We’re expecting a nice day in Seattle today, so I will write some of my weekend plans here quickly  as I enjoy coffee and a kale smoothie.  It seems likely there won’t be any blogging time later in this busy weekend, but I’d need to be working in the garden and greenhouse, not writing about it!

My goals for the weekend:

• Clean up the raspberry bed at the front of the orchard garden;  just remove the old canes and cut back the tops of the remaining canes if needed and fertilize
• Prune back the butterfly bushes on the side of the orchard bed
• Fertilize the orchard trees/bushes/vines
• Collect all the hardy plants from the greenhouse and plant/move them outside–ferns to the Doug fir bed and other plants to pot shelves or garden, as appropriate;  need to free up space for the seedlings
• Transplant seedlings, especially the campanulas and lathyrus
• Organize the greenhouse better and get all the seedling trays up on top shelves where they’ll get better light
• Weed the bed in front of the greenhouse  and the raised herb bed there
• Trim back the Tuscan kale plants to get the flowers off them and force new, big leaves
• Move some of the excess yard waste into the empty yard waste containers for pick-up on Thursday

Regarding the Doug fir bed that I cleaned out last weekend, I did order some plants to fill it this week.  An Ebay seller had a mystery fern pack, so I ordered those, along with some Dutchman’s Breeches and Virginia Bluebells.  I have found it tough to get many plants established in this bed (except the thug geranium), but I’ll make sure to work some compost and organic fertilizer in and hopefully that will help.

Off to get it done–let’s see if I’m over ambitious!

 

 

 

 

This weekend has been perfect for some garden work–some sun, some clouds, some rain.

I spent four days up at the cabin in Tonasket.  We had wind and sun and then a bit of a snow storm, so it gave me ample time to do some garden planning and even calendar some dates for growing and planting.

For this year, I plan to work on getting the grass out of the orchard garden and preparing it for planting perennials next spring.  I also plan to rework the Douglas fir bed, removing the weedy plants and replacing them with more structure and more special shrubs and perennials.

Yesterday, I cleaned out the bed that holds the Beauty Plum and the espaliered Asian pear against the east-facing fence in the orchard garden.

This bed is troubled by three nasty weeds:  a creeping grass that gets in from the lawn, buttercups and the insidious bindweed.  I spent the day pulling and turning under buttercups.

I was wondering how it is possible that plants that evolved in other places seem so much better adapted to our area than native plants that evolved here?  For example, how is it that the blackberries, scotch broom, buttercups, dandelions and mulleins have made themselves so very at home here?

The bed is so badly infested with all of these weeds–the only recourse will be to put down landscape cloth and mulch.  That has become my plan for this entire garden to kill both weeds and grass.  I will cover everything this spring with landscape cloth and then cover with a fertile soil amendment and cover that with a bark mulch.

Here is what the buttercups looked like–they apparently grew all winter long: 

I was able to do a temporary clean up and plant 48 wallflowers in this bed, along with three of the Clematis columbiana that I grew from seed two years ago.

You can see the plum and Asian pear trees along the fence, with a bleeding heart blooming and the remainder of a hellebore in the background.  Closer to the camera, there is a penstemon and three groups of Amaryllis belladonna–the two bigger ones are pink and the third is white.  And none of them has ever bloomed.  The wallflowers are planted all around them.

Here are the little wallflowers with the white Amaryllis.  These are English wallflowers and should add a big burst of color in early summer.

Here is the Asian pear–from Raintree.  It has quite a few flowers, but there were no bees around it.  I took a paintbrush to it today, but in the rain, I doubt if it did much good.  I will hope for more natural pollinizing in the coming week or so.

Here is the bleeding heart that came from sister Cate’s garden last year.  It is doing well.  Another gold-leaved form is doing less well–but it might just be a late starter.

I cleaned up the streptocarpus in the greenhouse yesterday, as well.  There are about a dozen of them that are already growing strong thanks to all the sunny days heating up the greenhouse.  Normally, I would top dress them, but for now I just cleaned off old leaves and flower stems and fertilized them with a shot of compost tea.  I’ll give them topdressing a bit later in the season.

Today I planted seeds in the tray that was emptied when I planted out the wallflowers.  The seeds were cucumbers, Oenothera pallida, zinnias, nemesia, fireweed, and eupatorium.  I also planted four 4″ pots with bachelor buttons seeds, which should be ready to plant out in the garden in six weeks or so.

Many of the other seeds are already growing and they aren’t getting enough light on the floor of the greenhouse.  I need to relocate some of the winter growing bulbs on the sunny side of the greenhouse and replace them with the seedling trays–I will work on that next weekend.

The greenhouse is full of color right now, especially the Clivia miniata hybrids that are coming into flower.  Here are some photos of the ones opened already:

 There are slight variations among all the flowers that you can see if you look closely. 

Another flower I can count on in the greenhouse is my favorite Pelargonium (geranium)–Pelargonium papilionaceum.

This large shrub blooms around the same time as the Clivia plants and provides an interesting contrast in the greenhouse.

Each flower is gloriously intricate, and the orange pollen sets them off perfectly.  They will set seeds and the seeds do grow–I’ve had some start on purpose and on accident in greenhouse pots.  The flower season is about a month, but they continue to be showy because of their size and large leaves that smell great when brushed against or crushed.

A few more greenhouse bloomers on the first day of spring:

Pleione formosana has one huge orchid flower on a diminutive plant.  I’m excited that it is blooming, as it didn’t last year, despite prodigious growth.

Here is a seedling of Freesia laxa blooming still in its seed pot.  This is a great color improvement over the other, redder version I have (from Edelweiss at the NW Flower and Garden Show.  These are supposedly borderline hardy, so I will try moving some outside this spring.

The pitcher plant flowers are rising rapidly–can’t wait to see what they look like!

Below are some photos of the little rhododendron I have in a pot in the driveway.  It struggled somehow to keep its flowers opened and clean, but they are stunning when they do open, and there are more coming.  I need to move this beauty into the ground.

While at the cabin, I determined to rework the circle bed around the Douglas fir tree in the front yard.  To that end, today I removed all of one species of hardy geranium that had taken the concept of thug to a level even the buttercups would envy.  I had planted them on purpose in this bed, as they are attractive, especially in spring when they first leaf out and when the pink flowers open.  Not only do they spread by rhizomes, but they seed themselves EVERYWHERE.  So, they have to go.  I pulled them from the Douglas fir bed today and will eradicate them from other areas in the coming weeks.  I am not naïve enough to believe that this battle is won.  It is unlikely that I’ve gotten every rhizome and there are thousands of seeds just waiting their chance, but I consider it a start.  If I’m diligent, I should be able to keep them out of the yard from now on.

Here is the overly zealous geranium–possibly maculatum?  It has fresh leaves now, but fades quickly when things dry out and its propensity for proliferation has made it enemy number one in 2015.

Here is the bed after I cleared all the rogue geraniums out.  Lots of room for new plants!

Fortunately, the soil under the huge Douglas fir tree is dry and light, so it wasn’t too terrible pulling 2000 or so geranium plants.

And here is the huge pile of casualties, and this does not include the full yard waste container!

Today was another perfect day–temps in the 60’s and bright sun all day.  It is impossible to believe that any real winter weather might befall us after these last few weeks of warm and calm.  However, nights are still chilly and we had frost last week here, so that was a useful reminder to not get ahead of myself in planting and fertilizing.

I performed a few chores today–dug around the two columnar apple trees in the orchard garden (Scarlet Sentinel and North Pole) and the dwarf cherry (Glacier).  The plum tree is in bloom, but only a few flowers–doubt if any fruit will set.  There are bees around, but I’m not sure they are finding the flowers I want them to find.  They seem obsessed with finding water, instead.

Not a great photo, but these are all the flowers this Beauty plum has.

The bed that this plum and the grafted, espalier Asian pear occupy is completely filled with crab grass, buttercups and bindweed.  The bindweed isn’t up yet, so I’ll dig it out as best I can.  I did tackle some of the buttercups today and will tackle even more at a later date.  I plan to bed out a bunch of the English wallflower seedlings in this bed and then cover the ground with very aggressive groundcovers to keep the weeds down.

Other sights from the garden, pots and greenhouse:

This is the winter hazel (corylopsis) that is blooming next to the forsythia.  I love the soft yellow and the grace of the flowers.  The branching pattern is very graceful, too, and excellent for flower arrangements.  Looking up, you can see the details of the flowers and the graceful zigzag of the stems.

The leaves, once they unfurl, will be striking, as well–they resemble hazel leaves, but more graceful and with touches of red.

I’m not sure I would plant the two early yellow bloomers together if planning the garden again, but I do find the combination works.

Amazingly, three weeks after the first flowers burst open, the forsythia continues to impress.  It appears to be an excellent cultivar.  I would normally prune it back right after flowering, but it is so striking and such a graceful, natural shape that I will let it be for one more year.

This is the camellia that was here in the yard in 1995 when we moved in.  I pruned it once to make it more of a tree and less of a shrub, and I think it could use that treatment again.  The flowers are lovely, but we don’t usually get to enjoy many pristine ones, as the rain ruins them.  Something is bothering this old shrub, as it has dropped a bunch of leaves for no apparent reason.  I’ll keep an eye on it.  The flowers don’t appear affected, and there are plenty of them.

There are a few flowers open on the bigroot geraniums (geranium macrorrhizum)already. Again, not a great picture.  It can be easy to overlook the individual beauty of these flowers, as typically they bloom in clusters all over the garden. When there are just a few of them, they beg closer inspection.  This is one of my favorite ground covers–seems to like my clay here.

Here is an anemone blanda blooming in a clay pot on the shelves outside the greenhouse.  It was lovely in the sun today.  I also saw the blue variety (really a lavender blue) in one yard en masse on my run today and they were impressive.  I might try them in the ground again, as they obviously can work nicely in this area.

 

This interesting delicate blue hyacinth is impressive in form and fragrance.  It came in a mix, so I’ll have to see if I can figure out which cultivar it is to order some for next year.  Normally, my instinct is to dismiss flowers that have been so gaudily hybridized, but the giant flower spikes of hyacinths are an exception for me.  They retain grace in the individual petals/florets, and I just love the scent.

I was gifted with three hybrid pitcher plants last year that I’ve kept in a tray in the greenhouse.  I wasn’t sure I was meeting their needs, but today I noticed that one of the Sarracenias has a couple of flower spikes coming on.  The flowers of these unusual plants are even more impressive to me than the miraculous leaves–it should be fun to watch their progress.

 

 

 

One of my favorite seedling clivias, this one is called Starlight of Buddha and features leaves that are variegated in broad bands.  This plant is at least six years old and is flowering for the first time this year.  It is very compact and gorgeous, and mostly carefree, like all clivias.

I forced this tulip mix in the produce drawer of the fridge.  Most of the flowers are purple, but this light yellow one caught my eye in the windowsill yesterday, glowing in the sunlight.  These smaller species tulips have not been ideal as forced flowers–the show isn’t particularly “showy”.  Yet the individual flowers are exquisite.

 

Here is a current photo of the Veltheimia in the greenhouse.  The leaves are lovely, undulating and shiny.  The plant to the left in the photo  is a giant seedling Chlorophytum krookianum.  Closely related to the common spider plant houseplant, I’m hoping to get flowers from this giant in the next year or two.

Honestly, it seems more like summer than winter!  We’ve had so many bright, sunny days in a row, I’m not sure what to make of all of the blue sky.  Today was another planting, organizing day, with some mowing and pruning  thrown in for good measure.

I started by planting a flat of seeds–sand verbena (abronia), verbena rigida, agastache, peach leaved bellflowers, calendulas, Shirley poppies, prickly poppies (argemone) and others.

Once the seeds were in, I moved onto some cuttings–I took a total of 18 cuttings, 6 of each kind of clematis in the garden.  I’ve had success with these early spring cuttings in the past, so thought I’d try it again.  I just cut some branches from the clematis vines that were showing bud growth, trimmed each growing bud down with just a bit of vine, dipped them in hormone powder and stuck them in some good potting mix and watered well.  Here’s what the tray looked like:

 

The greenhouse had to be reorganized in order to allow for what I am hoping will be a spectacular clivia show in the next few weeks.  This was the perfect day to pull everything from the greenhouse floor and rearrange with the clivias front and center.  It was intensely fun digging through the plants and discovering all the clivia spikes.  I counted a total of 20 spikes in all, which is probably twice as many bloom spikes as I’ve ever had in previous years.  Many more of the seedlings, including the variegated ones and the Light of Buddha seedling that I’ve had for many years, are finally blooming size.

And here is the fully rearranged greenhouse with all of the spiking clivias front and center:

Here are some blooming things around the greenhouse and garden:

 

 

How is it possible that the lawn needed to be mowed at the end of February?!  Usually, I get to wait until the end of March, but I should have mowed it this past weekend and decided to do other chores with my limited time, instead.

I pruned the heck out of a wild rose at the end of the driveway.  Grown from an arboretum seed, this rose is very vigorous and should have been planted a little farther into the yard, away from the driveway and the street.  Inevitably, it grows long canes that reach out and scratch cars and visitors alike.  I cut it way back to the main woody canes–about 4′ at the tallest.  It will spring back to life and get to 10+ feet again by the end of summer.  This rose gets elegant light pink, single flowers, and is festooned with elongated, scarlet hips all winter long–festive for holiday decorating and just adding lovely color to the garden in the gray months.

I planted the seedling sweet peas out near the berry trellises on Sunday, too.  I’m hopeful the slugs will leave them alone and the cold weather won’t bother them.  They were healthy starts and I didn’t want them to get pot bound, as that tends to slow them down or stop them growing altogether.  My hope is that the peas will bloom early and long and attract pollinators to the berry flowers as they appear, increasing the crops and adding interest and fragrance to that area of the garden.

I checked out the seed flats and the only noticeable growth is with the Lathyrus mix that I planted several weeks ago.  About nine different seedlings were showing through the soil.  I’ve left the wallflower seedlings out to harden off and they seem no worse for wear.  Likely, they will find a place in the garden next weekend.

In the greenhouse, the clivias are starting to spike, which means that I really need to reorganize next weekend and move these bold plants out where I can make sure they get watered and where their lovely flowers can be enjoyed.

I have started dozens of these amaryllis relatives from seed and many of them have never bloomed before, so I’m excited to see the colors and flower shapes.

Other plants that are getting flowers are the masdevallia orchids.  I divided one plant into four last year and all of them are healthy and setting flowers.  The flowers look like this:

The Veltheimia in the greenhouse is blooming, as well, all the way at the far end that I can only reach with great effort, moving some of the winter-stored plants out of the way.

I also spent some time tearing ivy off of the giant Douglas fir tree in the yard.  I like having ivy in the bed around the tree–it covers and drapes well.  But you have to manage it, or the tree will get devoured and the ivy will bloom and set seed, which isn’t fair to nature or neighbor.

I finished the Chatto/Lloyd gardening letter book I was reading.  It had a few good pieces of advice and mostly was inspiring in hearing older gardeners who had loved gardening their whole lives and their passion for it didn’t fade but got stronger.

My newest garden read, and one that I’m extremely excited about is local author Ann Lovejoy’s “Handbook of Northwest Gardening”.    So far, this book appears to be an extremely sensible and intelligent planning guide for transforming a house lot into a useful, beautiful garden space.  I like the way Ms. Lovejoy spells out the steps and the problem-solving techniques.  It doesn’t hurt that the book deals very specifically with the challenge I’m facing–recreating a garden from the lawn and old shrubs that exist here in my yard.

So, off to read more about what I might someday get to do when time and finances allow!

The glorious, amazing spring weather continues and I had the pleasure of visiting West Seattle yesterday and wandering around with my brother.  The plants there are even more advanced than here in north Seattle, thanks to the warming effects of the nearby Puget Sound.

Saucer magnolias against the blue sky.

Most books say that sunny days are bad for photography, and I certainly see the challenge.  But the bluest skies are irresistible!

Stunning saucer magnolia in full bloom and closer and closer up.

 
This rich purple magnolia was in someone’s yard and I couldn’t reach it, but the camera was able to capture some of the beautiful color.

I have a love/hate relationship with bergenias.  I hate the way the leaves get mangled by winter and sometimes just leave a mess.  But how can I not love the flowers?  West Seattle certainly seems to suit these plants better than my area, where they just look disastrous this year.

Early rhododendrons are everywhere, including the lovely white one above.

 

These delicate pink bells on a dwarf rhodie shrub were lovely to see.

This is a fragrant viburnum, delicate scent and lovely flowers on a rambunctious shrub.

Rosemary was blooming remarkably well in the balmy weather, and the flowers looked particularly stunning against this brick wall.

 

The camellias were amazing around my brother’s neighborhood…and the flowers were pristine because of the dry weather.  Above is a gallery of some of them.

Red flowering currants in full bloom.

This gorgeous plum tree was showing off in the pea-patch garden in which my brother is a member.

This pasque flower was blooming brightly in the West Seattle Nursery.

This beautiful flower was opening in a 4″ pot at West Seattle nursery–a ginger of some sort.

Daphne, smelling like heaven and lovely, too.

A daffodil opening in the brilliant sun.

This pachysandra has an interesting bloom–not showy like most of the other flowers in this gallery, but with its own lovely charm.

Brilliant crocus shining through sedums.

I went running today and it was stunning how many plants are already in bloom.  Daffodils and crocus are in full bloom, much earlier than I ever remember.  Vinca minor is in full bloom and the bedraggled bergenias are trying to bloom, but being severely outclassed by pink heathers and white iberis.  Many plum, cherry, ornamental pear and apricot trees are also boisterously flaunting their flowers.  I saw scotch broom, that weedy invader, starting to bloom.  The early flowering rhododendrons are also in flower.

Today was so very spring-like, and it is obvious that the plant life here believes that spring is here, as well.  The buds on the Santa Rosa plum I purchased from Raintree are plumping up and near to blooming.  All the fruit trees and shrubs have expanding buds already.  The winter hazel is about to be in full bloom next to the blazing forsythia, and Osmanthus fragrans is days away from sweetly scenting the driveway.

Any severe frost or cold from now on could be devastating to crops, flowers and the plants themselves.

There has been an especially sweet smell in the garden when I leave in the morning and when I come home at night. I wasn’t sure what could be smelling so sweetly and fairly strong, as the only obvious things in flower have no scent.  I recently read for the first time that Daphne laureola, the spurge laurel, can be fragrant.  This handsome plant, now considered a noxious weed in our area, has sprouted a few places in our yard and is currently in full bloom, with yellow-green flowers.  I always let it grow, but try to cut it back before it has a chance to form ripe berries to keep it from spreading.  I had always been told that this plant’s flowers do not smell, but there is no doubt that some of those in our yard have a wonderful fragrance, and the Wikipedia link confirms that these flowers can have a strong scent.

One notices so many things while running 16 miles through the neighborhood.  Probably the most obvious thing I notice is how few people even try to maintain any type of garden nowadays.  Most of them are content with lawn and a few shrubs or perennials, poorly placed and even more poorly maintained.  Among these plain-Jane yards, I do see some gems mixed in.  Many of these have obviously been designed by professionals, but some appear to just be garden-crazy individuals with their home-style charm applied liberally to a city lot.

I checked the seeds today and, while none of the seeds planted last week are poking through yet, the seeds from the prior planting are up and growing well.  Several of the mixed lathyrus seedlings are up, some myositis, hundreds of campanula and the sweet peas.  In an earlier post, I mentioned the possibility of mold in the greenhouse, and I realized today that one of the fans had died, so I ordered a new one to be delivered in 10 days or so.

By moving the flat of wallflowers outside (under a clear plastic cover), I was able to make room for one more flat of seeds without having to rearrange the entire greenhouse.  So, I planted mixed Andean rarities, a salvia mix, a verbascum cottage mix, roemeria hybrida, along with some primula japonica in a soft pink.

The best things blooming in the greenhouse are the forced spring bulbs, a species crocus and mixed dwarf iris.  They are so lovely and graceful (and short-lived), that I took a few pictures to remember them:

 

Shopping filled some of my time today, as I was too tired after the run to tackle much!  I ordered from Gardens Alive, who now carry plants–one dwarf mulberry, a new type of blackberry and a goji berry vine.  I also ordered some fruit fertilizer.  Their products have always worked well for me and are designed with the environment in mind.

From the Kelp4Less website, I ordered some rooting powder, some kelp meal (which I swear by), and some azomite powder, which is a natural mined substance that adds minerals to soil from A to Z (thus the name azomite).

We’ll be having a neighborhood studio tour in September and our house will be one of the stops.  I intend to have some plant stock saved up and ready to sell during the art sale.  I already have a bunch of cymbidiums and queen’s tears, and if any of the seeds I’m starting take off in any significant numbers, I should have some good-sized perennials to sell.  Also, I’ll take cuttings (once the rooting powder lands) of the clematis on the arbor in front (small, prolific, purple single flowers) as I cut it back for the season, and will also get cuttings of the Clematis alpine “Willy” on the back patio and the C. Montana rubens, as well.

Other plants that will be easy to divide are the campanula porscharskyana, and the big root geraniums are easy to root.  There are typically some Echinops in the veggie gardens seeded from the big parent plant nearby.  My goal would be to have plants in the $2.50 to $5.00 range ready to fly off the shelves.  That has never happened before, but I’m telling myself that if I have the RIGHT plants I can sell them.  Spring makes me optimistic!

The forsythia near the driveway is really coming into its own:

The street light shines on the top of this shrub, making it showy day AND night!

 

Mixed dwarf iris that were forced in the fridge–potted up in October:

I’m especially glad that there are hybrids in the mix, as most of these mixes only contain the species.

 

While it seems a bit early for seed starting, I have so many different kinds to start that I need to spread them out over then next three months.  And definitely the spring-like weather is motivating me to get as many in the ground early as possible.

The transplanted wallflowers are doing well–they haven’t grown too much, but appear healthy and should be ready to transplant mid-March after hardening them off.  I will water them with some compost tea today.

Some of the seeds planted in late January are up and growing.  Surprisingly, hundreds of the campanula mix seedlings have sprouted, all looking much the same.  The sweet peas are also up.  A few forget-me-nots and a few of the lathyrus mix are peaking through, as well.

I aired the flats out a bit yesterday, as mold is visible.  The flats are across from and under fans, as well, but might have just been a bit too moist.  I’ll keep an eye on them.

Decisions have been made on how to plant the orchard area north of the driveway and turn it into a better garden.  I’ve decided that going with floriferous, mostly low growing perennials that I can grow from seed with a few purchased plants thrown in (always nice to have treasures to shop for) makes the most sense.  I’ll plant it as if it is a border on its own, with lawn pathways (for now).  The seeds went into flats yesterday–three types of geranium, a dianthus mix and three types of penstemon. three types of non-vining lathyrus, and a good form of oregano.  Some of the campanulas will find their way here, too, and some creeping thyme will fill in.  With some reasonable planning and luck, I should end up with a bee/butterfly and hummingbird paradise with lots of pollination happening on the fruits and berries by next spring.

Other seeds found there way into flats and the ground yesterday, too.  I soaked some yellow-podded peas for half a day and then planted them in the veggie garden.  It was perfect weather for that, and I think the soil is warm enough that they should be up in a week or so.

The greenhouse is cramped for space for flats so I need to reorganize it.  This will likely be attempted next weekend, as the calendar is fairly open and the weather is supposed to cooperate.

Here is what it looks like now, with the wallflowers closest to the watering can:

I’m back from a week in the desert of Nevada and Arizona and it looks, feels and sounds an awful lot like spring here in Seattle.  In the eight days since I flew away, the forsythia bush at the end of the driveway burst into full bloom:

Other signs of spring are all the hellebores in full flight:

These two from Plant Delights about four years ago in the bed under the douglas fir.

Here is flower detail:

Below is still my favorite flower from brother Tim–likely 15 years ago.

This one is from sister Cate last year–prolific and coincidentally looks like a combo of the other two!

Unfortunately, the bulbs I forced in the cold frame have been pretty warm, so they are all getting ready to bloom at once and not on my schedule, but on their own. Some of the hyacinths look pretty good:

You can see that these are ready to go, so I’ve uncovered them to get a bit of the wonderful sun today.  I’ll be moving them out to the greenhouse or house soon.  The tulips are the only ones that aren’t really doing much–not sure if they will bloom or not.

Bulbs in the garden are actually ahead of the forced bulbs, including the crocus and one lonely, early daffodil:

Other blooms and buds in the garden: