I was working in the garden and greenhouse today to help destress from the pandemic that has landed in our midst.

I know that spring is almost here every year when I take some time to rearrange the greenhouse plants in order that the Clivias and Cymbidiums that are spiking are front and center for my viewing enjoyment. Today was that day for me.

The Cymbidiums are pretty much a complete bust this year from a flowering standpoint. I don’t know what is different or wrong with them, but only one of them has a flower spike and that appears to not be very healthy. The plants themselves seem healthier than they have been in the past, but no flower spikes have come forth. Even the huge orchid from the recently deceased Karl Huffbauer has no spikes–it had four or five last year! I may divest myself of most of the cymbidiums and just keep a couple of them that mean something to me. The others are just a waste of space.

The Clivias are a different story. I counted about 20 spikes this year from 15 or so plants. Many of the spikes are on young plants that haven’t bloomed before, so it will be fun to see what they look like.

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I did a little clean up in the garden today. I clipped back the Korean chrysanthemum from brother Tim and each stalk I cut had a living tip, so I took cuttings. I ended up with five pots of three cuttings each–hopefully, some will take and they can go in the garden or pots or maybe be sold off.

Some bulbs in the memory bed are blooming.

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I planted some foxglove seedlings from last summer around this area today, as well–they should help fill in after the bulbs fade away. I thought the Cammassias were not coming back, but I saw them poking through the mulch today. I read recently that they have contractile roots that pull the bulbs deeper and deeper over time, so maybe that is why their appearance was delayed.

The plum tree is in full in the orchard bed.

The Hellebore from brother Tim is blooming well.

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I see no signs of the Fritillaria raddeana that I loved so much last year, but the Fritillaria imperialis is growing well.

More greenhouse beauty can be seen below–the Pleiones are starting to bloom and a holiday cactus is particularly confused.

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My usual taste runs to quiet and calm and simple and elegant, so my love of hybrid hyacinth bulbs makes no sense. They are big and bold and super fragrant. I think they were one of the first bulbs I got to know as a child and one of the first bulbs I ever forced…and they never disappoint. I have been forcing some every year for probably ten years or more. I also added some to the memory garden last year and added more this year, as well. Here are some of the hyacinths that I’ve grown over the years.

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Here are some hyacinths in the memory garden this year. I like them in the second year and later when the spikes are less full and more graceful.

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For 2020, I have several large pots with forced bulbs this year to bring onto the patio or give as gifts. They are in the cold frame now but the cover is off, as the weather has been pretty warm and I wanted them to get some rain. I guess they aren’t really “forced”–they won’t bloom until after the ones in the garden! But it is so great to be able to move them around the house/garden to bring that fantastic fragrance wherever I can enjoy it.

A newer bulb that was added to the Douglas fir bed in the autumn of 2018, this beauty proved a brilliant surprise when it bloomed last spring. This was purchased from John Scheepers. I’m anxious to see how it fares this year.

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My 2020 plans for this plant will be to fertilize it after it blooms and keep an eye on it while I add native plants to that bed to be sure I don’t accidentally destroy it.

Ordered from a catalog at least a dozen years ago, I was very surprised that this plant took to the Douglas fir bed so well and has not only grown but has spread a bit! I planted it really deep and I have fertilized it with organic bulb food every so often. It doesn’t ask for much and the flowers are showy and quite interesting.

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For 2020, I’ll tuck a fertilizer spike or two near this plant and then just work to avoid it as I transform its bed with native plants.

I imagine it was brother Tim who introduced me to this plant back when we were both kids. He seemed to always know every plant, at least by common name. I clearly remember seeing this plant growing wild by the Cedar River when my Dad took me fishing there in my early teens. Fragrant flowers stick in your mind that way.

When a plant grows well for you, you end up loving it even more. The Douglas fir bed has turned out to be an ideal spot for these short-lived perennials that self-seed ambitiously. I started with a packet of seeds of the white variety and now I have a wonderful mix of white, light lavender, and deeper lavender.

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I especially like these plants under Leon’s Miracle Grow sculpture–they add to the whimsy his sculpture projects.

The plants have seeded into the lawn a bit and now into the memory garden nearby, but they are easy to root out or to move to another spot. They are considered invasive in some areas. 2020 may see their perfect Douglas fir site reinvented as a native plant garden, but it seems likely some dame’s rockets will remain.

Like many plant fanatics, I always try to bring a piece of my vacation home with me upon my return–usually in the form of seeds. This Agave was an ambitious smuggling effort. Leon and I had traveled to the south of Spain and stayed in a wonderful hostel/hotel in Torremolinos. We swam in the beautiful pool there and ate in the restaurant that the hostel owner ran in the evenings. It was a magical few days. I noticed one of the agaves had pups starting around the mother plant, so I popped off a tiny one and slipped it into one of my socks in my suitcase. Not only did I avoid prison, but the offset rooted when I got home and has been growing very slowly ever since. That was about 1997.

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I made an attempt to give this plant to some friends who have a house in Lodi where it could grow outside. The plant went down in the trailer with Leon, but somehow there was a mix-up and it never got passed to his cousin and came back in the trailer, as well. It is a well-traveled plant! And obviously wants to stay with me.

My 2020 plans for this plant are to top-dress it with some sandy, fertile soil and move it outside in some very bright sun when the weather warms.

Brother Tim had was involved in Fuchsia clubs and societies back in the 1990s and I joined him in the Northwest Fuchsia Society for several years. During that time, we would attend all manner of Fuchsia plant sales, and encourage our friends and family to support those sales, as well. Our friend Linda purchased this fuchsia tree at one of the sales–I’m guessing maybe twenty-three years ago. She was living in a condo at the time and didn’t have a way to overwinter it, so she passed it to me. I’ve been caring for it ever since.

There is a lot to like about this tree. Cardinal is a very hardy cultivar. It comes through the winter in the greenhouse without flinching and it blooms pretty well every year. I’ve moved it up in pot size over the years, but it has been in the same pot for at least a decade.

The blooms typically arrive any time from late spring to mid-summer and last right through until the plant gets moved into the greenhouse in late October. Hummingbirds absolutely love this plant and they will seek it out, even inside the greenhouse.

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I’m surprised I don’t have more and better photos of this plant! Maybe, because it is always there, I take it for granted.

My 2020 plans for this tree are to trim it back in spring (and strike the cuttings) and turn it out of the pot, root prune it, and put fertile, good soil in the pot before placing it back inside. I will keep pinching the branches back through the early summer to help ensure a bevy of flowers for the hummers and for me! Maybe Linda will want it back one day, so I plan to keep it growing well!

Here is a plant purchased at least a dozen years ago from Plant Delights nursery. This was just at the beginning of the Hellebore craze with all the hybridizing just starting. I ordered two different hybrids. One of them has since passed on, which is an accomplishment in and of itself–it is pretty tough to kill a Hellebore.

The living plant is a disappointment in some ways. I think it might be called Winter Wren. The plant has white flowers that face down and have a small dark maroon eye around the center. The flowers get black spots all over them on the outside some years, and I assume this is related to rain, despite being planted under the Douglas fir tree.

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I plan to give this plant some extra fertilizer this year. There will be a bunch of changes in the Douglas fir bed as I add native plants, so this plant may end up in a new situation–possibly a happier one.

Here is another old-timer, a deep maroon-flowered Lenten rose that was gifted to Leon and me over twenty years ago from our friends Bonnie and Pam. The plant lasted longer than their relationship with each other, to be sure, and longer than our relationship with them–it has probably been fifteen years since we’ve heard from either one of them. But the plant lives on and reminds us of the good times we had with them.

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Some of these photos are horrible, but I still like them. They help capture the essence of this wonderful plant and the richness of the flower color. This plant is growing in our woodland garden the entire time and it blooms most years, but not with the exuberance of the white hybrids in the yard. I’m not sure if it is the cultivar that is weaker, or the gardener’s weakness affecting the plant.

My 2020 goals for this plant will be to get some fertilizer spikes near it to see if maybe it will grow a bit larger and flower a lot more.

A more recent addition to the garden from sister Cate and her wife, Zoe, this plant was gifted to me when she moved from a rental house and allowed Tim and me to raid the garden. I’m guessing this was six years ago. This gorgeous cultivar is planted in the orchard garden near the fence. It not only blooms wonderfully each year, but it also sets seeds and has seedlings come up around it each year.

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This hard-working perennial never fails to give a late winter show in February and March. My 2020 plans for this plant include pulling up the seedlings beneath it and trying to grow them on. Otherwise, this plant doesn’t ask for anything and it gives plenty!