My siblings have had an autumn tradition of wandering through the Washington Park Arboretum to enjoy the fall foliage and late bloomers. Occasionally, and through no fault of our own, seeds from some of the plants there follow us home. Tree peonies are a favorite. These plants are about ten years old from seed. They are growing strong now, but have never bloomed….until this year! The strongest growing one has four flower buds on it. I’m anxious to see what the flowers look like,, since I am unsure of the provenance of the seeds.

Here are photos of the flower buds and the plants.

My 2020 plans for these plants are to feed them well and keep an eye on the bindweed that always wants to smother them. I will get photos of the flowers and drop them here when they open.

I started these seeds from Chilterns in the UK back in 2018 and they grew so slowly, they just went into the memory garden last year. I had forgotten what they were because the leaves seem very different from the Erodiums I had previously met/grown. These leaves are somewhat coarse and rough. But the flowers look like they will more than make up for that.

My 2020 plans for these plants are to keep them fed and watered and watch how they grow in the coming year, their first out in the exposed garden.

Well, the sun is stimulating me, for one. Sadly, I’m trapped indoors with the stay-at-home order, but I wander around on my breaks and on weekends. Below is a gallery of photos from the greenhouse and garden over the last few weeks.

The reality of tulip planting in Seattle for me is that the plants usually only last a year. I have tried many of the tulips that are noted for perennializing and found them only slightly permanent than the other types. I have planted hundreds of tulips over my 25 years on this property and aside from the most recently planted ones, only about five bulbs remain, sad and lonely, spread out all over the yard.

Could Flaming Purissima be different? I planted a row of clumps of these tulips in the fall of 2018 and they provided a wonderful show in the spring of 2019. And as I write this in April of 2020, they are back again in full force and blooming wonderfully well. Lately, I’m attracted to tulips that don’t just feature one color, and those that change color over time–they just seem to give a little more than the single-tone and stagnant colors. Flaming Purissima is a combination of every color between white and carmine, and the flowers look different every day. They open wide and happy when the Seattle sun peaks out, giving us even more to celebrate.

I plan to feed these bulbs a few times in the spring with a general organic fertilizer and bulb food. We’ll see if they continue to impress next year.

I have rarely met a tulip I didn’t like, and I have never met a tulip I like more than this one. Antoinette is phenomenal. The flowers are an ever-changing kaleidoscope of pinks and whites and yellows and carmine. Each flower turns to a different color each day. I purchased these from John Scheepers in 2018 and they put on a huge show last year but only a few of them have returned this year, which is a huge disappointment.

My 2020 plans for these tulips are to feed the ones that returned and to add a few more in the fall for 2021.

Another online purchase with an unknown vendor, I’ve had this vine for at least a dozen years. For the longest time, I didn’t know what it was, but recently I saw it featured online. The stand-out feature of this plant is its aggressive, rampant growth. The social media post I saw recently started as an innocent request for identification and devolved into stern warnings about how this plant has escaped and taken over parts of the world!

I don’t actually directly take care of this plant at all. I honestly have no idea where it is rooted at this point, Yet every year its dangerous tendrils creep to the roof of the greenhouse, clambering over neighbors as they go.

One year, I gave a cutting to brother Tim for his balcony, and with all the heat and sun he gets, the plant actually bloomed. The flowers were not showy, but they had a light pleasant fragrance.

Above is the vine as of 4.10.20.

About twenty years ago, I had a side hustle of doing garden chores for a homeowner in Fremont, the neighbor of a friend of mine who spent a lot of time out of town. One of the plants I tended there was this Bigroot geranium. The house had an entire border of these plants and I had to clean them up and root out the extra starts and a few found their way home with me. I planted a few in the Douglas fir bed and thanks to their generous nature, I’ve been able to add some to the bed next to the driveway and also a few to the memory garden. They make a good groundcover with interest for much of the year, with attractive leaves, pleasant flowers, and bright fall colors before they go dormant late in the year.

The plants spread quickly, but I wouldn’t call them invasive. They are easy to root out and move to another garden or pot up for sales or for friends. They also seed around a bit. I’ve had them pop up in pots near the house, but never in any alarming quantities.

Here are some current photos of the plants in the Douglas fir bed.

My 2020 plans for this plant are to trim back/clear out any extra starts to keep a little control of these in the various beds. I’ll pot up a few for plant sales or to give to neighbors, too.

About ten years ago, at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show (now Festival), I purchased a pot of Freesia laxa from a vendor I don’t remember. I was able to keep the plants alive and blooming for a couple of years. , Eventually, they died out in that pot. But, like a frisky little phoenix, they have risen from myriad other pots in the greenhouse and beyond. It turns out their beautiful seeds jump happily around and sprout and bloom and then seed and die out and so on…

The plants themselves are fine–very iris-y and somewhat floppy in the greenhouse without full sun. The flowers are bright and lovely–a rather noisy scarlet red with some darker markings inside.

After having success the first year, I ordered seeds for the clone “Joan Evans” and grew them to flowering size. Joan Evans was a delicate beauty–gorgeous white flowers with dark markings, but weak growth and none of the rampant reproduction of the straight species.

Freesia laxa seeds looking for a pot to infiltrate.

This might be a mid-range seedling between “Joan Evans” and the species.

I had heard that these bulbs are borderline hardy, so I planted a few outside one year, but they disappeared almost immediately and never came back.

My 2020 plans for Fressia laxa is to enjoy the few plants that have sprung up again in the greenhouse this year and try to give them what they need to produce some nice flowers.

With a common name of “Morning Widow,” I expected my clone of this plant to have dark, depressing flowers. However, whichever clone it is, the flowers are a nice purple shade. The plant is impressively floriferous, too.

I don’t remember where I got this plant. I think I’ve had it about ten years. It is planted amid its cousin, Geranium macrorrhizum, so I don’t even notice it until it soars above the shorter cranes bill with its flower spikes.

My 2020 plans for this plant include trying to grow some seeds I harvested from it last year, and to feed it a bit and enjoy its flowers, and probably take a bunch of photos of it–that seems to be what I do!

Years ago, brother Tim and I were very involved in the Northwest Fuchsia Society. Part of that involvement included working on plant sales and selling our own plants.

One year, member Sally Abella let me loose in her yard with a trowel to gather plants for the annual fundraising plant sale. She had a well-established yard with some very interesting plants, many of which were volunteering around generously. Geranium nodosum was one of those plants. I ended up with a few that didn’t sell, and some other plants, as well, that will get counted later in Plant-A-Day.

This is an elegant plant, with shiny, maple-like leaves and pink flowers that never overwhelm. It seeds around a bit, but in my yard is not invasive. However, I shared it with a friend for a new garden and this plant went berserk!

I don’t have any 2020 plans for these plants, other to enjoy them wherever they volunteer in the garden.