Foxglove, like so many plants and people, have a mixed reputation. I grew up seeing them growing wild in various settings and in gardens and I’ve always liked them. I’ve grown them from seed in various varieties and species, too, but they haven’t really taken hold here in the garden.
I started seedlings two years ago, though, from a mix bought from Chiltern’s in the UK. I planted them among the bulbs in the memory garden thinking they would be the second act after the tulips and hyacinths finish. For once, I didn’t get that wrong. They are blooming now and they are SPECTACULAR!
There are myriad other blooming beauties in the garden and greenhouse right now.
Vancouveria (Inside-Out Flower)These Tulipa turkestanica seed pods are almost as beautiful as the flowers. I wonder if I’ll get seeds/seedlings?Neon color clash–Dianthus and Heuchera fighting it out in the memory garden.Maybe Dianthus “Zing Rose”–I don’t remember buying these but I’m glad they got added to the memory garden–they really shine.Gorgeous cactus blooming in the greenhouse. Maybe a Lobivia?Geranium pratense–really putting on a show.The flowers are a nice size and color.Eryngium blooming for the first time. This is supposed to be a very blue seed strain, but I don’t see any blue yet. Oriental poppy in a nice pink shade. Several of the seedlings I put in the memory garden bloomed this year and are pink varieties.Erigeron, Santa Barbara Daisy, blooming in the memory garden. They seem very perennial there, likely due to the excellent drainage.Abutilon vitifolium blooming on the south side of the house. This is a white seedling–about five years old, that is as bushy a shrub as I’ve ever seen from this variety.I found this late bloomer on a shelf in the greenhouse today as I was migrating the Clivia and Cymbidium plants to the native plant garden.There are over forty Clivias and about ten Cymbidiums that migrated from the greenhouse to the garden today. This was a late migration but I’m happy I got it done–these plants need to be gone over, repotted and fertilized in the next month or two. They will enjoy four-five months outside under the Douglas fir.
Spring is so overwhelming with all the exquisite flowers and the burst of leaves around us here in the Northwest. I took a trip to Happy Valley, Oregon to visit friends this weekend and saw some gorgeous blooms.
Clematis glimpsed on a neighborhood walk.Parrot tulip I planted back in late November.Lovely ornamental hawthorn.
I landed home and the garden jumped ahead of me again–so many things blooming or preparing to bloom.
These gorgeous bouquet tulips in my yard are over three weeks old and still very showy.These opened as soft yellow flowers and have aged to this fiery magenta hue.Eryngium “Blaukappe” seedling blooming in its third year.Native Nootka rose in the memory garden.Veronica in the memory garden.Many columbines are blooming in the memory garden, but this is probably my favorite–a big, clean-looking white one.The golden chain tree in the pot by the greenhouse (likely rooted through the pot and into the ground) is blooming. These plants are pretty invasive. Pretty, and invasive.
May is a prolific blooming month in the garden. I took a few photos today as I wandered around and did some spot-weeding. The tulips are still amazing, including the big patch of new bulbs, but also the individual left-over artist’s tulips in white and deep pink.
Interesting palette of colors: sun roses and two types of hardy geranium.
Above is a drastic houseplant rescue. I had purchased two dwarf peace lily plants for employees at work prior to the pandemic shuttering the office. I moved them to my office and tried to keep them watered over the past year. However, because they were so pot bound, it was impossible to keep them appropriately watered and fed during weeks when I didn’t venture to the office. I brought them home yesterday and potted them up today. The first one I put in a larger pot with fresh soil. The second one, I split in half and potted back in the two pots the plants came in. I was ruthless in cutting back their roots and their mostly dead leaves. We’ll see if they can recover from this drastic treatment. If they do, I’ll give them away.
A favorite Clivia seedling–pastel orange flowers in wide open form and a nice, full umbel.A nice yellowish apricot Clivia seedling. I bought some new heavier-duty edging for the memory garden where the edging had been torn out/up. Leon took the time to install it yesterday–it looks amazing!My favorite May Day combination–the yellow senna blooming next to a volunteer violet.
Well, it did rain yesterday. All day. But it feels like it has been a dry spring so far. I cleaned out and planted the (formerly) raised veggie garden today and after I put in spinach, radish, arugula, cress, lettuce and carrot seeds, I watered it really well. There isn’t any rain in the forecast in the next ten days.
I may need to water the memory garden this week, as well, since much of it is under the Douglas fir and none of yesterday’s rain actually reached it.
This was a seed-heavy weekend. I planted a bunch of pots of seeds yesterday. The seeds included veggies destined for the veggie bed or pots in the greenhouse or on the patio including tomatoes, peppers, spinach, eggplants, zucchini, cucumbers, kale, and pumpkins. There were also flowers, including a second batch of Nicotiana langsdorfii, petunias, sunflowers (two types), and marigolds. Some of the seeds ended up on the heat mat under lights and the rest are sitting outside on the potting bench.
The other seeds I planted were morning glory vine seeds of a Mt. Fuji Lavender strain. I put these in a couple of pots alongside Leon’s “Pods” sculpture. This was brother Tim’s idea for a fun way to grow a vine. I did this several years ago, but the vines only made it half way up the sculpture. I’m hoping with an earlier start and some fertilizer, I can get these vines all the way up the sculpture.
Below are some photos from the garden today–lots of beauty and colors!
Late tulips replacing the earlier ones–love these that change color from yellow to pink.
You can see the cleaned out veggie bed on the right. The tulips in front here have set seed–I may try to grow some from seed to see what I get.
Fringecups blooming in the native plant garden.
Trillium ovatum in the native plant garden.
Another view.
Another color-changing tulip! These started as yellow and red and ended up white and red.
Another bunch of these tulips. I had planted them in batches in the memory garden.
Geraniums, tulips, and candytuft.
I want to be mad at ‘Bill Wallis’ Geranium for being a marauder, but they look great right now and there wasn’t anything else where they grew (that I remember), so their enthusiasm hasn’t caused any harm.
My favorite Clivia this year–this one started a nice light yellow and is aging to a milky cream–so close to white!
Clivia ‘Light of Buddha’ in flower. The variegation is stunning this time of year.
A nice Clivia umbel.
This peachy pastel Clivia has flowers that stay more closed than most of my others.
Single artist tulip left in the garden in front of the greenhouse. Exquisite form!
Last weekend I was able to tackle the Streptocarpus plants. Several of them did not survive the winter–tough to know why. But most of them were just dormant and looking terrible. So, I tipped them all out of their pots and trimmed an inch off the bottom of their roots, put fresh soil and Jobe’s organic fertilizer spikes in each pot (1/3 beneath the plant and 1/3 each in two places next to the plants.
The before and after of a Streptocarpectomy.
I cut all the leaves and stems away with scissors rather than trying to pull the dead growth away. Pulling flower stems also pulls some of the new divisions away from the mother plant and I wasn’t in propagation mode.
Tulips have long been a favorite of mine and this year they reinforced my admiration by putting on a long and brilliant flower show in and around the memory garden.
I’m super excited that two of the Clivia plants blooming in the greenhouse are light yellow! They also have a graceful form of flowers. I think this is the first time for both of them to bloom.
More and more things are blooming in the greenhouse, too.
Every day finds more things blooming in the garden, too, despite the cold nights and late-ish spring.
Aquilegia formosa seedlings–native columbines. I’ve since potted these up–there were about two dozen of them.Symphyotrichum subspicatus, or Douglas aster, seedlings in pots on shelves by the greenhouse. These little guys are growing very slowly, while the parent plants are spreading madly in the native plant garden.A pot of hyacinths left over from last year are scenting the potting area and looking great.A giant batch of tulips in the bed in front of the greenhouse. These have put on quite a show.Erodium “Sweetheart” is putting on an amazing bloom display in the memory garden.A closeup of the “Sweetheart” flowers–very charming.The cousin, Geranium macrorrhizum is also starting its fairly short bloom cycle.Aubrieta ‘Snowdrift’ living up to its name.It won’t be long before the coral bells are ablaze with scarlet scapes. Invasive weed, Lamium purpureum, was one of my favorite plants as a kid. We had no idea it wasn’t native. It bloomed early and had the pretty purple leaves and stems.
More photos from today of the garden and greenhouse.
Sweet olive hybrid blooming on the patio. The fragrance even surpasses fifteen years of cumulative dog uring!Clematis alpina clone about to bloom on the back fence.Cyclamen coum seed stems are a hoot–look at the curls and twists!Another viewIncarvillea seedlings finally getting some growth on. The greenhouse is getting up to 80 degrees now and the seedlings all appreciate it!Tiny Heuchera seedlings–I have about 18 of these little fellas–hoping to get some interesting leaf colors. This is a breeder’s hybrid mix.Pleione formosana still blooming in the greenhouse.The red-flowered currants I added to the native plant garden one year ago have flowers on them! I thought I might have cut the flowers off when I took cuttings off the top of each plant, but they found a way to bloom regardless.Gorgeous and sassy male crab spider in a potted plant by the greenhouse. What a stunning little creature.Asian pear flowers.Mahonia angustifolia blooming in the native plant garden–really full flower stalks.Brunnera ‘Alexander’s Great’ is blooming in the Douglas fir bed. One of my favorite flowers, and the leaves grow into a remarkable dome by the summer.Geranium pyrenaicum “Bill Wallis” has seeded itself prodigiously in the memory garden–a maleficent marauder if ever there was one. But the flowers make me smile.One of the native columbine transplants showing a true leaf. I’m very excited to have a bunch of these in the native plant garden–I should be able to plant these out in fall for bloom next year.
As usual, spring has taken me mostly by surprise. And here it is April already! One benefit of the garden is that is gives context to time passing. No matter how busy life gets with non-gardening tasks, just looking outside and seeing the forsythia in full bloom and the tulips brightly shining tells me that we are crossing over from winter to spring.
The greenhouse has timing all its own tied to the way the temperature and light have landed inside those walls. Apparently, the Pleione orchids have been happy with all of it–they are blooming remarkably well this year.
The new tulips along the sidewalk near the memory garden are coming into bloom. One is a species tulip and the other are hybrids that were planted pretty late but didn’t seem to mind.
Here is a holiday cactus in the greenhouse that is blooming late but madly. The color is a bit much for me, but it can’t be ignored.
Spring is confirmed by the blooming of the Forsythia along the driveway, as well as the Corylopsis.
There were a lot of garden chores to complete today. I got a few of them done but left a bunch for tomorrow.
First up, I planted some seeds in the house–Silene pendula ‘Sibella Carmine,’ Nicotiana landsdorfii, Petunia ‘Old Fashioned Climbing,’ Heliotrope ‘Marine,’ and Dahlia ‘Bishops Children Mix.”
Next, I potted on seedlings of thyme, chives, basil, chamomile, parsley, dill, and the first round of Dahlia seedlings. There were hundreds of seedlings that got potted into four-packs, six-packs, nine-packs, and some 3-1/2″ pots (the Dahlias).
My favorite surprise in the greenhouse today was looking at the bonsai-ish Wisteria from brother Tim that I’ve had for close to thirty years. And I saw these:
They look suspiciously like flower buds! I think this plant has bloomed only once before and that was over twenty years ago! This is cause for celebration!
Additional good news came from the updated Clivia flower spike count. I didn’t realize that many of the mature plants were under shelves on the west side of the greenhouse and I looked through all of those today (as best I could, with a lot of twisting and turning in hard-to-reach corners) and found six or seven more blooming plants! So, my best guess is that twenty or more spikes will be blooming in the greenhouse in about three weeks. There are still a LOT of Clivia plants that aren’t blooming, so more work to be done there, but at least a big show to look forward to.
I did some clean-up in the memory garden today, too. That garden looks such a mess and like it will never fill out or amount to much of anything. On closer inspection, though, I can see some positive signs. I did a little clipping and neatening up, but time and a little warmth are all that garden really needs to shine. I took some “before” photos so I’ll remember my doubts on the first day of spring.
While the garden has a long way to grow to be lush and lovely, there are a few blooming elements already that caught my eye.
There is also a clump of narcissi that are blooming near the greenhouse that is particularly graceful.
Spring is starting to snowball in the garden and the greenhouse. Here are some random updates from the last week.
The hybrid crocus looked particularly good this week…I couldn’t resist a few pictures.The very first tulip of 2021…here is a species tulip blooming in mid-March. Lots more are coming.
Erodium pelargoniflorum “Sweetheart” getting sweeter and sweeter by the day.
It looks like the Pleione orchids are going to be generous with their blooms this year–I counted at least 16 buds today!
Related to the Pleione orchids, I’ve decided to gather moss to add to my orchid mix going forward. March seems a good time to gather it. I found a bunch on the cement benches at Amy Yee Tennis Center this weekend, so I loaded a bunch up in empty tennis ball cans and brought them home.I think this is the jungle cactus hybrid, White Christmas. It is a bit late for its namesake holiday, but I’m super happy to have a few holiday cactus blooms in the greenhouse this month.My plant hoarding continues. As I walked around near the tennis center, I found a bunch of lovely Hebe shrubs neglected in a public planting, so I grabbed a few cuttings. I also grabbed a heel cutting from a bluish juniper or cypress growing next to an apartment building. I got seeds from some black locust and also from a hawthorn and some odd shrubs growing on the Amy Yee property. All of these have been planted now–we’ll see if any of them start and add to my hoard!
