Calendula, or pot marigold, is a perky, very hardy plant usually grown as an annual, but wintering over here in zone 8b. The plants that I have started from a free pack that was sent with some mail ordered seeds about ten years ago. I planted them around the raised vegetable beds to the south of the greenhouse and they’ve been with me ever since through volunteer seedlings.
These might be the easiest plants of all to grow from seed, and they pack a lot of flower punch over the course of the warm months and the not-so-warm months of November and December.
You don’t really choose your future with calendula plants–they are just always there once you’ve planted them. I cultivated one of the raised veggie beds this autumn and now there are dozens of calendula seedlings braving the cold soil there and growing on the warm days. I will keep them around just for the cheery blooms and the confidence they instill–when all my vegetable plantings fail, at least there are nice-looking pot marigolds around to make me feel like my efforts weren’t all in vain.
About five years ago, I ordered a mix of Verbascum seed from Chilterns in England. Many of them germinated and I planted them out around the orchard garden. Several of the cultivars in the mix were impressively showy, with tall multi-pronged spikes of pleasant soft yellow flowers.
Mulleins have been in my life since I was pretty young–the invasive V. thapsus grows in any bare spot in a field or dirt road, including up at our cabin near Tonasket–it is everywhere there along the roads. Once in a while I will see a moth mullein, V. blattaria, which is also naturalized here. It is a more refined plant with prettier flowers. Many years ago I grew a hybrid mix of V. phoeniceum. The flowers of this strain come in some fantastic colors, while the leaves are not fuzzy or particularly handsome. I got a few of them to grow, but they died out in my borders after the first year–they don’t seem to be perennial for me.
Volunteer mullein seedlings still appear around the garden. My future plans for them are to transplant them to the best places to show off their best attributes, which can be their big, fuzzy leaves, or their candlabras of bright yellow blooms.
Through the years, I’ve grown many different kinds of narcissus–everything from the traditional daffodils to small miniature hybrids. The only bulbs that have perennialized for me are February Gold and one of the poeticus hybrids.
I’m not a huge fan of bright yellow in the spring so I tend to buy narcissus bulbs of varieties that are otherly-colored in white, orange, or pink. Baby slugs and snails often find the flowers and eat just enough of the petals to spoil them–and it doesn’t seem to matter how tall the flower stocks are–the slugs will reach them.
My future plans for narcissus are to look to add a few more clumps of the poeticus types around the garden–their substance and fragrance are always welcome.
Père David’s maple is one of the snake bark maples that our local arboretum grows and, purely coincidentally and certainly not due to seed thievery, it has found its way into my tonsai shelves as seedlings. I believe brother Tim was the first in our to grow this species from seed, as he grew one at his previous home in Shoreline.
My seedlings are probably at least seven years old. I planted them together in a large-ish pot with the idea of planting them as a forest grove someday when I get serious about my tonsai. The trees feature interesting bark and beautiful autumn foliage.
Before spring arrives, I plan to repot this grouping, prune their roots and add new, fertile soil. I’ll take the time to do some branch pruning, as well, to start shaping these plants in a better forest formation.
I’m not sure how I missed these marvelous plants when they were blooming in the spring. Maybe it is because I gave a lot of the potted bulbs away and the ones that were left had slug damage that resulted in no photo-worthy flowers.
Forcing these bulbs is something I’ve taken on for many years. The bulbs are relatively inexpensive, so I’ve planted hundreds of them. The forcing pots make excellent gifts once they have chilled for six weeks–they require almost no care to coax the intricate, sometimes fragrant flowers to pop out.
Here are some of the bulbs I planted this fall. I’m leaving them outside to chill high up on shelves away from the slugs that found them last year in the cold frame.
And here is what these flowers have looked like in the past.
Future plans are to continue to force these bulbs every year for gifts and for windowsill displays. The pots will come into the greenhouse a few at a time starting in mid-January to ease them into blooming.
Here is another Arbor Day Foundation tree that I potted up over fifteen years ago. It has grown into a ten-foot tree with attractive leaves and good autumn foliage color. However, it has yet to bloom in its patio pot home.
My future plans for this tree are to root prune it and replace some of the soil while pruning the top. It has been tough to keep this tree watered adequately in the summers, but I think a soil refresh will help with that.
Grown from seed about five years ago, I moved this plant from a pot to the Douglas fir bed two years ago. It was a sink or swim demand of the seedling. Months later, I saw some glowing orange-gold color flaring from that bed in late summer and sure enough, there were Alstroemeria flowers!
Known to be pretty invasive, these plants form tubers as they spread. My clone seems perfectly hardy and able to handle the dry shade under the majestic Douglas fir. It has spread a bit, but the terrain is pretty severe in that bed–I don’t think it will ever take over.
Future plans for this plant are to move a division of it to a patio pot, where I can take better care of it and coax more flowers out of it.
A phoenix of a plant in the memory garden, I had forgotten that I planted three of these herbs there last year. They disappeared among the mulch and other plants. One of them climbed out of the mulch and is looking really heathy right now, however.
Thymus is a great plant family–not only do we get some great culinary herbs, but the whole family is a fun group of ground covers. I love the smell of this one best, with its lemony spice.
My future plans for this plant are to keep an eye on it and save it from any agressive mulch that tries to cover it permanently. If it does better, I’ll look at propagating it or adding a few new types to that garden.
The osoberry is a shrub I’ve always admired because it is very early to bloom and its mode of growth, with early perky new growth and pretty white drooping flowers, says spring is here like no other native plant. I added one to my native plant garden in April of 2020. It isn’t big enough to bloom yet, but it has settled in and grown well.
I see pictures of these shrubs online that have dozens of berries, but I’ve hardly ever seen a berry on any of the plants I’ve been around. I don’t know if that is timing or birds! But they are edible for humans, too.
Future plans for this plant are to pamper it a bit and hope it reaches its full glory in a year or two so it can herald spring for me and hungry pollinators!
I started fortnight lily seeds about ten years ago when I was on a major kick of growing bulbous plants from seed. This plant grew quickly and flowered in about three years from seed. It has gone through tough times the last few years, having died back in its pot. It grew back well this year but hasn’t bloomed for a while.
The flowers are a showy mix of white, yellow, and blue, in a graceful, open iris-like form. The leaves are pure iris–spear-like and plentiful (when happy).
My future plans for this plant are to plant it into the memory garden. Seattle is considered a Zone 8 hardiness zone, and this plant is supposed to be hard to Zone 8, so I’ll give it a chance to take up some room in that sunny bed. I think it might really like that.
