Plant breeders have really done a number with heavenly bamboo. There is nothing heavenly about the little muffin-shaped Nandinas that are being planted all over Seattle in commercial landscapes and newly constructed residential developments. Luckily, the heavenly bamboo we have in the woodland garden really is heavenly, planted before the muffin bamboos were introduced (twenty+ years ago)–it has that slim, bamboo-like stature and long, graceful leaves. It looked better for us before it was competing with other plants in the same bed.

Nandina gets white flowers that aren’t showy and orange-red berries that are, but I’ve read that the berries can be toxic to songbirds so I pull them off the plant just in case.

Our heavenly bamboo shrub is nearing eight feet tall. My future plants are to strategically prune it down a bit so it will not have its canopy mingled with the maple tree it is growing next to.

The Japanese holly fern is another very successful fern inhabiting our woodland garden. There are two large ones that look fresh and bright even now, in September. About two-feet across, they are only about a foot tall.

You wouldn’t expect a fern to provide contrasting foliage to other ferns, but the solid leaves of holly fern are very different from the doily-esque leaves of the nearby common male ferns.

My future plans for these plants are to grab some leaves with spores and spread them around the greenhouse. Maybe I’ll get some baby holly ferns next year.

The male fern has survived well in the woodland garden–there are three or four sizeable ones there. They jump up all at once in spring with their myriad, intricate fronds expanding rapidly. Not native here, it still seems extremely happy and a bit showier than the native sword fern.

My future plans for these plants are to remember to clean up the old fronds before the new ones arrive in the spring–it makes for a more spectacular fiddlehead show. I will also pull a few fronds with spores on them into the greenhouse to see if maybe some sporeslings result.

We may have had lady ferns planted in the woodland garden at one time, but they have died out since then and only left male ferns. However, some lady fern sporelings appear in pots in the greenhouse on a fairly regular basis, so I still have one that I planted out in the native plant garden this year. These are graceful and impressive ferns, reaching a grand size. Ferns are notoriously useless as food web plants, but I figure they probably serve a greater ecological purpose than humans realize, so I’m planting them, anyway. Besides, they are beautiful.

My 2020 plans for this plant are to keep it watered well through the autumn and pull the mulch away as needed so it doesn’t interfere with the fiddleheads next spring.

We added a small coral bark maple when we first added the pond and woodland garden on the north side of the house. It was a pretty little tree for a while, but then it grew into something more, something spectacular. It brings beauty to every season, but really comes into its own in the autumn when the leaves are gold against the coral-red branches.

My future plans for this plant my include grafting attempts onto some other maple rootstocks that I have grown from seed. I’ll also work to get better photos of the tree, which is over twenty feet tall now.

Seven years ago, I read that the pineapple guava is hardy here in Seattle. I’d seen the plant sold as a houseplant in catalogs before and I’d always been intrigued by the interesting flowers and tropical fruit potential.

I purchased a small plant and put it in the orchard garden where it has been surviving and slowly growing ever since. We’ve had some pretty cold winters and the guava stays strong. It put on quite a bit of growth this year–approaching three feet. I don’t know if it will ever get large enough to bloom or set fruit, but as long as it is willing to try, I’m willing to let it.

My future plans for this plant are to keep it fed and watered and wait patiently for flowers and fruit–hopefully, in my lifetime!

I’ve always like the “sea oat” looking grass inflorences and the photos of this plant tempted me to start the seeds last year. It is called woodoats and northern sea oats, and is native to the eastern US. My seedlings, though they have flowered a bit, haven’t really put on a good show yet. The plants seem robust, however, and I have some in pots and one clump out in the memory garden. The flower stalks appear in September.

My future plans for these plants are to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t give signs of invasiveness. I will keep watering and feeding them and hope for them to attain full size–they can get up to three feet tall.

The graceful Japanese forest grass came to us as a clump from our friend Jim Heltsley about twelve years ago. We’ve kept the plant in a pot, though we had to move it up to something bigger when it bulked up quite a bit. The leaves of this grass hang down, they are multi-colored and also change with the seasons. They change shape when they need water (shame on me for discovering that!)–the leaves roll up and point upwards in a desperate cry for water!

My future plans for this plant are to peel off a few divisions to add to the woodland garden and give away or sell. I need to use a saw to divide it–the clump is so packed and tough!

The above photos show an example of fall color in November.

The above photos show winter color, which is a clean tan/buff color.

Brother Tim gave me a clump of garlic chives five or so years ago. I don’t even remember they are there until September when they burst into bloom. The flowers are striking, particularly in the shady raised bed, they populate. What I noticed today is that they are a great pollinator favorite, so they provide a great place for me to stalk bugs with my macro lens. Before I had my lens focused, two beautiful golden digger wasps traipsed through the flower heads while chasing each other.

This plant is growing for me in a raised bed that is under a giant Douglas fir tree that hogs all the water from above and below. Somehow, garlic chives don’t seem to mind. The clump is spreading a bit every year. My future plans for the plant will be to pull a few divisions off of it and add them to the memory garden to attract even more fun pollinators.

About ten years ago I got interested in native plants and ironweeds were one of the species that caught my interest. I just ended up with one seedling. It grew a few feet the first year and didn’t bloom. I was disappointed in it and just plopped it into a corner of the garden. The next year there was a Jack-and-the-Beanstalk moment when this plant started climbing toward the sky. It reached about eight feet tall before it bloomed with bright yellow flowers.

I’ve learned to pinch the stems back in June or July to keep them shorter and stronger so I don’t have to stake them. My near-future plans for this plant are to water it because it is wilty right now during our Mediterranean summer. I don’t have room for more of these plants so I’ll just enjoy the one I have. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to seed around at all, so it isn’t invasive like some of my seed experiment progeny.