Some of the prettiest things in the garden aren’t plants–these ceramic mushrooms are pretty awesome.  Leon made them all and he continues to add to the grouping.  These are a great solution for this area that hasn’t been easy for growing anything very ornamental.

More toadstools along the fence.

A different view, showing all the different fungi.

The old Hellebore that friends Bonnie and Pam gave us maybe fifteen years ago still blooms reliably.  It is an amazing deep red color.

I take entirely too many pictures of the Masdevallias in the greenhouse, but how can I resist.  Especially welcome this time of year, when dreary days pile one on top of the other, I love stepping in to see these electric wonders.

Close-up.

 

Clivia miniata is a beautiful spring burst of color.  A few of them are early this year, but the rest are just budding now, so I should have flowers February through April.

Holiday cacti are still blooming, too.

 

Mom’s Cymbidium blooming in the greenhouse.

Older flowers on a different plant of Mom’s Cymbidium.  At least four of these plants have bloomed or are blooming in the greenhouse.

The pastel Clivia clone hasn’t opened any new flowers lately.  I watered everything in the greenhouse today.

A different holiday cacti flower.

Slightly different view.

Veltheimia budding up in the greenhouse.

Aloinopsis rubrolineata, grown from seed four or five years ago–getting a flower for the very first time!

Osmanthus in a pot starting to bloom.  The fragrance isn’t out yet, though–maybe all the rain washed the sweet smell away!

I pulled a few pots out of the cold frame of forced bulbs–they are looking pretty yellow, but should green up in the next few days and they should all bloom nicely.

Kalettes have finally formed on this odd plant.  I’m not exactly sure what to do with these!

Close up of the Kalettes.  They are kind of cool…

One of the veggie raised beds.  This one has all the garlic in it, including the elephant garlic I planted last fall.

Species crocus budding up in the Doug fir bed.

A different species tulip in the Doug fir bed–amazing color.

Another crocus bloom with Baltic ivy behind.

 

Group of species crocus in the Doug fir bed.  They weren’t open because the sun wasn’t bright enough.

Hellebore from Plant Delights blooming in the Doug fir bed.

Unfortunately, the flowers face down and the soil has sunk in that garden, so it isn’t easy to look in the flowers.  Maybe on a sunnier day they will open up more.

Stepping back with the camera, you can see that the plant is about two and a half feet wide.

Daphniphyllum seedling looking cold, but alive in the Doug fir bed.  This seedling is at least five years old and was planted out about two years ago.

The Hellebore from brother Tim is just getting flowers near the drain pipe at the front of the house.  This plant is easily two feet across.

Crocus next to the planting bed in the front of the house.

More crocus pics.

Another view.  These beauties weren’t shy today, despite the spotty sunshine.

Stepping back, the bloomiferous crocus against the brick.

I pruned the clematis and the climbing rose on the Jeff Tangen arbor today, and I have the scars to prove it!  This rose is very vigorous and I cut it back pretty viciously to get it to stick closer to the arbor and bloom better.

Tag to record the type of cherry in the right driveway bed–this is Vandalay.

Not a clear picture, but you can make out the many flower buds expanding on Vandalay.

Tag of the Morello cherry in the right driveway bed.

Flower buds on Morello.

Tag for Tangy Green apple.

Tangy Green columnar apple.

Slugs have have been after the primroses in the garden, but a few flowers are still showing.

Flower buds on the Beauty plum in the orchard bed.

Swelling buds on the Glacier cherry in the orchard bed.

Daphne laureola blooming under the Camellia near the north fence.  I rooted out about five or six seedlings from these weedy daphnes, but I do love the fresh leaves and the flowers.  I think they would be great for containers.

Blackberry bud on Apache.

Another shot of crocus flowers.  These were tough to ignore.

Bodhi and Mona were helping me out in the garden by warning me whenever any dog or person (or leaf) moved within their sight.  They got cold, though, and I had to let them in the house after an hour or so.

Close-up of Bodhi.

 

Ready to go inside–and letting me know about it.

Here are the three domes I’m using as terrariums to keep some mini gesneriads happy at work.  The plants are from the Violet Barn.

One of the plants even arrived with a perfect little flower–and it lasted for a month before it fell off this week.  No sign of new flowers, but the plants seem to be doing okay.

Another picture of the little Sinningia blooming under a dome.

There were a lot of great flowers at Sky today when brother Tim and I visited.  Above is an amazing primrose.

Narcissus with a wonderful fragrance.

More narcissus…

Cheery tulips.

Pot after pot of hyacinths.

Sweet violas.

And more…

 

Coming off multiple snowy weeks and wind/rain storms, today dawned bright and warm.  My goal was to get out there and spend a few hours cleaning up the orchard garden–and I made it!  It felt wonderful!

I tackled the shrubs along the fence today–including the tatarian honeysuckle in the corner.  This is the only shrub that I actually pollard.  Because of the aggressive growth, its really the only way to keep it in line.  You can see to the right of it, there are three trunks.  These were suckers from the black locust tree that is haunting that fence.  The tree was cut down over 20 years ago by our neighbor.  It suckered a bit after being removed, but I kept on top of it pretty good for many years.  Somehow, one of the suckers snuck up and reached about 25 feet tall, with a six inch diameter trunk.  I had it cut down last year when the bitter cherry was cut out.  These three suckers were the result–ten to fifteen feet tall each!  I have a love/hate relationship with black locust trees (Robinia pseudoacacia).  I love them in other people’s yards and hate them in mine!  I’m still bleeding from fighting those three suckers–they bite back with stout thorns!  And it is even tougher to cut them down, knowing they will be back!

I pruned the David Austen roses, too, but not much.  Most of them look pretty good–one of them (Ebb Tide) looks a little sickly.  You can see what Ebb Tide looks like here.  It is so beautiful, it is definitely worth babying a bit.  I pruned everything around it so it should get more sun.

The espaliered Asian pear with five cultivars looks pretty good.  Some of the grafts are more vigorous than the others.  I pruned it a bit to eliminate growth that was headed the wrong way.

Here is a Chester blackberry start that I purchased online last year from Raintree Nursery.  It isn’t in a great place for a small plant, but once it gets some growth on it, I think it will do fine here, between the Asian pear and the Santa Rosa plum.

The wallflowers that I grew from seed two years ago didn’t die back at all–they seem very healthy and happy near the plum tree.  I should get good flowers from these this year.

View towards the street.  The large tree in the foreground is a Glacier cherry on Gisela 5 rootstock from Raintree.  The tree is approaching ten feet, which should be its max.  The challenge is keeping the birds away from the cherries.  I planted a few wild cherry trees and two other cultivars last year so that there would be cross pollination.  This tree is supposed to be self fertile, but it only seems to produce ripe cherries every other year so far.  It was planted five years ago.  The other berries, the goumi and the aronia are all in this photo.  Things look pretty clean at this point–just need to wait for warmer weather to fertilize things a bit and enjoy the show of flowers and fruit that will hopefully follow.

Here are two containers of prunings from the orchard bed.  You can also see the trunk-like end of a branch that came down from the Douglas fir tree late last year.

You get more of a sense of the side of the branch that fell into the Doug fir bed.  I didn’t have the energy to saw it up today–will tackle it next weekend.

 

Things have been busy and I haven’t had a chance to update for a while.  I have taken some photos every week and I’ll do a bit of catching up here, however brief.

We’ve had snow several times already this year, and it continues even tonight.  Above, a squirrel enjoys the view from our Jim Heltsley sculpture in the front yard.

More snow pics…

The squirrel enjoying some treats we set out for the crows.

  

The Masdevallia orchids in the greenhouse are setting flowers–not as many as last year, but they seem healthy, nonetheless.

The Persicaria capitata in the greenhouse is blooming better than I ever remember.  I cut it way back in the fall and that has paid off.  The cold doesn’t faze this plant at all.

Cymbidium flowers.

And more of Mom’s Cymbidium flowers.

Holiday cactus flower in the greenhouse.

The giant Huffbauer Cymbidium is setting flowers, too.  I was worried, since the buds weren’t visible when I moved it to the greenhouse.  But here it is with multiple spikes.

A few weeks later, the Masdevallias are opening.  The flowers are an amazing color and a fascinating shape.

Not the clearest photo, but the color and shape are discernible.

I love this photo of a Mas. flower and the leaves of Geranium maderense nearby.

More Mom’s Cymbidium flowers.

The Clivia miniata clones started to spike several weeks ago.

More Clivia buds.

And more Mom’s Cymbidium flowers.

Cardinal tree is still throwing a flower here and there through the winter.

Lot’s of buds coming on the Hellebore from Plant Delights in the Doug Fir bed.

The leaves of the Hellebore hybrid–big and showy.

Our sculptor friend Elaine MacKay passed away in January after a long battle with lung disease.  This is her sculpture on our back patio, complete with its own worry stone.

Another view.

I moved the forced hyacinth bulbs out of the refrigerator and into the windowsill in the kitchen.  This is an unusual color for me–lavender with a soft fragrance.

 

Close-up.

Another view.

  

This is an awesome Clivia hybrid–a pastel with whitish center and pinkish outside.  Some bugs obviously have nibbled it, but you can still see the great color.

Another view.

Another view.

The more classic Clivia flowers–likely to be orange and yellow.

Another view of Cardinal.

Brugs blooming still in the greenhouse, despite the snow.

You can really see the bounty of the Persicaria capitata here–lots and lots of flowers.

More Mas. flower pics.  As bright as these appear, the camera can’t capture the electric nature of this magenta.

And again…

More Mas. buds–love the way they appear like cranes amid the leaves and then open like even more exotic birds.

More holiday cactus flowers.

Inherited from the neighbors when they moved away, this jungle cactus looked anemic all last year, but I fed it with compost tea and pulled it down into a shadier spot.  It seems happier–blooming better than it ever has.