The common name of leadwort doesn’t do justice to this ground-hugging perennial. The plant is pretty, but unassuming for most of the year, but then as autumn arrives, some of the most beautifully colored flowers on the planet burst forth.
I’ve had this plant on the edge of the orchard garden for twenty years and it doesn’t disappoint. The trick is to remember to look for it during its season when everything else in the garden is shutting down.
My future plans for this plant are to keep it weeded, watered and fed and possible divide it to spread it around to some more visible places in the garden.
I’ve never been a big fan of African violets. This plant arrived without an invitiation. I had ordered another plant from Hirt’s online catalog that was an outside perennial and when I unpacked the order, there was a sad little African violet in there instead of the hardy perennial. So, this plant started out as a disappointment, but it has climbed up the favorites list to a safe position.
The great things about this plant are that it is easy to grow and adaptable–it doesn’t seem as fussy as some Saintpaulias I’ve known. It also is not shy to bloom. And lastly, it reproduces well through division and leaf cuttings. So, my original plant has expended to at least six.
The challenging things about this plant are that it grows too fast, so it fills out smaller pots so fast I can’t keep up with repotting. Also, sometimes the leaves start looking anemic for no apparent reason–they turn yellow and crisp up. Mostly, the challenges are mine and not the plant’s. I haven’t perfected my African violet growing game just yet.
My future goals for these plants include staying on top of their potting needs and light requirements and hoping to get some show-quality blooming plants in 2021.
I remember discovering salmonberries on fishing trips with my late father near the Cedar River. Added to the native garden in April 2020, I just have one of these shrubs, but I anticipate it will grow and spread prodigiously–so there really is only room for one. The plant is only about two feet tall right now, so it has some growing up to do and spreading out, as well.
Future plans for this shrub are to keep it lightly fed and appropriately watered to speed it along to blooming and berry production.
I’m taking a break from Plant-A-Day postings to capture some thoughts on the greenhouse activity and how this year has gone.
I spent a few hours yesterday moving clivia and cymbidium pots into the greenhouse for their six- or seven-month stay. There are about fifty clivias and eight cymbidiums. Happily, the plants seem to have done well in the new place I summered them, on the west side of the new native plant garden. Because I took the time to clean them up, top-dress them and fertilize them with Jobe’s organic fertilizer spikes in the spring, all of the plants looked healthy and robust.
The clivias produced about 25 flower spikes in 2020. I’m hoping for more in 2021, given how healthy they appear right now and that more of the seedlings are approaching blooming size.
I was having stern thoughts about the cymbidiums as I moved them into the greenhouse. They take up a lot of space! And last year, they didn’t bloom at all. But as I looked them over, I saw a flower spike forming at the base of one of the plants, which is great! I will get them some diluted orchid food and see if I can’t coax more of them to bloom. The ones that don’t bloom will be given away in the spring.
The more tropical seedlings were moved into the house today, too. I have some palm seedlings and three coral bean plants that won’t survive a winter down to 40 degrees. I moved them into a window with LED lights–hopefully, that will be warm enough for them. The coral beans are looking weak and sad. I am hoping this is due to low temperatures and they’ll add more growth while back in the house.
Some highlights in the greenhouse this year:
Orchid blooms, including Pleione, Coelogyne, and Masdevallia.
Lots of clivia flowers, some in wondrous, interesting colors.
I have grown air plants for at least ten years. Surprisingly, many Tillandsia species are really hardy and these plants enjoy the temperature and the humidity in the greenhouse. I am not careful about spraying these plants in the summer–maybe they get sprayed once a week when I water. They seem fine, though, (and the ones that weren’t fine dried up and disapppeared).
I grabbed a branch from the yard of a rental house sister Cate was occupying. It has been a perfect place to display the airplants. They grow and multiply freely on it and look better and better as time goes by.
These plants have interesting and often beautiful flowers in pinks, magentas, and blues. My future plans are to keep these going on this branch and maybe add a branch or two as they multiply and need to be divided.
Creeping mahonia is a new native plant for our garden, added to the native plant bed in April. I have a couple of these and they seem to have settled in nicely, although they are not creeping just yet. These short shrubs get nice yellow flowers in the spring that are popular with pollinators and blue-purple berries in the summer/fall that birds will love.
My future plans for these plants are to water them some next summer to be sure they have established themselves well. I will watch for them to start to creeping so I can take some divisions and spread them around more and give some away.
Salal has been an important plant to humans since long before European settlers come to this land. It has been used as medicine and food for thousands of years. And I’ve only had it in my garden only since April 2020, with three plants added to my new native plant garden.
Locals take salal for granted because it is everywhere in woods and woodland edges. It is easy to miss the solid evergreen leaves, the graceful white bellflowers, and the nutritious dark berries that follow.
An impressive trait of salal is that it seems to get new growth in summer and looks pretty clean and fresh going into autumn. My future plans for my plants are to water them a bit next summer so they get fully established and to watch for berries to pick and spread aoround the native plant garden, hoping some new babies will spring up on their own. I’ve been grabbing berries off neighborhood plants, as well, to see if the seeds will come up on their own when thrown around the garden.
This giant thistle-like perennial takes the place of a shrub in the summer and early fall. It gets covered with globe-shaped bluish flowers on five- to six-foot stalks cloaked in silvery green thistle-like foliage. I’ve had the main plant of Echinops for twenty years or more. It has seeded around a bit, but not invasively.
My future plans for these plants are to keep them trimmed and tidy after they finish blooming and feed and water only as needed to try to control their exhuberant growth.
It isn’t absolutely clear that this plant is native to Seattle, but some believe it is and I’m optimistic that I haven’t planted an alien in my native plant garden. I just got the one shrub from Seattle Native plants and it is growing well.
This plant was my rhododendron family addition because the Pacific rhododendron is really too big for this garden. I’ll keep it watered and cared for in the next year until it has developed the strength to take care of itself.
Evergreen huckleberry is a new plant to the garden this year (2020), with several small shrubs added to the new native plant garden in April. They appear to be pretty slow growing for me, and I’m hoping I’ll get them to full and fruiting size in the next year or two. My understanding is that mature height is anywhere from three to six feet tall and wide, depending on sun exposure and other factors.
The plants have attracive leaves that are reddish when they first appear and then turn a healthy shade of shiny green. The berries will be a bonus for wildlife.
I’m going to nurse and cater to these plants as needed to hopefully get them full-grown and drought-proof fo fulfill their food web potential for many years to come.
