Fantastic weather and a mostly clear schedule helped me find my way deep into the garden today. It seemed like the perfect time to propagate some perennials. Specifically, the phlox and the catmint seemed primed for softwood cuttings. I took about 24 cuttings of each. I hope I got the timing right.
Tulips seem to be blooming early this year. Every year they surprise me with their beauty.
There are a lot of gorgeous things that caught my eye today.
I was not alone in the garden today–I had the best assistant ever, Rafa the wonder dog.
The weather was perfect this weekend for some Saturday kayaking and some Sunday gardening. I sorted through the 60+ clivia plants and pulled those with spikes into the display area. Only thirteen spikes were found. There are bound to be a few more as the season warms.
One clivia was already blooming–this interspecific hybrid.
A few other plants have February blooms in the greenhouse, including the orchid we call Mom’s Cymbidium that we’ve had in the family for over thirty years now.
And this sad holiday cactus with just one flower open.
I set up a heat tray and lights. I planted a bunch of seeds, including the following:
Petunia “Lavender Sky Blue”
Viola “Johnny Jump Up”
Thunbergia “Black-Eyed Susan”
Petunia “Easy Wave Burgundy Star”
Impatiens “Accent Star Mix”
Viola “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”
Aster “Single Rainbow Mix”
Coleus “Coral Candy”
Viola “Sorbet Mix”
Petunia “Tidal Wave Silver”
Petunia “Purple Wave”
Petunia “White Easy Wave”
Alpine Strawberry “Alexandria”
Alpine Strawberry “Yellow”
Red Shiso
Nicotiana “Sensation Mix”
Petunia “Lavender Sky Blue”
Petunia “Lavendar Sky Blue”
Cosmos “Psyche Mix”
We are in for some cold weather, but with the thermostat set at 45 degrees and the heat mat raising the soil temperature even more, I think most of these seeds should germinate and grow in the next two weeks. Most are destined for patio pots and to fill in blanks in the memory garden.
As I get older, I feel winter’s negative drain more intensely and notice spring’s positive push. This weekend, there was no denying spring is coming. The Pacific wren in our yard has been singing incessantly his beautiful, somewhat desperate song. And the native plant seeds have started to pop up in the pots outside. My mood is lifting a little more every day.
Seattle experienced multiple days in a row in January below 20 degrees Fahrenheit. It seemed like this would stall out the anxious spring growers like the crocus, tulips, and hyacinths in the garden.
During the freeze, I moved the iris and crocus bulbs that I am forcing in pots to the greenhouse. I saved them from freezing solid, but then the greenhouse heated up in the sun and we experienced a spell of warm weather. Normally, I would move the pots in the house to force them one pot at a time, but the cold/hot/warm treatment caused them all to bloom at once when I moved them out to the shelves again! The crocus did not make it–rats ate them all in the greenhouse except the one pot I have already moved into the house! But the iris flowers are spectacular.
The bulbs in the memory garden are also blooming beautifully with the unseasonably warm weather.
Last year, the Veltheimia bracteata in the greenhouse failed to bloom for the first time in several years. But I noticed, way back in the greenhouse, that there is a spike coming this year!
Because of the cool weather, the June garden features some carry-over May blooms. Below is a photo dump of the June garden and greenhouse blooms/plants.
This tangle of green is a magnet for birds, like towhees and chickadees.Nice lighting on the memory garden today.Eryngium putting on a huge show this year. It gets bigger every year.The blue is just starting to show. The Shasta daisies are starting to bloom.This salvia never fails to put on a show.It is happiest growing over the curb, gathering heat from the pavement.The hardy geraniums are at their peak this month.Alliums are still looking good, both in flower and going to seed.Geranium pratense has flowers that glow.Geranium pratense glowing in the sun.The Santa Barbara daisies suffered some die back over the winter but are starting to shine again. Native pollinators love these little daisies.Geraniums from the sun side!Great colors!Hippeastrelia blooming in the greenhouse. This pot had five spikes this year, zero last year.More alliums.The peonies peaked in early June.Valerian, which smells amazing–the garden heliotrope.Peach-leaved bellflowers put on a show early in June.One of the last of the poppies in the driveway bed.Seed-grown amaryllis in the greenhouse.Last of the orchid cactus flowers.Gladiolus going to seed in the memory garden.Elegant, sinister, and smelling of rotting flesh–voodoo lilies!Tayberries are getting ripe in the orchard garden.This Lathyrus hybrid is putting on quite a show.Goumi berries ripening on the shrub that has gotten way too tall!I had no idea bindweed leaves could get so huge in the shade!A native orange butt in the orchard garden.
My favorite non-native flower, tulips are making an impressive show this spring around the garden. I took a bunch of photos and will drop them in here.
I neglected to share photos of the two flowers the giant Christmas cactus in the greenhouse. It was looking pretty sickly when I moved it to the greenhouse in November. It greened up quite a bit and got some buds and opened these gorgeous flowers. They add a brilliant pop of color while we wait for other things to bloom. The timing is three months off, but worth the wait.
My Pleione orchids are struggling because rats have eaten many of the pseudobulbs. However, there will be flowers this year, just many fewer than last year.
Here is the first flower.
I made big progress in the garden this weekend, mostly because of a tool I ordered off of Instagram (after promising myself I would never do that again!). It is a small, cordless chain saw. And it works miracles in the garden. I butchered the monstrous camellia shrub that was taking over the orchard bed in less than ten minutes! Then, today, I tackled the humongous rose at the end of the driveway bed, and that took longer, but I was able to cut it almost to the ground for the first time ever!
I moved a plant shelf and the plants that were on it to the patio to make space for some seed starting in the greenhouse. I cleaned up a bunch of empty pots and made space for planting and for seedling trays. Today, I planted peas, spinach, verberna, cosmos, nasturtium, blanket flower, petunias, peppers, and poppies. The peppers will be germinated in the house on heat/under lights, but the rest will be left in the greenhouse to fend for themselves. I am excited about this new (to me) verbena variety.
There are many more seeds to start. I’m excited to have the process beginning and in time for there to be some seedlings to give away to friends that can benefit from. We are working on our raised veggie bed upgrade this year so I am hoping to have some transplants to add to those beds when they are ready.
Here is an updated clivia photo of the beautiful intergeneric hybrid.
Today was the perfect day to get some outdoor chores done. I started in the orchard garden cleaning up the raspberry canes, pruning off the dead canes, and cutting the living canes down to 3-4 feet.
I cut back the iochroma, as well, and the Sophora japonica suckers. Then, I tackled the camellia, taking it back far enough to reset the berry trellises that were falling over from the camellia pressure. I cleaned up all the berry canes. It does not look like we will get too many blackberries this year on the thornless canes but there are many tayberry canes and I am hoping they make up for the blackberries. The black raspberries look pretty weak this year, too. I will get some organic berry food and give them a boost.
Moving across to the driveway bed, I propped one of the columnar apple trees up away from the sculpture it was leaning against. There is a bunch more pruning to do–maybe next weekend.
My big priority today was to clean up the road next to the memory bed and the sidewalk on the other side of it. It was so much work getting the fir needles and random dirt scraped up! It looks so infinitely better, though. I will revisit it again after a few dry days and sweep up the rest of the debris. Much progress was made today.
There are some beautiful flowers around the garden and greenhouse, so here are some photos.
Snowdrops were the only flowers in January here at the house. February, though, brought crocus and forsythia blooms. Crocus in flower are so photogenic that I go a little wild with the pictures, but I will add them here, anyway, since they are such a joy at a tough time of year.
Leon purchased a metal shed through Wayfair that required assembly. We tackled it this weekend. As always, the instructions were almost useless! But we persevered and got the thing 80% complete. It will be housed just outside the greenhouse and will hold garden tools and supplies.
