After our friend Armando passed away in early 2017, I wanted to channel my grief into something meaningful. I imagined a memory garden planted in the parking strip on the south side of our property. I pictured a cottage-type garden crowded with blooming plants and attracting pollinators, especially bees and butterflies.

In the spring and summer of 2017, I planted perennial seeds to grow a volume of plants to set out in the spring of 2018.

In the autumn of 2017, we had a large load of bark delivered. We laid down various weed barriers and then piled about 8″ to 10″ of bark on top of that to kill all the weeds and grass.

HERE is a video showing where all the bark ended up.

I needed to be absolutely sure the grass was dead, so we left the deep bark on all fall/winter of 2017/2018. Mistakenly, I thought the best place to keep the perennial seedlings would be in nursery beds outside, so I planted many of them in the raised vegetable beds.

HERE is a video showing all the little seedlings tucked into their veggie bed winter home.

When I went to dig up the seedlings that were wintered over in the veggie beds, many of them had disappeared. There were still enough to plant about 1/3 of the parking strip, which I got done in spring. The seedlings included columbine, campion, catmint, lupine, licorice mint, coreopsis, oriental poppy, verbena, echinacea, dianthus, and more. I had purchased tiny starts of asters and sedums, as well, and those were planted out in spring. The other purchased plants included peonies, calceolaria, hardy geraniums, and blue-eyed grass. I started planting in March.

We left the bark and covers in place through the fall and winter. Leon helped me with some hardscaping–we put in a little patio for the garbage, recycle and yard waste cans.

By May, the garden looked like THIS and THIS already!

I kept planting seedlings and purchased plants through early summer to get the garden about 1/2 completed. Additions included more campions, columbines, peonies, asters, Santa Barbara daisies, dianthus and a wild rose I grew from seed. Further additions were put off until fall.

HERE is what the garden looked like by September 8th.

In the fall, I planted most of the other perennial seedlings and some other purchased plants, including daylilies, kniphofia, gluacium, asters, thyme, oregano, veronica, rose, abelia, lysimachia and more. I also purchased some tulips, hyacinths, camassias, and corydalis bulbs for the eastern end of the bed.

I’ll just post more photos and videos here showing how the garden has progressed since last fall.

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I’m out of school finally and realizing just how much I’ve neglected everything else for 3+ years! The garden is no exception. Luckly, I spent enough time on maintenance to keep it going, but if I had neglected the yard another three months, I’m not sure whether it could have been saved.

The plum tree and two apple trees in the orchard garden are full of fruit. I was late in protecting them but took the time this week to put little nylon bags over about 50 plums and 50 apples. I tied the bags that went over the plums to the branches they are attached to in the hopes that squirrels, who’ve stolen every last plum the last two years, won’t be able to make off with my juicy treasures this year.

If I am able to eat a ripe plum from this tree, it will be my first one ever!

This gorgeous daylily opened today in the driveway bed.

I spent most of the day yesterday cleaning up the orchard garden. I pruned the sweet cherry, pruned roses, tied things up and back out of the pathways. There is more to do, like ripping out all the bindweed and thinning out the raspberries, but at least I can get to all the plants now! The timing worked perfectly for me to harvest some tayberries that were ripe and the very first black raspberry. Some blueberries are ripening on two bushes, as well–they weren’t quite ready to eat.

Some disappointments in that garden that will require some extra thought/work:

1. Pear rust on some cultivars of the grafted Asian pear tree–I need to research and mitigate. This tree isn’t getting enough sun, so it isn’t producing well/at all. I may need to move it.
2. The sweet cherry set quite a few fruits, but then dropped them all. I can’t tell if this has to do with pollination, lack of water, or what?
3. The camellia along the fenceline has overgrown its space by about four times. I need to prune it back to make room for all the things nearby and underneath it, including blackberries and the tree peony.

Leon and I both tackled the front of that garden, as well, that abuts the street. The snow back in winter had bent a few shrubs. Things were simply overgrown, too, having not been pruned in over a year. The toughest customer was a “broom” plant (Cytisus), a hybrid volunteer seedling from a crop I had grown 20 years ago. This one was ten feet tall and had bent over into the street. I took the pruning saw to it, but the wood was extremely hard. It took a lot more time than I imagined, and then I had to cut the severed branches further into four-foot lengths so the yard waste folks will pick them up.

The memory garden continues to shine–it has been attractive features since April and looked especially good mid-June.

This is Kniphofia thompsonii, which is an intersting contrast to the more cushiony plants that predominate in the memory garden.

The Acanthus spinosus in the Douglas fir bed is blooming big-time right now. It has impressive, architectural leaves and the blooms are great, too.

Close up of the scape showing the veined bracts and spines. I am hoping to get seeds this year, but last time it bloomed there weren’t any…

Not in the garden, but noteworthy nonetheless. These live in my office at work. I purchased some seeds off of eBay for Sinningias. I wasn’t too hopeful that the dustlike seeds would make it. I made little greenhouses out of Solo cups, with a decent hole in the top so that they breathe. Three miniscule seedlings came up and grew really quickly after they got going. These are ready to transplant, but it looks like there are fern prothallium in the cups, as well, so I am trying to wait until the ferns get leaves–I’m really curious what kind of ferns they are. The sinningias look a lot like “Gloxinia,” which is Sinningia speciosa. When I was a kid, I always wanted to grow one, so it is fantastic to have the chance now.

No time to write much, but wanted to download some photos to caption at some later date.

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Posting photos from the garden today–will hope to add captions when time permits.

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I’m just posting a bunch of pictures tonight–will try to catch up with captions later.

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There are so many things happening in the garden and greenhouse, it is impossible to keep up! My mission this spring was to plant all of the old seeds I already owned, and I’ve pretty much done that. There are trays in the coldframe, the greenhouse and some starter cups in the guest room window on heat. I love how fast some of the seeds come up, like the marigolds–they were up in 3 days! There are some palm trees coming up from the seeds that followed me home from Oahu, too.

Below are highlights of the garden and greenhouse.

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Here are some of my favorite photos from this week–two of the Coryidalis solida that shares a pot with an Osmanthus shrub, and one of a Sedum on a fence sculpture.

I’ve started a potted garden in my office at TeamChild. I get a lot of indirect light, as it is a northern exposure. So far, the gesneriads that I’ve added are doing the best, including the following two and a Primulina that is starting to bud up just now that I didn’t photograph.

The greenhouse plants slowed down during the cold spell, too, and I lost some of the seedlings I had just moved out there before the one 16 degree night–all of the Hardenbergias disappeared. But the Hakea seedlings in the same tray are growing strong, so they must be hardier.

I transplanted the two kinds of Acacia two weeks ago. They appear to be doing really well.

Last year at this time the Clivia miniata hybrids were mostly in full bloom. They are lagging a bit behind this year, but the very first flower opened this week.

One of my weaknesses as a greenhouse gardener has been jungle cacti. I can barely keep them alive and they never (until now) bloom well for me. The surprise bloomer was left behind by some neighbors who moved away and just placed it in our yard. Here is a series of photos–I love the shape of the flowers.

But wait–there’s more. The orchids are putting on quite a show, as well. The Masdevallias are not blooming as much as they usually do, but they have a few flowers so far and will probably have more as things warm up.

It is the Cymbidium that has impressed me the most. This plant came as a division from Leon’s friend Karl Huffbauer and it always blooms, but usually the flowers get aphids and dark spots and there might be one or two good ones. This year, the spikes are huge/long and there are four of them–and most every flower is perfect.

My last greenhouse plant is a mystery. It came up in a pot of other seedlings and appears to be a Geranium, but not one that I’ve grown before. It isn’t super showy, but I like the foliage and the flowers are delicate and pretty.

I’ve always wanted to try grafting. My family has grafting skills going way back–I had aunts and cousins who used to graft orchards over near Yakima back in the day.

Since my cherry trees don’t produce well, I thought I could graft branches from new varieties onto the established trees so they can cross pollinate more easily. Also, there are two types of wild cherry in the garden here, so I wanted to see if they would support sweet cherry grafts. And lastly, I read that plum trees will accept sweet cherry grafts, so I wanted to try that.

Here is another motivating factor. I heard David the Good speak on the Epic Gardening podcast and I love his attitude. He has a “why not try it–what have you got to lose? attitude that really convinced me to attempt grafting. HERE is his video.

I took some scions off my Stella cherry and my Vandalay cherry, and I ordered Rainier scions from eBay. I also got a cheap grafting kit with a knife and grafting tape. I stored the scions in the fridge and when the weather seemed right I took the plunge. I grafted two Stella scions onto the Vandalay tree, two Vandalay scions and two Rainier scions onto the Stella tree, a Stella scion and two Vandalay scions onto the wild or possibly black cherry seedling near the driveway, one Stella scion onto the bitter cherry in the driveway bed, and one two Stella scions and one Rainier scion on the Beauty plum tree. Here is what a few of them look like:

And here is the full Beauty plum tree, in full bloom as of today. I haven’t figured out how to keep squirrels out of that tree, but I’m going to make every effort this year because I really love plums!

The plants probably feel like spring has been a long time coming, especially since we had snow on the ground and a severe cold snap just over a month ago. But for me it seems like everything is happening too fast! Below are some highlights from the garden today.

I spent some time today putting organic fertilizer around all the plants in Armando’s garden. There are some nice flowers already from the bulbs, but there are a lot of wide open spaces, too, where no plants are showing yet. Things are running a bit late after our cold snap, so I’m hopeful that there are more to come!

Some good news is that the peonies are coming up pretty strongly. They won’t bloom this year, but I think if I feed and coddle them a bit, maybe next year. Also, Kniphofia thompsonii is coming up, as well, though it looks a bit bedraggled.

The western side of the Armando garden has filled in a bit more than the east side, which I planted later. I’m happy that the Chaenorhinum survived just fine, and the lupines are coming up really strong, as well.

I am becoming a big fan of Fritillaria bulbs. The Crown Imperial bulb I’ve had for about six years now has two flowering stalks coming and a third offset that will be blooming size next year. The new Fritillaria raddeana bulb that I added last fall is blooming and is exquisite. So, forgive the many photos–I have never seen this plant in bloom before.

Somehow the Hellebores popped up and bloomed without telling me. But I found them today and got some photos. We have four of them in the yard, but only three of them bloomed well this year–the maroon one in the woodland garden is pretty weak.