Maintenance

January news

Tritelleia is coming up! That is, if the trampling deer don’t squash it. And a few of the Camas bulbs I transplanted around due to their dormancy where they had been under the pines: Howelli and Cusecki. Little bits of Castilleja, penstemons, wild blue flax, bluebells , leafing out.

The coyotes have been around, but Wiley’s a little late to the party this time:

The coyotes aren’t the only ones partying pond-side:

Finally found cloches that just keep vermin from eating the plants. Rusted-bronze cages that self-stake into the ground. They blend into the mulch, you can hardly see them. I’ve put 4/6 around so far, maybe the two little red huckleberry plants the deer have leveled will forgive me and come back to grace the yard. I’ve also put up four low portable linking fences that also self-stake, circling places the deer have injured but need to stay out of. They are also hard to see, fortunately, so I must stay on trail. So far none have been breached or moved at all, including one that has been there about a month. I am presuming the deer and other critters who have not brought down my modest fence can see it and just choose to go around, which is what I am trying to achieve.

September 2018

Yard still looks great for late sept, maybe due to the regular sprinkling I did when the rains were sparse, hoping the young plants would fill out and mature.

We had the second ever Rattlesnake Plantain flowers, several on each of four plants, one had five flowers! Lots and lots of dust- like seeds released when they matured. Hopefully we’ll have some new little seedlings, instead of just rhizomes.

Garden’s end- October 15

Last of Green Pole beans picked over the last week, and made a sechzuan stir fry with them. Haven’t taken the vines down, but I doubt any of the recent flowers will give us beans with the temps in the lower 50’s and 40’s. We had beans for about 2 1/2 months, from beginning of August to mid October.

Pulled down the tomatoes, about 25 small Casady ones and the four larger Oregon Spring ones inside on platters, we’ll see….I’m sure the Casady ones will be OK to eat, not sure of the others.

Put the large cloches over he broccoli sprouts. The larger ones are about 8-9″ tall, the other batch are about 5-6 inches. There are a bunch of green onions and a few carrots also inside the cloche perimeter, and a few others outside. I guess we don’t really need the “deer fence” around the garden anymore!

Deer in the house

Telltale hoof prints, and gnawed Lewisia Columbiana. We haven’t had a deer here since we moved in 22 years ago, and now we’ve had them twice in eight months. The rest of our plants blooming right now are flowers the deer apparently DOESNT like:

Below: Pink Fawn Lilly, Silk Flower, Trillium Ovatum, and Monks Hood (poisonous). These are all pictures from couple of days ago:

Oh, and I almost forgot, an updated picture of the hothouse, as I’m calling my raised planter now. I measured the temperature during sunny time. 55 in shade, 65 or so in sun, and 80 in the hothouse!! No wonder they like it so much. I may have to remove the cover during the warmer days, but I’m worried about DEER EATING MY VEGGIES!, so I’ll just take them off during the hottest hours of the day.

Seed story, beginning of spring (march 26)

Seeds coming up now: Oregon geraniums, Desert Parsley and some Allium, and maybe Gaillardia in pots. Definitely some seedlings out in the yard, maybe gaillardia, Indian Paintbrush, and maybe Woodland Penstemon. Desert Parsley seeds germinate well but seem to be getting eaten out in the yard.

Bought 3 tall Red Ovalleaf huckleberry bushes (4 ft tall and narrow) and transplanted two smaller ones into the south west lower back yard, in an area cleared by removing a maple tree. It gets dappled and indirect sun, and the soil is better and moister than where the two i transplanted were. We have two thriving in a similar environment. Other understory plants put there, some earlier and some recently: several Wild Ginger txs, several bluebell rotundifolia txs, clusters of brodiaea, Fairy bells, Trillium Chloropetalum and Ovatum, Pink Fawn Lily, Kitten tails, Miterwort, Hookers Onion, Prunella, and Loganberry.

Transplanted about half the cluster of Trillium Ovatum in the lower back yard, which I had sown many years ago, maybe six. I transplanted ten bulbs with their three-leave tops into another area, to give the remaining ones a little more room. There are about ten or more left. There are more than germinated the first year or two, and they are of varying maturity. I think some of the seeds are latent or take longer to appear above ground. The cholorpetalum doesn’t seem to do that, I left the 8 or so plants alone.

The lower back yard (west) is getting to be a GROTTO with FERNS (thriving licorice, leather leaf, sword and maiden hair) as well as TRILLIUM, HUCKLEBERRIES and the other ground covers like Wild Ginger. Turns out we don’t have very many pictures of this area, probably because it had never been particularly photogenic, it is a shady slower growing area and we’ve cleared the area relatively recently. But now it is starting to fill in, and a rangy maple taken out (full disclosure, my fault, I kept it low for view), so here are the “before” pics: I may wait for a couple of months for the follow up “during” or “after” shots, as much of it is herbaceous, deciduous and/ or growing still!

BEFORE PIX: circa 2013 or so .

Looking south towards new grotto area (upper right in photo)

Above: The foreground is Vancouvaria and Goats beard coming up…the ‘grotto’ area is in the background. The pic below is taken from the grotto area itself, looking back east.

February progress

Shooting stars (pulchellum, or few flowered) are starting to come up this last week (feb ~10). They do NOT look like this yet, however!- at this point in time they have barely poked out of the ground. This is quite a late appearance compared to last year, when there were sightings of these in early January, about a month earlier. But then again, last year was way early. The appearance of some other plants is also relatively later, also, including the tritelliaea, Camas (light blue and white), Hookers onions. As far as seeds go, only the yellow Desert Parsley has germinated, but there is a big mound and some shoots showing, so there will undoubtedly be dozens or more of these! Others anticipated, especially Woodland Penstemon, Iris Chrysophylla, Indian Paintbrush and Pink Fawn lillies, all of which have so far been elusive.

In review of the post from a year ago, I had found two barely live plants that had returned from the missing or dead, I’ll call them Lazarus the Rattlesnake plantain and Phoenix the Wild Ginger plant. Both are thriving now, despite their rough and slow starts. The Wild Ginger had been tortured by slugs, until I covered it with a cloche last year, the plantain I just kept uncovered by pine needles, and now nature has taken over.

We are having a number of small trees taken out, which have outgrown their sites. Four of these are evergreen trees inside the raised planter bed, in the north backyard. These have gotten too large and compete wth each other for sun, each growing way out over the deck and making a mess as well as ending up distorted by each other. These were all deliberately planted years ago: a moderate size Madrona (litters large leaves onto the deck), a Strawberry tree (which leaves a nasty mess with mushy berries and flowers on the deck), and two tallish Bay leaf trees. I had already planted two Myrtle trees BEHIND the raised planted bed, which are each about 6-7 feet tall now but are not getting enough sun, leaning over and with wimpy branches. Taking these four trees out will give the Myrtles lots of sun and they should fill in the screen border (I may throw a viburnum in between for good measure). Unfortunately there will be a paucity of screen in the meantime, so we’ll have to use the umbrella a lot. Fortunately though, the row of Myrtles, Viburnums, and Strawberry trees along this same border nearer the house have matured and near completely screen out the neighbors. This is more of a continuation of the same screen row pushed out of the yard, to reclaim the raised bed space. I’ll have to do a. It of LITTER cleaning once the trees are out, since the area under those trees is thick with leaves, small branches and pine needles. This is a pic from a several years ago looking at several of those trees (towards the right, around the red rhodie), they had already filled in the planter space:

Several other trees will be taken out here and there. This also includes several NON-NATIVE American Cranberrys, which turned out to be the European variety, and there were three that we need out (the fourth, which has grown almost as a trellis over the stream, will be kept). We found a true Native American Cranberry which will be planted. And some lowering of Vine Maples and pruning of some Pine branches.

Front yard landscaping project …..

WordPress acting up FOR MANY MONTHS by not saving posts, etc. Multiple false starts with pix and everything, and something would then happen to cause an error. Dave had to change the server back to WordPress, which gives up the plant directory links and stuff, but at least it will keep the posts.

Lots of stuff going on. Continue reading “Front yard landscaping project …..”

Late summer in all it’s glory – really!

We’ve had some good summer rains this year, about every 2-3 weeks or so. Combined with the hotter weather, the plants are loving it! Most everything looks beautiful and lush like it normally would if it got enough rain throughout the summer, which “normally” it doesn’t! A few plants still getting a little scorched, fewer now that I’ve transplanted most of them out of the direct summer sun? So, so’ s not to forget, here’s my transplant list for this fall:

Two huckleberries from backyard meadow, to west entry area.
Two maidenhair ferns from front yard to anywhere better, speaking of over sunned!
Pull out remainder of ajuga around patio, replant with new seedlings of Paintbrush, Gaillardia and Globemallow.
Hooker’s Fairybells to less summer sun.

I sowed a bunch of Trillium Chloropetalum seeds that the one newer plant produced (two small but productive pods), into three spots in the lower back yard. Propagating these would be a coup, as they are fragrant and more delicate looking than the Westerns. It is in an area that the moles have thankfully abandoned, as they have several other hazard spots, and not in too much sun. It will eventually be a little grotto for some ferns, Boykinia, Leopard lily, Fawn lily, chocolate lillies, Shooting stars, Miterwarts, Trilliums (Chloropetalum),Penstemons, spotted Saxifrage, Camas, Bear Grass, Balsamroot and Pussytoes, to name a few. Well, it will be trilliums in about 7 years, anyway, that’s what it takes from seed! The Western Trillium seeds from the last few years germinated well – we have about five different patches of two-year seedlings planted out in the ground, and about five of the three-year plants which were planted into a small pot.

We’re in the paper!

Our garden was featured in the Seattle Times’ Sunday garden section, as a native garden. The pix were taken last year, in May, so things have filled out more since then, but the photos were good anyway…our garden can be very photogenic and not hard to find many good shots.

Next up, Sunset! We were photographed in May of THIS year, during and after the native plants society tour on the 17th. I have to say, those pix are likely to be much better – there are more and larger plants that are relatively new, more filled out, and a few plants bloomed for the first time, including the gorgeous White Camas and White Brodiaea ass well as Bear grass…these pix really don’t do them justice!.

Mole season

Apparently this is now birthing season for the northwest mole, Scapanus townsendii, and new superficial sidetunnels (and mounds) are expected in the spring for the expanding family. They have their favored spots in the yard, and I’ve already transplanted out a small patch of garden that i bordered with stones, called “mole hill”. I think I’ll get an official garden marker for it. Continue reading “Mole season”