Walt’s Visit and Summer is coming to a close

Brother Tim and I went to Walt’s Organic Fertilizer yesterday. It is a charming little nursery in North Seattle.

I bought a few things, including a gorgeous Alstroemeria–a dwarf with near-white flowers with

I love that this has just a few spots in the middle, unlike the usual spotty versions.

I got this Lewisia “Little Mango” to grow in the greenhouse. I love Lewisias, but I haven’t grown one in a while.

I also got this twinflower for the Doug fir bed. I’ve seen these growing near the cabin in dry shade…so maybe it will survive. Here is what it might look like one day:

These are such amazing wildflowers–I hope the little guy survives.

I also got lettuce seeds to start in one of the raised beds. Here are the three varieties I chose:

This variety is Lolla Rossa.

This variety is Tango.

And here is Oak Leaf.

I cleaned out the bed that I had already cleaned out a few weeks ago–there were about two thousand calendula and borage seedlings already up and growing in there. I rooted them out by hand and added potting soil on top to plant the lettuce seeds in. If they get a quick, healthy start, they might just stay ahead of the NEXT crop of calendulas and borages that will inevitably push up in the next week or so. I did water the bed with the sprinkler, and the other raised beds and Doug fir bed, too. Things were extremely dry out there.

Here are some pictures of what’s happening in the garden as summer transitions to autumn. I had high hopes that we’d get enough rain this week to matter, but I was deeply disappointed! It rained overnight on Friday–just enough to perk up some of the potted plants that weren’t under the eaves. The veggie beds under the Douglas fir tree didn’t even get wet. That tree absorbs so much water that it has to really pour for any to slip through all the branches to the gardens underneath.

There is a precocious Daphne laureola that popped up in the Douglas fir bed. You can see the flower buds for early next spring forming at the tips of the branches. I have a soft spot for these shrubs, though they are invasive. I should remove it, but I know I won’t.

As the flowers wane, the foliage starts to shine. Here is the Aucuba japonica in the Doug fir bed, looking better than the Aruncus that died early in front of it.

I plan to do some digging to identify this tree soon. You can really see the red petioles here. From a seed off a tree outside the Arboretum gift shop (that tree has since died and been removed), these two seedlings are getting some serious growth on them now. I need to prune them back to keep them from shading the orchard.

Here is a shot of one of the leaves–should help me ID it.

Ceratostigma plumbaginoides blooming on the side of the orchard garden.

Close-up of the flowers–actually a better blue than the tropical plumbago.

These amazing huge berries are on Prime Ark…very delicious, too!

A few more berries coming on in the summer batch.

More flowers (and berries) coming on–not sure if they’ll make it before frost, but I admire their spirit!

More blackberry flowers.

The beauty and symmetry of mullein flowers gets missed because they appear in spires, but they are amazing. The crinkled lower petal really shows in this picture.

Here is the spire.

Serious gardeners would burn me at the stake for even showing this combination, but I think it actually is quite stunning. The tall spires are dock seeds, with aster flowers and raspberry leaves.

I seem to have two types of aster. One is shorter–I think brother Tim gave it me from Bette Higgins. The other is taller–maybe also from brother Tim through his friend Merla.

The white hardy geranium that I started from seed this spring is still blooming in the pot Leon stuck it in. It has an interesting flower pattern–the stems just keep elongating and sending out more blossoms, though they are a bit smaller and spaced farther apart than the first blooms.

Another great foliage plant that really looks great this month–Lamium maculatum.

The fragrant arboretum rose is getting a bit of a second wind–and the clematis on the same arbor has a few straggler flowers, too.

Dahlias are the stars of the flower show right now…not super prolific, but enough of them and a great variety of bloom types.

The alignment of the petals on this particular cultivar are almost impossibly intricate.

I cut most of the rose hips off when I pruned this arboretum rose, but a few still snuck through. They are brilliant, shiny red.

Another dahlia showing off…

Another dahlia…

Another view.

I cut back the seed heads on this Dianthus expecting an explosion of bloom. I got two. But in September, that’s a treasure!

Seeds from the voodoo lily–spectacular color.

Hesperis seed pods split open and look kind of crazy…I keep meaning to cut them back, but instead I’ve grown fond of them.

Feverfew snapping back from the summer heat and blooming its fool head off.

Here are the asters that I added to the Doug fir bed last summer. They aren’t covered with flowers, but there are lots of buds and it looks like they might last for several months.

Brother Tim pointed out the seed pods on this Acanthus. They are bright green against the tan bracts. There are spines protecting the seed pods, too.

The ripe pods are a burnished brown–they look a little like acorns.

Garlic chives in one of the raised beds, an offset from brother Tim that is blooming especially well this year. They make great cut-flowers, too.

Another dahlia…

And another…

I’m not sure why most of the cane begonias died out, but this is the last of them. The leaves look pretty good, but it isn’t as robust as most of the starts I had before.

Some of my potted seedlings are showing autumn color.

Some more maples showing color.

The showiest of all–Acer davidii…

Close up of davidii leaf

Great gesneriad flower…

Streptocarpus blooming in the greenhouse…

Nasturtium blooming in the greenhouse.

Geranium maderense very happy that it got repotted a month ago. I might get flowers next year, though it is still puny compared to pictures I’ve seen online, where the flowering plants reach four feet tall.