May Day. Old fashioned flowers are appropriate for an old fashioned tradition. Pay no attention to the giggling in the virtual bushes.

This old lilac tree came with the property. I have been pruning it, but timidly: trying to let vigorous new shoots replace gnarly, tired branches. The short but heavy snowfall of this past winter used a heavier hand, breaking off large chunks. The tree is liking its new haircut and flowering more generously than ever.

The flowering is powerful, but brief. With several years of trial and error (mostly error) we finally got it right. The last picture shows the right moment to cut some branches for indoor enjoyment: a few of the individual florets have opened, others are still in bud. Cut too early or too late, they will go limp almost immediately. Fill a vase with lukewarm water and crush the ends of the cut branches (this is one of the few times I get to break out the meat tenderizing mallet). An arrangement on the dining room table fills the entire house with its delicious aroma. Same for the one on the front deck. We have been enjoying them for almost a week. I wish that I could waft that scent your way. Instead, I will send you over to Lelo in NoPo for another scented post.

Oh, and Janet’s Plant Sale is this Friday and Saturday 9-3 at 2090 SW Crest Drive in Lake Oswego (97034 if you need to Mapquest). Prices start at $1, and I can vouch for the gardenworthiness of her plants.

On the second day, Hortlandia lost out to Maurice Horn’s presentation. Most Sundays, Joy Creek Nursery offers a seminar. This one held special interest for me, as I have been trying to phase out the need to drag hoses about during the dry summer months.

The canopy protects the audience from rainfall, or, in this case (wonder of wonders), sunshine.

A table plus a cart were loaded with plants to illustrate points being made.

These guys seemingly think of everything: handouts come on individual clipboards, complete with a sharpened pencil for note-taking. I, for one, was scribbling furiously. Maurice has been pressed into service to deal with some staggering planting problems, and he used them to walk us through a process that will end in success under almost any circumstances. The formula, in a nutshell: use a mixture of 1/4″ ten gravel mixed with organic material for planting; mulch with more of the same gravel. Mulching with gravel allows bringing the mulch right up to the plant, where organic mulches will cause rot if there isn’t breathing room. I had been using pea gravel because I like the look, but I am now convinced that the 1/4″ ten is superior in every way. Where pea gravel tends to roll and gets kicked around, this stuff stays put. Just make sure you get the washed kind so that sediment does not rise to the surface and form a crust.

I arrived early to stroll through the display gardens, and even had time to latch on to this Cistus ‘Blanche’.

It is marginally hearty here, so it is going in a pot with Heuchera ‘Caramel’ at its feet. I love those wavy leaves and the coloration of leaf and stem. The blooms will be white, so I can live with those, too.

We dove for the demonstration plants (politely, of course) and I came up with Artemesia versicolor, which has been on my list for some time.

Zauschneria garetti is supposed to form a mat through which early bulbs will grow and then produce red-orange flowers of its own later on. I’ll let you know how that works out.

Continuing my love affair with Eryngiums, this one is borgattii.

Sprawling forms of Ceanothus sound like the perfect ground cover for the evergreen border, so I am giving C. gloriosus ‘Heart’s Desire’ a try.

Everything the least bit fleshy that goes into my dry berm seems to get nibbled. I must figure out a way to protect Sedum ‘Stardust’, because that is the perfect spot for it, and I will cry if it meets the same fate as the poor Opuntia. Any ideas?

The best and most mature of Horn’s dry gardens is the Reed College Hell Strip. To see another of his efforts and get in on the early stages of a demanding project, go to the rest stop on the west side of I-5 near Aurora. Now I must be off to procure me some gravel.

Yesterday was R’s birthday. I asked him what he would like to do, fully expecting a visit to the Portland Art Museum and/or galleries around town. But no, he wanted to take a trip out to Bamboo Garden in North Plains. One of these days, we must take this little drive on a beautiful day…which yesterday surely was not.

But no matter what the weather, coming to this 20 acre bamboo haven just outside Portland, Oregon is a treat.

Here’s a little closer look at that bamboo forest behind the fence that greets you as you drive in.

Of course the fence is fashioned from bamboo canes.

…just the first of many imaginative uses in evidence. This woven piece hanging in the trees is probably close to 25′ long.

Pass through this doorway and you will find more…

like this woven sphere hanging in a greenhouse filled with an assortment of potted bamboo

and even some Tillandsias.

On the warehouse side hangs this pod sculpture woven from bamboo

Just in case you can’t wait for your own bamboo forest to produce the materials you need, that warehouse is chock-a-block piled high with poles of every length and diameter.

Plus a propagation area with tables full of tiny starts just getting underway.

Once we had met our guide and described to her our needs.

we were invited to hop aboard one of the electric carts, and away we went…

past clumps

along mixed borders and through forests

all the way to the bottom of the property, where extensive greenhouses overlook a large pond.

The signage is clear and informative, but hardly necessary because our guide kept up a running commentary, with stops along the way so we could take a closer look at anything that tickled our fancy. We were after timber bamboo, and we wanted something that would spread quickly (we’re no spring chickens, after all). Since we have managed to kill our last two trials, we opted to take home only one tub of the recommended Phyllostachys vivax. We left armed with two care sheets and a lot of verbal support for our efforts. If all goes well, we will definitely be back to give P. atrovaginata a try. Nicknamed “incense bamboo” the canes smell just like lemongrass when chafed.

Sasa veitchii is another that will haunt my dreams until I can get back there and claim a pot of it to introduce as ground cover. Couldn’t have had a better birthday if it had been my own.

I will start with the very, very good:

That would be HPSO (Hardy Plant Society of Oregon). Last week I received the Open Gardens book, 132 pages filled with descriptions and directions for members’ gardens and a schedule of dates when they will be thrown open for us to visit. Lots of new gardens this time, and several must-revisits. All gardens evolve, so going back to favorites is always a new experience. Then, on Sunday, the annual meeting featured Marietta O’Bryne showing slides and talking about the fabulous gardens she and Ernie have developed in Eugene OR. I found myself scribbling furiously in the dark, but the main attraction was Marietta herself, whose infectious personality and love for her subject, “The Vocation is the Garden: Our Life in Our Garden” put us all on a “just friends” basis. We have hosted many famous gardeners (the likes of Christopher Lloyd), but none would outshine the O’Brynes.

See those little glassine packets next to the book? Those represent another great feature of any HPSO event: 50 cent packets of seed gathered from members’ gardens. I picked up Stewartia rostrata, Eryngium agavifolium, Linaria purpurea and a mystery package whose label got lost along the way.

I even picked up some seed-starting set-ups to give them a fighting chance. My success rate with seeds has been spotty, but it is a thrill to add something new to the garden this way.

My usual method is to use little clay pots set on gravel in these long, narrow trays that just fit on the windowsill in my studio. This works just fine for easy starters like zinnias and sunflowers. This year I’m trying out some Love Lies Bleeding and some Bells of Ireland this way. Many of these things are said to do well sown directly in the ground, but I think the birds get them or something, cuz you couldn’t prove it by me. I’ll probably mix up the leftovers (that windowsill fills up fast) and strew them around just to see what happens.

Inside the Botanical Interest packets, it says that a sunny window will not be adequate to get things going, but the zinnias and sunflowers that I started a week ago are beginning to put in an appearance even though sunshine has been in short supply around here.

Now here’s another good thing. We succulent lovers have long bemoaned the paucity of labeling. Most sellers will offer a collection of varied plants referred to en masse merely as “succulents”. The above tiny pot came from Home Depot, fully identified as Aeonium ‘Voodoo’ A.undulatum x arboreum ‘Zwartkop’ followed by instructions for its care. I went to the provider’s web site and found all sorts of info in a clean, attractive, easy to navigate format.

A fallen bird’s nest with smooth pebbles to simulate eggs makes a nice centerpiece for our outdoor table.

I did everything I could to give this Agave neomexicana a home to its liking: raised berm, lots of grit in the soil mix, gravel mulch, planted high, sunniest spot (Loree…did I forget something critical?). Can’t blame the poor thing, with the kind of weather we’ve been having. It looks like there may be some life left in the central, upright part. Should I cut away all those distressed leaves and see if summer will cure what ails it?

See those dried up flower scapes on my Mahonia ‘Arthur Menzies’? Those were plump and promising before the snow and plunging temps hit. The rest of the plant is in prime condition, but I do have bouts of envy when I see photos of the glorious blooms others have experienced. This seems to happen every year. Maybe I should put a sock over the buds next time?

When it isn’t the weather, it’s the wildlife. On the bright side, the deer seem to have singled out this one Italian cypress to nuzzle when they feel the need. They like ‘em young and supple, so I guess if it lives long enough they will leave it alone. When the deer turn their liquid gaze on you, it is hard to deny them anything.

Our Rhododendron sinogrande emerged from winter wraps (perhaps prematurely) looking a lot better than it did last year. I’m still waiting for evidence that we have gained a zone.

We have many Rhodys (R’s passion), some of which are looking glorious,

while others have that rusty look that comes with thrip attacks. I will use a dormant oil spray as directed to see if that fixes this particular problem.

Still others seem to have been nibbled by something bigger than a thrip. Maybe that spray will make them less appetizing.

This one qualifies as an “oops!”, meaning I brought it on myself. I wanted to extend an existing bed, but because of all the gopher activity, I wanted to excavate and line the bottom with wire mesh. I got about halfway there when the rain set in, turning everything into a loblolly. R’s sister and her husband were visiting for the holidays. Kath noted that water was gushing in that area. Sure enough, a water pipe had sprung a leak. What a way to entertain guests: R and John were up to their shoulders digging a trench and repairing the leak. I won’t be able to set this eyesore to rights until the muck dries out. Would you believe that no one laid a guilt trip on me for this misadventure? Guess they knew I could do that all by myself.

Dymaxicon (publisher) is conspiring with Amazon to do a promotional event for my book on Tuesday, January 24 and Wednesday, January 25. During those two days, anyone can download BeBop Garden to kindle or computer for free.

We are hoping that it will help to spread the word and “kindle” interest far and wide. Of course, on Kindle one would be missing the beautiful cover. Any person who leaves a comment on my blog with their email address will receive a downloadable version of the cover that they can then print out for themselves. All of my blogging friends have been super-supportive, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now if you will let your vast readership in on our ‘Limited Time Offer’ (HA HA) you will be helping us to…Bop On!

Now HERE is the link that will take you directly to the Amazon order page.

Here’s what we woke up to on Wednesday morning…about a foot of very wet snow. It broke many tree limbs and bent others (and even some whole trees) to the ground. It also kept me from an event I was very much looking forward to…reading from BeBop Garden for a garden club in Vancouver WA. They were gracious about my wimpy ways and assured me that we could reschedule for a couple of months hence. Enough with the carping. It was really pretty.

Everything covered in white becomes even more dramatic viewed through the line of flags at our front deck’s edge.

Richard took a few pictures with the flash on. I like the effect…very different than the first pictures, taken with the snow setting. Here’s another one:

Unfortunately, we can’t seem to reach a level where these special effects are anything other than accidents. By this afternoon, most of the beauty had dissolved into a bleak, dismal slush. R commented that it was an Edgar Allen Poe sort of day. Hah! Turns out today was EAP’s birthday!