This plant is the manifestation of two crimes–the crime of a mail order nursery catalog that told me how wonderful and fragrant this plant is; and the second crime, my inability to identify this as a shrub, not a vine, and as a thug, not a prize. I had two twigs originally that came in the mail and that I planted and grew on.

And grow they did. One of them was against the back fence because I assumed it would vine delicately and have hummingbird beloved blooms. Instead, it became this bushy shrub that had to be hacked back heavily every year. I finally removed that one. But the twig I stuck in the corner of the orchard garden still survives to this day. It has some good garden attributes, like how easy it is, attractive but plain foliage, and floriferous with mediocre pink flowers.

I made commitments lately to add native plants and to remove invasives, so this shrub, which is invasive in most of the US, needs to go. My 2020 plans for this shrub are to kill it, which is sad on some level, but necessary on all the other levels. I will replace it with a wonderful native shrub–a salmon berry or elderberry or something like that.

Every spring I trudge out to the greenhouse and pull out all of these Cape Primroses and clean them up and topdress or repot them. They really don’t look like much. I did this activity today, and here is what I ended up with:

In addition to these, I have three other blooming-sized plants that I planted on earlier, and three pots of starts that I got when I accidentally broke divisions off as I was removing spent flower stems (a hazard of cleaning the plants up, which is why smart people use clippers to cut the old stems).

Within a month, flower buds will be poking up on all of these plants and in six weeks and for the rest of the summer, they will be smothered in magnificent blooms.

Typical of me to not have these labeled and have no idea which varieties I own. But that doesn’t take away from their beauty.

My clean-up and repotting of the plants this spring included putting them in fresh Espoma organic potting mix with some grit and organic fertilizer, with a whole Jobe’s organic plant spike in each pot, broken in two and tucked on the sides at the top of the soil in each pot. I’m hoping this formula gives them the energy they need to be super floriferous.

May 2020 update–the unfurling flower spikes of my streptocarpus add a graceful element to the greenhouse.

A superstar small tree along the driveway bed, this cherry has impressed me from the start. Planted about five years ago, it fruited the first year. In fact, I’ve read warnings that growers should take the cherries off the first few years when they are tiny so the tree puts some energy into branch growth instead of fruit production.

Unlike the sweet cherries that seem to be hit-or-miss when it comes to setting fruit and ripening it, Morello sets loads of cherries every year. The tree is small enough that we can net the whole thing to keep the birds out. Well, almost. The crows still find a way.

This is how the tree looks today (5.2.20).

My 2020 plans for this plant are to fertilize it and net it early against thievery and make a pie from the cherries for the first time.

The second house my parents bought for the family had a small orchard, including apples, a pear, a cherry, and an Italian plum tree. I’m not naively nostaligic about that orchard. I saw all the work that went into it. But having fresh fruit was always such a treat and the trees had all-season beauty.

For my mini orchard at home, I wanted apple trees that would take up less space. I ended up adding two columnar apples at first in the orchard bed, then adding two more columnar apples along the driveway. The first two trees have grown well and they produce large crops every other year that I fight to keep from the squirrels. They varieties are Scarlet Sentinel and North Pole. The North Pole is really tall now–probably fifteen feet, and is only blooming at the top this year. The Scarlet Sentinel lost its original leader, so it is less columnar and more compact.

The second set of trees, planted about three years ago, haven’t produced apples yet–but it looks like this might be the year.

My 2020 plans for these trees are to feed them and to put nylon bags on the fruit early on. I may also create a net structure at the base of the trees so the squirrels might stay away.

Known as the Iranian Poppy or the Persian Poppy, this is my favorite poppy of all time. I started my plants from seed over twenty years ago and they impress me every year with their huge, brilliant blooms in May.

I have two big clumps of these poppies left in the raspberry bed close to Burke Avenue. My 2020 goal for them is to try to increase the population by taking root cuttings. I will feed them a bit and weed and trim around them in the spring so they keep on popping out giant poppies for years to come.

One of a few ornamental plants that existing on our property when we purchased this house, this Camellia hybrid is on the fenceline with our northern neighbor. About twenty years ago, I pruned it way back so that it looked more like an interesting tree. Lately, however, it has overgrown its space and needs to be dealt with in a drastic way again.

The flowers are huge, light pink affairs. Taken individually, they are beautiful things. The shrub, taken as a whole during the spring, is typically a mess. The older flowers hang on and turn brown while new flowers open. And rain turns them brown faster.

I wanted to figure out the identify of this hybrid but found out that there are 33,000+ different Camellia hybrids registered! Maybe someday!

My drastic 2020 plans for this plant are to cut it way back, hopefully giving it a pleasing, interesting shape. Camellias respond well to pruning, so it will snap back in a year or two. Another related project–I want to plant a clematis at the base of this plant and see if it will add some flowers to the space in the summer.

I’ve had three bleeding heart plants over the years, one that I had for years on the lawn side of the driveway bed that has recently disappeared, and two from sister Cate–one looks like the straight species and the other was a gold-leaved variety. The golden one held on for years but disappeared last year near the fence in the orchard bed. The straight species plant is still growing well and blooming well.

I love the interesting flowers of these plants and the delicate foliage. I don’t find them difficult to grow, yet evenually they disappear! So, my 2020 plans for the lone survivor is to fertilize it well and mulch it and hope for the best!

Here is an easy food plant to grow. I just have one shrub of this prolific berry plant and most years it produces more than berries than I can use. The plant is attractive on its own, with good foliage and interesting flowers in April and gorgeous, jewel-like berries in the summer. The berries have a tart, acidic flavor and a large pit, but they are still worth eating or putting in smoothies and desserts. The berries have a lot of lycopene, which is a health booster, along with vitamins A and E.

I’m going to try to propagate this plant in 2020 so I can share it with others and maybe add another one or two in containers around the yard. It looks like semi-softwood cuttings in July/August should be successful. I don’t fertilize it because I don’t want it to grow too much more–it is about the right size now.

There are a few plants in my garden that are classified as noxious weeds by King County. Spurge Laurel is a class C noxious weed, which means “control” is recommended, but not required.

As I’m moving more torwards native plants and understanding how damaging invasive plants are, I’m leaning toward eradicating all of the maleficent marauders in my garden. This is particularly painful with this plant because I really like it! But it is popping up all over my garden, so I can imagine what it might do in a forest setting.

Here are some photos of the plant and flowers. I will be rooting them all out in the next week or two.

The bounty of spring is upon us and I got a few photos today. Please see below.