Fall – Page 2

First out

Very first is western trillium, which shows up early fall. Now there are several other plants starting to break ground, like shooting stars: dodacatheon pulchellum and dodacatheon dentatum, Trillium chloropetulatum (fragrant), and a couple of rattlesnake plantains (though these are returning there are very few, small plants).

Collected Munro’s Globemallow seeds, looks like ~100 seeds or so. One of the two plants I had is not looking good after transplanting out of a container, so I’m back down to one. Last time I used the seeds, I got exactly one living plant from all of them. They need dry conditions and the containers aren’t ideal.

Almost all the leaves have fallen, so I did my yearly chores of cleaning out the stream and raking the steps. The chickadees seems to appreciate it, they were taking baths in the stream this afternoon.

We finally did the annual cranberry harvest, from two of the three plantings (the newest didn’t produce any). Record haul, slightly over three gallons! We should be in honey-dried cranberries all year!….or at least until we finish them all.

Seed sowing time

Sowed some seeds of plants I need more of, including Iris Setosa (dark purple), Iris Chrysophylla (light yellow), Balsamroot (orange), small Camas quamash (purple blue), light blue Camas (Camas Howellii and Camas Cuseckii), Harsh Paintbrush (Castilleja hispida, orange), Golden Columbine, White Shooting Star (dodacatheon dentatum), Sea Pink (plectritis congesta), and mixed Brodiaeas – white, blue and lavender colored Congesta.

Planted out 2010 seedlings/ bulbs: White camas, Chocolate lily (very small bulbs, maybe they were 2011), small camas, White Brodiaea, Giant Trillium and two small fawn lily bulbs. Still have some 2010 Tiger and Leopard lilies to plant out.

Douglas and Eastern squirrels sharing the yard in a kind of co-op….Douglas in the mornings and the grey squirrel in the afternoons. Have been hearing the frog on occasion the last few weeks, until this past weekend, when it got kind of cold. Where do they hang out when it gets so cold?

October 20 2012

Mallard ducks came back for the afternoon, two females and a male, hanging around the pond to feed. They’re on their way down south for the winter. They usually only come around for a couple of months in the spring, I haven’t seen them here in the fall. Incidentally we have just adopted about 20-30 new goldfish, but we can barely see a one of the fish. They are all hiding out, and the pond is now full after the rains. I guess the nice dry late summer is over!
Images from the yard, October 2012. The garden is sure growing up! Lots of foliage still around from our good leaf-growing weather we’ve had this past summer, though not as colorful as it could be. Still a little color in the yard and still a few flowers…

Fall 2011

The late spring means the fall is late, too. Lots of leaves still on the trees and shrubs, so the yard is still private at the end of October. Still working on building up the evergreen screen. Made three Ceonothus Velutinus / Snowbrush simple layerings a few weeks ago. The last set of C.V. air layerings made some inadequate roots. These are hard to find in nurseries, so I’ve had to make my own from the original ones.
Planted out the pots with several types of shooting star and delphinium seedlings from last year in the as yet mole-free meadow which was cleared last year. This gets lots of sun. They were left over summer when the seedllings die back, but the summer was so wet and cold that moss grew over much of the pots. In planting these out it looks like a few seedlings are present at the periphery of each pot, but the moss probably killed many of them off – they should be planted out in the spring. More problematic are the bulbs such as Fawn lily seedlings…they are supposed to be kept over an extra winter in the pots. Lots of bulb seedlings, but maybe I should put them in the ground when moss starts to form. When I plant the ’09 bulb seedling I’ll have a better idea how these are affected.

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