It’s January and the relative warmth continues. It’s been in the 50s /40s for a long time with a brief spell of 30s. Coming up a little early also are the shooting stars, which appeared a few weeks ago. The Ookow/Brodiaea Congesta is sprouting up, as are the white Tritellias now scattered all over the back yard, white Camas (2 light blue ones already coming up, we’ll see if they decide to bloom this year). There may be one group of Hookers Onion coming up. A small plant spike near it has always come up but has never turned into anything. Maybe it will first not get eaten by slugs and then actually bloom this year, and I can then decide if it is worth protecting. I put some slug bait around those two and the nascent daisy.
The greenery of the yard is somewhat maintained through January, by virtue of the increasing size and extent of the evergreen, though there is a ways to go: ferns, evergreen Penstemons, Heucheras, Silal, irises, evergreen ground covers like cranberry, Yerba Buena, and Twinflower.
The Rattlesnake Plantain looks good, it is growing new leaves at the two sites we transplanted it in the lower back yard wooded area (from Lopez Island). One other old rattlesnake plantain plant appears to have come back from the dead. I’d transplanted it out of the sun at lest several years ago -in an unlikely place for it, to be honest. It surprised me by coming back up last fall. Maybe it was there but invisible…..it is less dramatic in the rattlesnake pattern but it is one. There is a nearby plant that I’m not sure of, it superficially looks like it, though I would not likely have planted anything there as it is in the walkway. That one is under surveillance. A third one nearby is likely a weed, that one will likely get booted soon.
We took out the now monstrous Garrya tassel bush from the back yard near the deck, which was crowding out all the adjacent plants, and causing the Hairy Manzanita to be deformed. It was over 8 feet tall and spread widely. It also was stunting the adjacent Pink Honeysuckle, Penstemon and deciduous Rhodie- it had to go. It was too big to transplant. I hacked all the limbs off, and Dave dug it out. Much more sun for all those plants near the hot tub deck and steps. We planted a new Garrya Fremontii which is a smaller shrub and put it where it has room to grow for screen. Here’s a pic of the tassels. Pretty tree but it IS a monster!
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