sprig to twig

I may have been too hasty, last spring, in declaring my newly planted Callistemon ‘Clemson’ dead. I cut it back hard, and it sent up new shoots from the base, but never produced the red bottle brush blossoms I so eagerly anticipated. Look at the above photo. Do you see what I see? I could swear there are signs of life, in the form of swelling nodes. Hands off this time. We’ll see what happens. It really should be hardy, as I have seen healthy specimens in the Reed ‘Hell Strip’. Fingers crossed.

So this is what wishful thinking got me. I will cut all the dead stuff off and hope for the best, but I fear my vision of a massive Phormium tenax anchoring this bed will never be realized. Had I wrapped it snugly against the deep freeze, would the diagnosis be any better, I wonder? The new Yucca ‘Bright Edge’ came through unscathed, so I will be moving in that direction with replacement purchases.

This well-established tree has lost its military bearing. Unlike the dry, lightweight snow that fell in great quantities and lasted over a week in ‘08, doing little damage, our recent snowfall was wet and heavy. I’m hoping this guy will recover with time.

Here is another victim. I must pass both of these sufferers any time I leave the house. It is like having disapproving uncles “tsk tsk”ing at me. How much effort can it be to take broom in hand to relieve them of their burden? I promise to try to become a better caretaker in future.

All of those plants that spruce up the great outdoors all summer long have to go somewhere when the temperatures drop into the teens (or even the twenties and low thirties…I’m just being dramatic). The southeast facing windows will keep them happy until liberation day. This is a little bit like one guest room and five guests: we love ‘em, we want ‘em, but where will we put ‘em?

Every windowsill has been pressed into service.

But these are the spots where seed starting occurs in a couple of months. Oh dear, oh dear! I am developing empathy for the old woman who lived in a shoe.

The larder is nearly full. Those pickles in the upper left corner of the shot are from a friend. A few jars of lemon marmalade are from back when Meyer lemons were in the markets. Everything else came from our yard, or surrounding wild areas (the blackberry jam and syrup). The syrup was meant to be jam, but it never really jelled. The next batch, I added some apples (high in pectin) and it not only jelled too much, but the apples diluted that wonderful wild blackberry flavor. I hate to use packaged pectin because of all the sugar required, so I’ve been reading around. Irma R. in Joy of Cooking says that cooking time makes all the difference, so more experiments with our endless supply of blackberries next year. In the meantime we will endure runny syrup oozing through the holes in our toast and dripping down our chins. For the record: my blackberry pies turned out perfect.

The cutting table became a workshop for a day, as apple/pear sauce with ginger and various preserves got dressed up for the holidays. Forgive me if stating the obvious insults your intelligence, but some of the little tricks took me several seasons to figure out, so I’ll pass them on, just in case. That overturned clay flower pot has a ball of twine inside, with one end coming out through the hole. Makes it oh so easy to pull off the desired length without chasing the ball around the room. If you don’t sew, you may not have scraps of cloth laying around. Most quilting shops or fabric stores have bins of roll ends for sale. I like using a different fabric/twine/label combination for each flavor. When positioning the circle of cloth over the top of the jar, it is difficult to get it centered and gathered evenly, unless you start with a rubber band, make those adjustments, then tie off with decorative twine of choice. I use raffia, garden twine, rikrak, kitchen twine or whatever, and often tie in a dried pod or some other tidbit from the garden along with an identifying tag. It is surprising how many possibilities for tags present themselves in an office supply store…or even that section of a one-stop shopping center.

I’m not too crazy about spending a beautiful day (like when the cherries demand attention) indoors cooking, but now that the rains are here, and Richard is glued to the Duck (University of Oregon) games on Saturdays…what could be better than good music on the stereo (R always makes sure there are speakers in the kitchen, sly devil that he is) and a pot of applesauce burbling away on the stove, scenting the house with its cinnamon-y goodness. Whenever I hear whooping and hollering from the TV room I can get there in time to watch the replay.

Looking pretty good here, where it has, at long last, taken on some fall color. Still, it totally fails to live up to my expectations, and stands as an example of what can happen when one fails to research with Latin names in hand. A sumac in our back yard was a fond childhood memory. It put on a spectacular show each fall, and the fuzzy, antlerish branches were endearing. I found this one at Recycled Gardens for $4 with no ID other than Rhus. As far as I can tell, it must be Rhus trilobata, or ‘Skunkbush’. In other words, it displays all of the drawbacks (suckering, smelly, no fuzz) and little of the charm I sought. Lesson learned? I hope so.

When R promised to build us a greenhouse one day, I knew something like this was beyond the scope of the project.

But this? It’s a little more of a come-down than I was prepared for. But hey…it seems to be doing the job of keeping the last of the tomatoes warm enough to keep ripening. Am I going to get a chance to try out that recipe for fried green tomatoes?

Our fabulous Clematis armandii took a big hit in the legendary storm of ‘08. Rather than enjoying clouds of fragrant blooms, we watched as the foliage slowly faded to the color of the leaf you see on the right. Because it shades us from the afternoon sun on our deck, we left the dead plant in place, planting a new one at the other side of the deck to slowly take its place. Lo and behold! Vigorous new shoots soon came up from the roots of the old plant, and began producing leaves that are twice the size of the originals. That new leaf, on the left, measures 12″. The new growth is so rampant that I go out there daily to hack back more of the dead stuff and make way for the fresh vines…feels a bit like ‘Jack and the Beanstock’.

You may recall, a few posts ago I wrote about the cherry trees in blossom and filled with bees. All of their busy work led to this:

These trees are groaning under the weight of a cherry harvest the likes of which we have never seen. The first couple of years, the robins got every cherry long before ripening could take place. They would bite them off, then attack them on the ground. It was in the third year that we first saw a ripe cherry, and then we almost missed it by waiting for that deep red of a Bing. Duh. We live on Rainier Ave. It might have occurred to us that the ancient cherry trees were remnants of a long ago orchard of Rainiers, but no…it took a friend plucking one from a branch and declaring it delicious for the truth of the situation to dawn. Spring weather here is sketchy, so this is the first year that a stretch of fine weather has coincided with bloom time, allowing the bees to do what it is that they do. The robins couldn’t keep up, and now neither can we. Several branches have broken as a result of the uncommon burden. Everyone showing up here for whatever reason departs bearing a big bowl of cherries. And still they keep coming. Next stop: Sisters of the Road cafe to share the wealth.

I find tulips hard to resist, even though they tend to peter out after a few years. In the past, I’ve potted up a few each year to enjoy on the deck, then moved them out into the landscape to fare as they will. Here, where voles rule, it hasn’t been a pretty sight. Last fall, I decided to give the Kaufmanias a try, since they have been said to not only return year after year, but to increase in numbers. I ordered 50 of the charmingly named ‘Shakespeare’ from my favorite bulb source, John Scheepers, Inc., and decided to put some real effort into giving them a fighting chance.

Step one: lay down a thick mat of newpapers.

Step two: lay wire mesh over the paper.

Step three: cover with soil, arrange the bulbs and secure with a rock border. Pile high with good soil amended with compost and bulb booster. Sit back and anticipate the glorious display, come spring.

Sigh…yes, here it is, spring, and here are the disappointing results of all my work and planning.

To end on a more cheerful note, these ‘Vanilla Cream’ tulips from Breck’s are in their second year, and it would be hard to ask for a more knockout performance. If there is a moral to this story, it might have something to do with “best laid plans”, and what gardener has no story to tell about those?

I keep telling myself it’s too early to know for sure. Still, when I look at my darling Acacia provissima, it surely does resemble a crispy critter. I had only seen small ones on garden tours, and was attracted to the jaggedy leaf patterns similar to the thorns on Rosa taracantha. It surprised me by growing to 12 or so feet in 3 years, making its placement less than ideal.

Last April, it bloomed for the first time, meaning it will have to get a move on to recover in time for an encore.

It weathered the storms of 2007 with some breakage from a heavy load of ice. That’s it on the left, with its long branchlets trailing into the bird bath. Perhaps the effects were cumulative, what with 2 weeks of snow and ice and lower than normal temperatures off and on for a couple of months.

I am trying to remain philosophical, noting that the skeletal remains will create a nice silhouette. I’m contemplating a coat of high-gloss paint in some shocking color…or perhaps something would consent to climb up through the branches (a clematis?). I will be sure to post here if there is a remarkable recovery.