Spring is in full swing here in North Seattle. Thousands of seedlings are popping up in my native nursery pots, and flowers and leaves are springing out in the native garden.

These are just a few of the thousands of seedlings that have popped up from seeds planted last autumn. Some of the seeds were planted the year before. It is tough not to get excited by the germination of the natives after so many months. The seep monkey flowers are probably the most successful germinators. I have potted at least 50 of them in small clumps into 4″ pots…tough to know if they will take or not. They look fragile after transplanting, but my hope is they will “catch” and start to grow in the coming weeks. These are annual plants, and I have high hopes of adding them to the edge of our koi pond as well as slipping some around Twin Ponds and other wet areas in the neighborhood.

Other seedlings include another monkey flower, the scarlet monkey flower, with the tiniest seedlings I think I have ever seen! There are a lot of teeny seedlings that just germinated in the last week. It will be another month before they can be transplanted, maybe longer.

Other seedlings include fringecup, Oregon tough-leaved iris, grass widows, Menzie’s fiddlenecks, Douglas aster, and yarrow. The tree and shrub seeds are slower to germinate. I am still waiting on western crabapple, madrone, cascara, pacific dogwood, blackcap raspberry, and others.

In addition to seed starting, I undertook some vegetative propagation today by uprooting some Douglas aster starts from my biggest clumps. I potted about twenty cuttings into pots and watered them well. If they strike, they should be ready for transplanting or giving away by the middle of May. I was very impressed with Douglas aster as a patio pot plant last year and will share that benefit when I share the cuttings with neighbors and friends.

A special flower appeared in the garden today. These are usually so well-hidden that I miss them. It is the flower of the western wild ginger. I happened to get a few photos this year.

As much as I enjoy propagating these natives and watching them bloom, my new favorite hobby is documenting the “why” of native gardens–the birds and other wildlife that are drawn to my garden. Here are a few birds that are nesting in our yard this year so far:

Several other bird species may be nesting in or near our yard. I have been hearing pine siskins consistently in the Douglas fir tree, which is new. They are usually long gone by now to parts unknown. I hear and see golden-crowned kinglets every day. There is a yellow-rumped warbler that visits the suet feeder every day. It looks scruffy, maybe with avian pox, but it seems to have a good appetite, and its health has improved in the last week or so. There are spotted towhees around the yard every day. They seem to like the messy orchard garden, too. I see and hear black-capped chickadees every day now, too. A pair of Anna’s hummingbirds frequents the north side of the orchard garden. Infrequently, a Townsend’s warbler appears at the feeder. Some house finches were hanging around last week. There are band-tailed pigeons that roost in several trees nearby. We see American robins, Stellar’s jays, glaucus-winged gulls, and northern flickers daily. I am excited that our neighborhood continues to host so many avian species and hope a few more of them raise broods here in our yard.

Seattle’s fall and winter have been mild so far, with no hard frosts yet and stretches of mild, wet weather.

Here are some of the flowers and leaves around the garden in December.

We are in mid-November and have not experienced a frost yet, though the weather has gotten cold and wet. Many leaves have dropped and some tender annuals have turned to mush. But other plants are toughing it out and some continue to bloom despite the gloom.

My bulb order landed from John Scheepers this week. I divided them up to share with friends/family. The rest I planted myself, including tulips, lilies, narcissus, scilla, camas, and corydalis. I planted some reticulated iris, scilla, and narcissus in pots to force in the winter if the cold and rats do not get them. There are some alliums, tulips, and narcissus that I will plant in large pots tomorrow. It always seems like a huge number of bulbs and a big job to plant them, but when you bunch them together in groups of seven, which I do, they do not take long to plant and they do not cover the amount of ground you might think! It was easy digging in the moist soil today and tomorrow’s rain will welcome them into prodigious root growth in their new home. Looking forward to the first iris pot being forced in January and hundreds of beautiful blooms following through August when I expect the lilies will bloom.

The 2024 garden year has been an interesting one. As always, I started with grand designs and maintained my momentum better than usual this year. It was not perfect, of course, but there were some great successes and important lessons.

I had two main areas of focus this year with my seed-starting efforts. First, I wanted lots of flowering plants for containers to provide a long season of bloom. Second, I wanted some backup plants to poke into the memory garden when the perennials there faded.

The following seed starting was very successful: violas, cosmos, nicotiana, impatiens, rudbeckia, china asters, and black-eyed Susan vines. I also had a lot of success with parsley, thyme, oregano, and marjoram. Nasturtium seeds were planted directly in most of the pots in the driveway, as well. Geraniums were grown from cuttings last fall and in early spring.

Lessons:

• Repeat the violas, cosmos, and nicotianas, but time the seed starting and transplanting a bit better.
• Repeat the impatiens but pick a color mix with fewer loud oranges and reds–obnoxious!
• Repeat the rudbeckias but time the seed starting and transplanting better–keep up with their growth (fast!)
• Repeat the china asters, but keep them in smaller pots longer before putting them out into larger containers–they did not fare well on their own
• Repeat the black-eyed Susan vines, but pick the reddish or white cultivars
• Repeat geranium cuttings but focus most on Petals, the variegated one that looks good all year.

My biggest successes in the patio pots along the driveway were not propagated from seed–they were the Douglas asters I started from cuttings back in the spring. It turns out they are fantastic in pots!

These cutting-grown starts have been blooming for a month and look to have another month or more to go. Native pollinators love them!

Here are some other plants blooming around the garden this week.

We spent some time east of the Cascades over Labor Day and stopped in Omak at a plant shop (a “grow” shop is possibly more accurate, as their focus seemed to be 90% on cannabis). I looked around at the sad houseplant display and found two near-dead streptocarpus and a tiny hoya that I adopted.

Here they are after a brief resuscitation:

The last new item in the house is a pot full of seeds that I found in my backpack that had to be washed after an exploding kiwi incident. Here is the pot. Not exciting now, but full of promise and mystery!

The May garden was so boisterous and that exuberance is extending into June thanks to cool, wettish weather.

I took the macro lens out and got some great photos today. It is so amazing to get close up with that lens. You see aphids and spiders and all the intricacy of the flower parts.

May is always the busiest month for flowers in the garden. As the tulips wane, the perennials burst on the scene. Below is just a sampling of blooms from the greenhouse and garden.

Here are some flower photos from around the greenhouse and garden. The spring rush is on!

The number of clivia flower spikes in the greenhouse is pretty low this year, but some of the spikes themselves are immense. The classic “Miss Clivia” passed from my brother many years ago has especially large umbels this year.

Fantastic weather and a mostly clear schedule helped me find my way deep into the garden today. It seemed like the perfect time to propagate some perennials. Specifically, the phlox and the catmint seemed primed for softwood cuttings. I took about 24 cuttings of each. I hope I got the timing right.

Tulips seem to be blooming early this year. Every year they surprise me with their beauty.

There are a lot of gorgeous things that caught my eye today.

I was not alone in the garden today–I had the best assistant ever, Rafa the wonder dog.

The weather was perfect this weekend for some Saturday kayaking and some Sunday gardening. I sorted through the 60+ clivia plants and pulled those with spikes into the display area. Only thirteen spikes were found. There are bound to be a few more as the season warms.

One clivia was already blooming–this interspecific hybrid.

A few other plants have February blooms in the greenhouse, including the orchid we call Mom’s Cymbidium that we’ve had in the family for over thirty years now.

And this sad holiday cactus with just one flower open.

I set up a heat tray and lights. I planted a bunch of seeds, including the following:

Petunia “Lavender Sky Blue”

Viola “Johnny Jump Up”

Thunbergia “Black-Eyed Susan”

Petunia “Easy Wave Burgundy Star”

Impatiens “Accent Star Mix”

Viola “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”

Aster “Single Rainbow Mix”

Coleus “Coral Candy”

Viola “Sorbet Mix”

Petunia “Tidal Wave Silver”

Petunia “Purple Wave”

Petunia “White Easy Wave”

Alpine Strawberry “Alexandria”

Alpine Strawberry “Yellow”

Red Shiso

Nicotiana “Sensation Mix”

Petunia “Lavender Sky Blue”

Petunia “Lavendar Sky Blue”

Cosmos “Psyche Mix”

We are in for some cold weather, but with the thermostat set at 45 degrees and the heat mat raising the soil temperature even more, I think most of these seeds should germinate and grow in the next two weeks. Most are destined for patio pots and to fill in blanks in the memory garden.

As I get older, I feel winter’s negative drain more intensely and notice spring’s positive push. This weekend, there was no denying spring is coming. The Pacific wren in our yard has been singing incessantly his beautiful, somewhat desperate song. And the native plant seeds have started to pop up in the pots outside. My mood is lifting a little more every day.