Like washing the car, sometimes watering the garden will bring rain!

We had a series of thunderstorms last week right after I watered the entire yard and some real rain finally fell in our neighborhood for the first time all summer.  It was enough to keep me from having to water the pots for a few days!  You could smell the relief from all the thirsty plants and animals.

The bad news was that the lightning in the storms started fires near Chelan and other places in the state.

While that certainly isn’t humorous, we had a funny moment here in our garden with some fire.  Leon had been deeply offended by a grass sprout in the front garden that had the nerve to grow big and go to seed where he couldn’t help but notice it from the front window.  He determined the easiest way to rid the world of this vile invader was to light it with a torch.  He didn’t realize just how very dry the yard was.  The grass burned, alright, but so did much of the bearded iris bed that surrounded it and some branches of the rose bush and other nearby plants!  Luckily, with the hose handy, he controlled the flames before any serious harm occurred and he wasn’t arrested for violating the burn ban!

The humorous part to me is that this turned out to be a great way to clear grass out of an iris bed, always a tedious task!  My brother and I laid down a thick layer of bark, not knowing if the iris would survive.  Because these iris never bloom, anyway, it would have been no great loss.  But the beauty of rhizomes is that they are survivors and the iris are up through the bark now and growing great guns!  So, while I don’t recommend a fire during a drought, I will explore this as an option in wetter years with some controlled burning.  My hope is that the fire also cured the rhizomes enough to help them bloom next year–wouldn’t that be crazy?

My favorite impatiens is blooming in the greenhouse right now.  This is Impatiens flanaganae, a rare tuberous variety from Strange Wonderful Things in California.

 

The flowers of this plant feature a brilliant combination of color and form–exotic, graceful and plenty big enough to get noticed.

I haven’t had a lot of time for the garden, but here are a few pics of seedlings:

Here is another picture of the delicate Geranium bohemicum–I like the lighting here.  These small flowers may never put on a huge show, but combined with the lovely foliage, they promise to bring charm to the garden.

Few people would likely grow Kenilworth Ivy from seed, but I love this plant and so I am starting some to plant around in the greenhouse and patio pots.  You can see the effective foliage here and the sweet, expressive little flowers peaking out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brother Tim, Leon and I headed out to the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden today (http://www.kruckeberg.org/).  I’ve lived near Shoreline for 20 years and never really paid attention to this garden before.  My loss, as it turned out to be a real treasure.  We were reminded of the garden because Leon installed a sculpture there this week as part of Shorelines Artscape sculpture exhibit.  His “Night Watchman” is beautifully displayed near the parking area of the garden.

We had a wonderful picnic there first, followed by some quick exploration of the grounds before picking through a bunch of amazing sales plants propagated right there on the property.

Here are some of the plants we ended up buying:

Boykinia major — the nursery had strong starts of these plants, new to me.  Native to the western US, but not Washington.  I bought one for the newly planted Douglas fir bed.

Clematis stans — another new plant to me, this clematis is considered a viney sub-shrub, and best of all its late summer flowers are fragrant.  I purchased a healthy one-gallon start.  It was expensive, but I’m excited for its potential and worth it to have something special to remember the day.

Oxalis oregana — Western wood sorrel is a great ground cover for shade and Leon wanted to try some in the woodland garden to cover some of the bare patches near the western fence.

Begonia sutherlandii — Tim had spotted a large plant of this cheerful begonia and while I was checking through the sale plants, I spotted the last 4″ pot of this beauty, blooming brightly and begging to be taken home.  So, Tim bought it.

We plan to head back to this wonderful garden sometime soon and spend a whole day exploring.  Their inventory of rare and interesting plants is impressive, and the staff are friendly and knowledgeable.