I’m excited that there are some nice flowers showing up in the greenhouse.
First, the Masdevallias have spiked up nicely–I was worried that I would get no flowers at all but with today’s count I’ve confirmed at least twenty flowers!
The Pleione orchids are blooming well, too. I have fifteen total flowers that I can see so far. The bulk of blooms are Pleione formosana. There are a few of the hybrid, darker-colored clone–I think four flowers on that one this year.
These blooms are all in addition to the Clivia spikes that number in the twenties and are set to start opening this weekend. Stay tuned for photos of those as they bloom.
I believe this tree was purchased in 2014 and it is already big and productive. As with most of my fruit trees and brambles, it came from Raintree Nurseries. The tree is glorious in bloom and very fruitful, but we haven’t found a way to squirrel-proof the tree, so we hardly get any of the ripe fruit. The squirrels grab all of them just a few days before they would be truly ripe.
Originally, I had planned to espalier this tree, but it got away from me before I had the chance! It is easily twelve feet tall now and has few lower branches, so I don’t think I could go back and fix the problem I created by letting it grow on its own.
The plum tree is the first tree on the left. This was 2015.
You can see from the photo above how much the tree has grown. It is in full bloom now, March 15, 2020. I’m not sure if enough pollinators are out and we had a pretty cold frost last night.
My plans for this tree in 2020 are to figure out a way to protect the fruit so I actually get to eat some of it! I tried tying on fruit protecting nylon bags last year and secured the bags to the branches, but the squirrels 1) bit into the bags and 2) pulled the fruit loose, but left it hanging in the bags. There isn’t really a way to keep the squirrels from reaching the tree, so the plan has to be to keep them away from the fruit with netting and scaffolding and possibly some explosive devices.
Kerria is a flower from my childhood–I remember a neighbor had the double form of this shrub and it fascinated me growing up. We ended up with one in our yard, as well, and that led to one of my first propagation successes–I pulled out some of the stems with just a few roots and planted them somewhere else–and voila, they grew!
The truth is that in my older years, I find the double form tough to deal with. It is an odd color and the plant has an odd growth habit that makes it a non-starter for me in my garden. However, Kerria’s robust habit was appealing to me when I was looking for plants to put under the Douglas fir tree. I saw an inexpensive start of the single version of the plant and the flower color is calmer and the growth more graceful, so I ordered one from Hirt’s garden about five years ago.
I wouldn’t say the plant is thriving yet, but it is growing and blooming every year.
I checked on this plant yesterday and it has more flower buds than ever coming along. The show is very short-lived, but it is doing its best to find room in that difficult flower bed.
In 2020 I will add a fertilizer spike near this plant and trim it a bit after flowering to help it attain its best shape.
One of the plants whose origins escape me. I suspect it was purchased at a nursery about a dozen years ago. This shrub lives in a pot on the patio. I found early on that it prefers indirect light to full sun. Its flowering levels go up and down from modest to extreme, but it always has some of the lovely white fragrant blooms for me to enjoy in March or April.
For 2020, this shrub needs a reboot. I need to pull it out of the pot, root prune it, add some fertile, fresh potting mix, and put it back. The size is the plant has reached is perfect for moving it around as needed and the pot is light, so I want to keep it the same size for now. One sprightly Corydalis solida lives in the same pot despite all the root competition. It blooms earlier, so this pot provides a couple of months’ interest.
I was working in the garden and greenhouse today to help destress from the pandemic that has landed in our midst.
I know that spring is almost here every year when I take some time to rearrange the greenhouse plants in order that the Clivias and Cymbidiums that are spiking are front and center for my viewing enjoyment. Today was that day for me.
The Cymbidiums are pretty much a complete bust this year from a flowering standpoint. I don’t know what is different or wrong with them, but only one of them has a flower spike and that appears to not be very healthy. The plants themselves seem healthier than they have been in the past, but no flower spikes have come forth. Even the huge orchid from the recently deceased Karl Huffbauer has no spikes–it had four or five last year! I may divest myself of most of the cymbidiums and just keep a couple of them that mean something to me. The others are just a waste of space.
The Clivias are a different story. I counted about 20 spikes this year from 15 or so plants. Many of the spikes are on young plants that haven’t bloomed before, so it will be fun to see what they look like.
I did a little clean up in the garden today. I clipped back the Korean chrysanthemum from brother Tim and each stalk I cut had a living tip, so I took cuttings. I ended up with five pots of three cuttings each–hopefully, some will take and they can go in the garden or pots or maybe be sold off.
Some bulbs in the memory bed are blooming.
I planted some foxglove seedlings from last summer around this area today, as well–they should help fill in after the bulbs fade away. I thought the Cammassias were not coming back, but I saw them poking through the mulch today. I read recently that they have contractile roots that pull the bulbs deeper and deeper over time, so maybe that is why their appearance was delayed.
The plum tree is in full in the orchard bed.
The Hellebore from brother Tim is blooming well.
I see no signs of the Fritillaria raddeana that I loved so much last year, but the Fritillaria imperialis is growing well.
More greenhouse beauty can be seen below–the Pleiones are starting to bloom and a holiday cactus is particularly confused.
My usual taste runs to quiet and calm and simple and elegant, so my love of hybrid hyacinth bulbs makes no sense. They are big and bold and super fragrant. I think they were one of the first bulbs I got to know as a child and one of the first bulbs I ever forced…and they never disappoint. I have been forcing some every year for probably ten years or more. I also added some to the memory garden last year and added more this year, as well. Here are some of the hyacinths that I’ve grown over the years.
Here are some hyacinths in the memory garden this year. I like them in the second year and later when the spikes are less full and more graceful.
For 2020, I have several large pots with forced bulbs this year to bring onto the patio or give as gifts. They are in the cold frame now but the cover is off, as the weather has been pretty warm and I wanted them to get some rain. I guess they aren’t really “forced”–they won’t bloom until after the ones in the garden! But it is so great to be able to move them around the house/garden to bring that fantastic fragrance wherever I can enjoy it.
A newer bulb that was added to the Douglas fir bed in the autumn of 2018, this beauty proved a brilliant surprise when it bloomed last spring. This was purchased from John Scheepers. I’m anxious to see how it fares this year.
My 2020 plans for this plant will be to fertilize it after it blooms and keep an eye on it while I add native plants to that bed to be sure I don’t accidentally destroy it.
Ordered from a catalog at least a dozen years ago, I was very surprised that this plant took to the Douglas fir bed so well and has not only grown but has spread a bit! I planted it really deep and I have fertilized it with organic bulb food every so often. It doesn’t ask for much and the flowers are showy and quite interesting.
For 2020, I’ll tuck a fertilizer spike or two near this plant and then just work to avoid it as I transform its bed with native plants.
I imagine it was brother Tim who introduced me to this plant back when we were both kids. He seemed to always know every plant, at least by common name. I clearly remember seeing this plant growing wild by the Cedar River when my Dad took me fishing there in my early teens. Fragrant flowers stick in your mind that way.
When a plant grows well for you, you end up loving it even more. The Douglas fir bed has turned out to be an ideal spot for these short-lived perennials that self-seed ambitiously. I started with a packet of seeds of the white variety and now I have a wonderful mix of white, light lavender, and deeper lavender.
I especially like these plants under Leon’s Miracle Grow sculpture–they add to the whimsy his sculpture projects.
The plants have seeded into the lawn a bit and now into the memory garden nearby, but they are easy to root out or to move to another spot. They are considered invasive in some areas. 2020 may see their perfect Douglas fir site reinvented as a native plant garden, but it seems likely some dame’s rockets will remain.
Like many plant fanatics, I always try to bring a piece of my vacation home with me upon my return–usually in the form of seeds. This Agave was an ambitious smuggling effort. Leon and I had traveled to the south of Spain and stayed in a wonderful hostel/hotel in Torremolinos. We swam in the beautiful pool there and ate in the restaurant that the hostel owner ran in the evenings. It was a magical few days. I noticed one of the agaves had pups starting around the mother plant, so I popped off a tiny one and slipped it into one of my socks in my suitcase. Not only did I avoid prison, but the offset rooted when I got home and has been growing very slowly ever since. That was about 1997.
I made an attempt to give this plant to some friends who have a house in Lodi where it could grow outside. The plant went down in the trailer with Leon, but somehow there was a mix-up and it never got passed to his cousin and came back in the trailer, as well. It is a well-traveled plant! And obviously wants to stay with me.
My 2020 plans for this plant are to top-dress it with some sandy, fertile soil and move it outside in some very bright sun when the weather warms.
