I woke up to a spring-like day today, despite the fact that winter hasn’t actually started yet!  Now is the perfect time for shopping, for planning, and for ordering things online!

To combat the seed hoarder in me, I’m not allowing myself to order any more ornamental plant seeds until I plant each and every seed that I already have.  Today I inventoried those seeds and I have 85 different kinds that have either not been sown at all, or that were plentiful enough that I had lots of extras!

Here are a few of the more interesting seeds I have that I’ll plant for 2016, along with links to photos of them:

Ligularia dentata “Dark Beauty”           Gladiolus carinatus

Eupatorium “Blue Mist Flower”              Watsonia knysnana

Hesperantha vaginata                        Sparaxis grandiflora v Grandiflora

Dierama latifolia                                              Lapeirousia fabricii

Gladiolus splendens                                             Babiana patula

Kniphofia multiflora                                    Massonia depressa

Freesia laxa Blue                                                  Rogeria adenophylla

Dorotheanthus bellidiformis                           Tritoniopsis pulchella

Chasmanthe floribunda Duckenii                        Tritonia crispa

Cortus matthioli                                                         Lapeirousia jacquinii

Dietes bicolor                                                            Cyrtanthus epiphyticus

Carmichaelia sp.  “Ribbon Tree”                         Amoreuxia wrightii

Lithops optica Rubra                                                    Gasteria liliputana

Talinum caffrum                                                                Rebutia minuscula

Senecio macrocephalus                                                   Onixotis stricta

Phaenocoma prolifera                                                   Frithia pulchra

Marlothistella stenophylla                                     Cheiridopsis pillansii

Hesperantha schizostylis                                            Solaria brevicoalita

Ideally, with seeds, they should be planted right away.  But even if only a small percentage of these older seeds germinate, I’ll have plenty of new treasures for the greenhouse and around!

Speaking of greenhouse, here are some pics from there from today:

The first open Cymbidium flowers–this is the dwarf orchid that brother Tim passed to me that we just call Mom’s.

Another flower, part way opened.

The Masdevallias are off to the races with flowers–completely off season.  I’m not sure what I did right or wrong this year, but usually these are March/April bloomers!

Other plants that are off season include this potted Hyacinth, sitting on the shelves outside the greenhouse.  This and another blue one are both blooming now in the fall, when normally they would bloom in April.

I was very surprised to see flowers on this Prime-Ark Blackberry here towards the end of December!  I’m not expecting berries, but it is funny to see this apparently very hardy plant blooming so close to Christmas!

Here are some other garden highlights:

This Canary Island Ivy is a show-stopper in winter.  Another excellent plant from brother Tim, this large vine lives in the Doug fir bed and is much less thuggish than the English ivy that shares that bed.

Each leaf is different and lovely.

Below is the Calanthe orchid that I planted out this year after several years in the greenhouse where it did not bloom.  This interesting plant is in the Doug fir bed and doesn’t seem phased at all so far by the cold.

In the Asian Pear bed, the Beladonna lilies have fresh leaves popping up.  I’ve yet to get flowers from these bulbs, but they live on year after year.  I’m not positive if the problem is exposure, depth or what, but they just haven’t bloomed yet.

The Camellia near the orchard bed is budding up nicely–should have lots of huge pink flowers in a few months.

Here is the Hakone grass in winter–it becomes an attractive tan color and maintains its graceful habit until the weather tatters it to pieces.

Close up showing the seed stems mixed with the leaf blades.

This week has had some cold days (mid-40s) and even colder nights (high 20s).  I wandered around to see what might dare to bloom in this cold and snapped these pictures:

Here is the thug hardy geranium that I mostly rooted out this year.  I’ll need to tackle them again in late winter to really finish the job.  For now, this volunteer in one of the raised veggie beds is a brave delight.

Here is a close up of the geranium’s flower.

I grew the white version of borage several years ago.  Few of them remain, but this one popped up and is courageously blooming despite the cold.

The last hardy soul I found blooming is a mullein–a flower that would easily get missed any other time of year:

The greenhouse has a couple of showy bloomers right now, starting with the plectranthus:

But the big show stopper is the masdevallia orchid:

This orchid has done extremely well for me in the cool greenhouse, but normal bloom time is spring.  It will throw occasional flowers other times of year.  I have four divisions of the original plant now and they all produce many flowers.  They are super easy to grow, too–I just keep them moist in spring/summer/fall and not so much in winter, and I feed heaviest in the spring (when I remember).  They don’t really seem to care–they just bloom and bloom!

Back to outside, here are some scenes from under the red Japanese maple in the pond garden:

Leon’s ceramic mushroom creations surrounded by the red fallen leaves.  You can see Acanthus mollis at the top of the picture.

The freshness and delicate nature of ferns really shows to great effect when surrounded by the fallen maple leaves.  I’m pretty good at figuring out which plants are which, but I need to study my ferns for sure–I have no idea which ones are which.

Another shot of my beloved Hakone grass…this time with some autumn tints adding to the show.

Lastly, some fall color from a seedling–something in the barberry/mahonia family is my guess–started from collected seeds from the wilds of an arboretum or someplace:

It looked like we had a pretty hard frost on Tuesday morning, but my frost barometer, the dahlias, remain unimpressed.  They are still green and upright and not the black mush that is the truest sign that we’ve dipped below freezing.  There was frost on the ground again today and I took some pictures.

These were cherry leaves and the ribs were wonderfully outlined with frost crystals.  Only the shaded areas of the garden had much frost left by the time I made my way outside.  It turned out to be a beautiful day, and the perfect day for me to tackle the final 2015 lawn mow.  I love the final lawn mow of the year–it is like vacuuming the lawn!  All those leaves, blown in from all over the neighborhood, chewed up and spit back on the lawn to support it for next year.

I saw a mystery from the front window this morning–a white rose blooming out by the street.  This is one of the rose plants that Leon dug up from his late mother’s garden.  The  surprise is that this poor hybrid tea was one of the victims of Leon’s flash-weeding in the summer and I thought for sure it was dead!  Instead, it looks like this:

 

The veggie garden had some fun things to see–Borage flowers that I just can’t resist:

These were complemented beautifully by the yellow calendulas in the same bed:

The wonderberries are mostly ripe now and I’m thinking of picking a bunch of them and freezing them for smoothies:

I took some more Coral Bark Maple pics, too–just losing the last of their brilliant foliage, but still spectacular against the bluest skies you’ve ever seen:

Here are some pictures from inside the greenhouse.  It was so warm in there today, but I have the fans going and opened the door mid-day.

Stuffed completely (almost)!

For some reason, some of the Masdevallias are blooming:

The Cymbidium buds look healthy still and bug-free and I watered them well today.  I’ll fertilize them again next weekend.

The Pleione is beautifully deciduous, even in the greenhouse!

Some other random pics from the greenhouse/garden:

These potatoes came up in the veggie garden right where I had planted the alpine strawberries.  They seem a bit confused as to timing…

Matricarias  blooming in a pot near the Doug fir bed.  These are one of my favorite volunteer plants–cheerful and neat and easy to manage.

These don’t show too well, but they are Cotoneasters that I grew from seed several years ago and am training for bonsai.  They color up so brightly with yellow/red/orange mixed in with fresh green.

Here is the cold frame full of bulb pots for later forcing.  The mixed weather will help speed up root growth, but I will need to insulate these soon to keep them from trying to sprout before they have a good foundation.

It is a glorious, wet Seattle day and before noon I had tackled all the garden chores I had on my list!

First, I potted all the bulbs for forcing and the Hippeastrums.  I just use a good potting mix with a little organic fertilizer added.   For pots, I prefer clay for forcing, since the bulb growth tends toward top-heavy.  Besides, the bulbs are mostly grown for gifts, and a gift plant seems a lot more of a gift in a “real” pot.

I moved most of these to the drawer in the “extra” fridge in our laundry room, tightly wrapped in plastic bags.  I’ll need to revisit and water these every few weeks.  The others were moved into the cold frame just outside the greenhouse.  I’ll pack leaves around them when I rake up some leaves to insulate them.  In about 5-6 weeks, I can start moving them into the greenhouse/windowsills for some early spring beauty.

I planted some crocus in the Douglas fir bed in clumps and some Anemone blanda, as well.

The big project involved moving all the outside pots to the greenhouse.  This wasn’t as massive a chore as I anticipated–and to top it off, there were some fun surprises.

Here is the greenhouse stuffed to the gills with all the patio pots, Clivia and Cymbidiums.

The first happy surprise happened when I moved the first Cymbidium and realized that it had a near-mature flower spike coming out of the side of it!

And there were at least 6 other spikes in various stages on all the other Cymbidiums.  I am continuously surprised that these hardy orchids suffer through summers under that water-stealing Douglas fir giant and still manage to feel happy and healthy enough to set flowers.

The Clivias didn’t seem too worse for wear, either, though they have obviously gotten too much sun and were a bit bleached out.  I tucked them under the shelves and in shady spots hoping they will darken up and spike.  I also watered all the Cybidiums and Clivias with compost tea.  This will be the last water for the Clivias for several months, as I enforce a rest period to induce spiking.  I’ll watch the orchids and water/feed them along with everything else every few weeks during the dark time.

The Brugsmansia was blooming and I didn’t want to move it (a bit of a monster now that it is 7 feet tall!), but I shoved it into the greenhouse.  Luckily, the flowers moved just fine right along with it!

I’ll leave the greenhouse open and the heat off until the first frost threatens–the fresh air is needed to keep Botrytis in check and the plants need to know what season it is.  I’m not really sure that the winter growers appreciate this treatment, but they are mostly on the south side benefitting with the most light and heat, so they should be alright.

 

The title sounds rather Halloween-ish, but the reality is that now that our clocks have fallen back, I see more of the garden at night than during the day.  The bed near Burke Ave N has a very bright street light that keeps it lit all night, so I can sometimes get some interesting pictures.

Here is a shot of the witch hazel in full bloom.  You can still see the wires above the 15′ tree, but you can really see how many bright, spidery blooms are on this beauty.

A bit closer up.

Some shrubs have such a great show of flowers that no one talks about their foliage.  Forsythias can be like that.  Truth be told, my Forsythia is much more colorful in fall than in spring, and a prettier shade of yellow, too!  I love this particular shrub because I grew it from just a stick I found in the yard while we were putting our pond garden in 20 years ago.  I have no idea which cultivar this is, but it blooms beautifully, colors up nicely in fall, and has a graceful habit.

I managed to order some bulbs from Hirt’s Gardens last week and they were shipped quickly and in excellent shape.  This order includes Iris reticulata hybrids (for forcing), Crocus hybrids (for the garden) and Hyacinths (for forcing).  The big bulbs are the Hippeastrum bulbs I got for my brother Tim and friend Diane for holiday gifts.  They are a cultivar called Magnum and my only disappointment is that one of the bulbs is twice as big as the other, though, of course, they cost the same!

I’m set to pot all of these up or plant them outside tomorrow.  In addition, I plan to move all the patio pots, Clivias and Cymbidiums into the greenhouse.  I can’t wait!

Sometimes your garden makes you feel pretty stupid.  Nature is a bit that way, anyway–so perfectly designed that humility is the best attribute of any gardener.

Many years ago, I purchased a young witch hazel tree (Hamamelis hybrid) from Sky nursery in Shoreline–the tag is long since gone.  The tree already had a few flowers at four feet tall, so I knew it was a bright yellow one.  I planted it near the street and looked forward to its fast growth and lovely flowers in the late winter.

The sad reality is that the tree grew very slowly and only seemed to bloom rarely.  I would check it in the late winter and see no sign of flowers, save for maybe a few here or there.  I kept telling myself it just wasn’t mature enough.

Well, low and behold, as I perused the garden last week, what did I see in full bloom!?  My witch hazel!

So, the stupid part is that this tree has likely been blooming wonderfully every year, and I just never noticed because I was looking for flowers in January instead of November!  How sad that I missed it all this time!

It is tough to photograph, as the higher branches have wires above them that ruin the shots, but you get a feel for what this 15 foot teenage tree looks like right now.

There are a lot of flowers.  I am unable to smell them, though, but I’m pretty much nose-blind.  I’ll have to have someone else try.

Other November 1st (we should call it November Day, the opposite of May day) beauty nearby in the garden include the few remaining leaves of the Aronia:

This is nearly an all-season shrub, with nice white flowers in spring, tasty berries in summer and blazing leaves in autumn.

The Asian pear espalier also has some impressive color:

One late dahlia that had wintered over in the driveway bed finally is blooming.  I don’t know why the dahlias in that particular bed get such a late start, but they always do.  And the blooms don’t survive well in the weather and with the desperate, hungry bugs.

The last views below are of Hakone grass that we have in a pot near the front porch.  This grass never fails to please, and it is blooming now, which you can barely make out if you look closely.

I’m going to go out and look around some more to see what else I might have been missing all this time!

We have a rainy, blustery day today–perfect for working in the greenhouse and finishing up the plant clean-up.

I don’t get lonely out there, since there are lots of fun creatures around keeping tabs on me:

I believe this is a Giant House Spider, which is a European import.  I welcome all spiders in the greenhouse, though this one, approaching four inches long, startled me a bit at first.

Here are some pics of the cleaned up greenhouse:

I tried an experiment with some holiday cactus two years ago–I decided that they might do best in hanging baskets planted in orchid mix.  I potted three of them up this way, and hung two of them up and put the other one on a shelf:

I don’t know that I’ve fertilized these appropriately, but they seem healthy enough.  And for the first time, they have fat buds appearing on the tips:

One of my favorite orchids is the persnickety Coelogyne cristata.  I have had this plant for probably six years, purchased at the annual Flower and Garden show here in Seattle.  I believe the plant has bloomed two years, with its beautiful pure white, fragrant flowers.  However, there were few flowers and the display was unimpressive, as they turned brown pretty quickly.  This year, I took the drastic step of repotting the plant into a big wooden hanging basket.  That was several months ago, and the plant seems to really be happy with its new home–the new pseudobulbs are fat and clean and the plant is now HUGE:

My dream is to have a basket full of flowers from this plant one year–who knows?  Maybe next spring!  I’ve done a bit of reading online about these plants and discovered that watering can be tricky to honor their bloom timing and their rest period.  I doubt if I’m doing it right, but it can be tough to customize the treatment for all the plants in the greenhouse!  I’m lucky to water them at all, so tailoring a water schedule to a certain plant isn’t really in the cards right now.

Below is a close-up of the Plectranthus flowers mentioned earlier.  I am impressed by the delicate design on the insides of these graceful flowers.

One final panoramic view of the cleaned up greenhouse.  Next weekend, the outside plants come in!

A quick count of all the remaining plants in the greenhouse came out to 344 plants!  No wonder I’m tired!!  And that doesn’t count those that will get moved in next weekend, or the plants outside on shelves!

Brother Tim and I took a quick trip to the Washington Park Arboretum and we hiked around on Sunday afternoon.  Here is brother Tim near a pair of especially graceful, mossy and licorice-fern covered maples:

Probably the prettiest thing we saw was this Chinese Golden Rain Tree, Koerelteria elegans:

Always a favorite of ours, and a plant whose offspring are in pots in our yard, the blue sausage tree, Decaisnea fargesii:

Another of my favorites, the delectable Daphniphyllum macropodum:

The Camellia Sasanqua hybrids are blooming and are stunning!

Darmera peltata, I think, is below.  The flowers are surprisingly lovely, especially coming so late in the year:

This Fuchsia hybrid was graceful and gorgeous in this hanging container:

The Franklinia was blooming, as well, as the autumn set in around it.

From the greenhouse this weekend, I noticed this Streptocarpus flower that I hadn’t seen before–very remarkable.

Some days I have to ask myself if I don’t just have entirely too much going on when it comes to the garden, greenhouse and all the potted plants.  Mind you, I love all the plants–each and every one!  But if there is such a thing as a plant hoarder, I likely crossed into that category many years ago!

I took some time off work to concentrate on some studying for a class I’m taking and to catch up on some greenhouse chores.  I got through one shelf this weekend and another one today, so I am about halfway finished.  This is just the repotting/grooming step in the project.  Next, I need to get everything completely organized, then clean up anything not needed and debris.  All this just so I can import all the plants that need to spend winter in there from around the yard!

The biggest job today was to pot on Clivia seedlings that had been neglected for about one year too long!  The good news is that these were all named seedlings and the flowers promise to be colors that I don’t have, since most of my current clones are close to the orange/yellow of the miniata species.

Here are some possibilities of what the Milk White x Milk White might look like.

Another hybrid has Charm blood lines crossed with a pastel Peach.  I’m hoping for something like this.

The third batch of seeds includes Nakamura breeding (famous, amazing Clivia breeder).  See some of those amazing plants here.

A few things are blooming now, but not much.  The Plectranthus are blooming with their charming spikes of white:

This Oxalis regnellii was given to me as a free gift with an eBay purchase.  I already have had this species for years and always keep a gallon plant of it around just for color.  I find this baby very charming and the flowers are lovely:

      

There are a few begonia flowers in there, too, and this one Dahlia that I cheated and brought in from outside:

Some other plants of interest include the Sinningia leucotricha, which has a bigger and bigger caudex and HUGE leaves:

The leaves are velvety and beautiful.  I think the size might be related to overwatering, but the plant keeps growing and appears happy, so I haven’t looked at ways to keep it drier.  It is in a clay pot, and that probably has saved it!

Here is the Veltheimia starting into growth and very strong.  I will divide it after it blooms to get a separate plant to share.

Below are some of the baby Babiana hybrids that are now two years old and I just potted on this weekend.  They should grow faster now and hopefully will bloom next year.

Agapanthus praecox seedlings below.  I never dreamed I’d be able to grow Agapanthus from seed, but some were included as a free gift in a seed order and I tried them.  I got two strong plants, now inseparable, as I didn’t pot them separ!

Here is a nice vignette  from the back patio.  It is about to be put disassembled for the winter, so I thought I would capture this now.  I love this gargoyle sculpture by the talented Tom Francis, and the Pelargonium behind is a lovely shrub with pristine leaves (which won’t last, as the cool weather sets in).

More clean up tomorrow, and likely another post.

 

We had a nice morning/afternoon before it started to sprinkle, so I was able to get outside and start cleaning up around the greenhouse and potting area.

First on the agenda, I had to plant out most of the remaining seedlings that were sitting around.  There were four campanulas that needed to go out to the orchard garden.  I planted them around the apple and cherry trees. They are currently mystery plants, since they came from a pack of mixed seeds.  I am hopeful that  at least one of them is Campanula lactiflora, which I’ve always wanted to grow.  See a description here.

I still need some plants to add around the apple and cherry trees, so will do some online shopping soon to get things in the ground soon, as the best planting time is right now.

Here is a picture of the Iochroma that is planted out in the driveway bed on the orchard side.  It grew better than every this year, but alas, no flowers.

I believe this is a purple cultivar, something like this.

There were three large Abutilon “Suntense” seedlings left, as well, so I planted one in a large pot for the patio and put two of them in the bed next to the lilac closest to the dog pen.  These shrubs can get pretty big, so I had to make sure there was room for them.  I think they’ll do well there, with the southern exposure, but shade from the big Douglas fir tree during the hottest part of the day.  Also in that bed are seed-grown tree peonies, Eucomis hybrids (also from seed), and some ironweeds that I started several years ago.  It isn’t a well-thought-out garden, but has interest for sure, and is providing a nice nursery for my seedlings.

Once I got everything planted out, I switched to the greenhouse.  My first assignment is to do an autumn clean-up before I more everything back inside for the winter.  I started at the back wall–the cactus and bulb seedlings are all along there.

Some happy surprises:  My Hippeastrum mandonii seedlings, which are over two years old, both are growing well and have some decent bulbs forming on them.  See the flowers here (scroll down to mandonii).

The two Agapanthus praecox seedlings, also over two years old, are growing very strongly.  I potted them on together, as their roots were so entangled that pulling them apart seemed ill-advised.  These are handsome plants.  I won’t expect flowers for another couple of years, but they are growing very well.  Here is what I can look forward to.

Dierama seedlings of the deep purple strain are now around 18 inches tall.  I intend to plant them outside next spring in their final places, once I figure that out.   They should be beautiful if they get to blooming size.

Ferraria crispa is an oddity.  I have three bulbs of Ferraria, two of which are crispa and the other is another species.  Mine have not bloomed yet, but possibly this year, as they are winter growers and have really strong starts coming.  The flowers might look like this.

I potted on seedlings of Freesia and Babiana, along with some tiny Moraea and Gelasine seedlings.  We’ll see if any of these live to bloom.  Again, they are winter growers, so the lack of light in our northern location is tough on them.  The other seedling plants on the shelf along that wall include Habranthus robustus,

some Watsonia hybrids, maybe 7 or 8 small Cyrtanthus montanus, a couple of fuchsia cuttings and one Restrepia guttulata.

I’ll have more updates and pictures tomorrow as the clean-up continues.