Thursday, March 28, 2019

Around the Amazon Spheres, post Snowpocalypse...

It was during the 2018 Northwest Flower & Garden Festival that I first visited the "understory" plantings at the Amazon Spheres in Seattle. I remember walking around in awe of what they'd planted and hoping the coming winter would be good to them.


Fast forward to the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival 2019 and Seattle was just coming out of a very snowy and very cold couple of weeks. I took advantage of a sunny afternoon and strolled up 7th Ave to check things out...

Sinopanax formosanus and Schefflera delavayi, both looking fine.

I found this reassuring, since I've got one of these I haven't put in the ground yet.

There was another one nearby that had some foliage damage, I wonder what caused it?

Oh my! This looks like it might have been a Genista aetnensis.

There were several beschorneria looking just like this...

I'm not an expert on these, but I don't think that's happy new growth.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

The Agave ovatifolia looked good.

As did the Yucca rostrata and Agave parryi.

Even the Rhodocoma capensis held up pretty well.

Oh the poor pyrossia!

In some places it looked like they bore the burden of all the snow as it slipped off the dome and landed on the ground below.

The Mahonia eurybracteata doesn't appear to mind a little adverse weather, the tree ferns however were still wearing their winter coats.

On my previous visit I'd spotted several Fascicularia pitcairnifolia tucked into the trunks of the tree ferns. Looks like they didn't take them off before they wrapped everything up, you can see a few leaves peeking out.

From what I could see all their tree ferns got a wrap of bubble wrap and then burlap. There were also caps to keep snow and ice out of the crown.

Some of the foliage looks rather toasted...

But as long as the trunks are still alive they'll be able to cut off the dead fronts and a new flush will quickly replace them. Fingers crossed this is the case.

The burlap wraps—so expertly done—reminded me of Martha Stewart's posts about wrapping her shrubs every winter.

Oh! That's a happy astelia.

Sadly the Ochagavia carnea suffered.

They look like they'll be fine, just cosmetic damage.

Going to be hell to clean up though, all those barbs along the leaf margin...ouch!

The last bit of burlap drama...

All the Pseudopanax ferox and P. crassifolius were covered.

If you hadn't seen the plants before they were wrapped this would be quite the head scratcher.

Looks like there are bamboo stakes providing support.

We've left the Amazon campus now and I have one last example of Seattle plant protection to share, a volunteer effort. This tree fern has been growing at the open-air University Village shopping area as long as I can remember. Someone I know via Instagram made sure it was warm during the freeze. Aren't plant people the best?

I plan to revisit all these plants sometime this summer and file a follow-up report, I hope it will be a happy one!

Weather Diary, March 27: Hi 56, Low 39/ Precip .22

All material © 2009-2019 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

23 comments:

  1. It's very impressive to see what they've planted to begin with AND how well the plants have held up. I'm blown away that there's any green on the tree ferns at all!

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    1. Right? I was overall pleased with how things looked. Fingers crossed for those tree ferns.

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  2. Got to go into the domes last Feb for a sneak peek and didn't even notice all the cool plantings around. Were they in place last year? Already they look well established.

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    1. They were in place as of my February 2018 visit.

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  3. It's interesting to see what got damaged and how and what got protected. Now I'm curious to see how long it takes for things to recover and start looking good again. Thanks for showing the bamboo supports under the burlap on the Pseudopanax ferox, I could tell there was some kind of structure under there.

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    1. I first saw images of the Pseudopanax protection on FB and I was curious what was informing the shape, as it couldn't be the plants alone.

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  4. Great display of plant protection technics, or as you put it: burlap drama. I'm impressed that you remember what was growing under there... Rave to the savior of the tree fern in U Village!

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    1. Oh those plants are too exciting to forget!

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  5. Love the burlap art installation:) Hope the plants make it. How lucky we are in the PNW to have such a fabulous place so close.

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  6. Those last burlap wraps look like a gathering of the KKK...i must be influenced by all the recent news cycles. Things are looking remarkably healthy considering the weather phenomena.
    rickii

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    1. Yikes! No, these are happy friendly burlap beings.

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  7. I hope you'll find that everything survived this winter's difficulties. At least Amazon has the resources to give the plants the best possible care.

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  8. Kris echoed my thoughts that Amazon has the deep pockets to replace anything that doesn't look peak. I wonder who has the landscape contract?

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    1. I'm hoping that the urge to remove and replace won't be so strong that plants which would recover aren't allowed the time to do so.

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    2. The exterior landscape is maintained by a third party and closely managed by in-house staff. I was amazed last week to see them trimming all the fried bits off the Tasmannia lanceolata. Talk about painstaking, slow work. I probably would have just let nature take its course. But I'd be surprised if they replace anything too hastily. If we're going to experiment a bit, might as well learn as much as possible!

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  9. Actually not Genista, but Psoralea fleta--definitely an experiment, but why not. If you can. A couple other special plants that no one seems to notice came through just fine: Weinmanniana trichosperma and Magnolia tamaulipana. And then the Eucryphia moorei.

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    1. I am completely unfamiliar with Psoralea fleta, but looking at images online I can see why the experiment was taken, why not indeed? I can't place the Weinmanniana trichosperma, and wish I could be there to see the Magnolia tamaulipana bloom. Eucryphia moorei, hmm, another I missed. Congrats on the success and I look forward to returning this summer for an update!

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  10. Yes, plant people are the best. :)

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    1. Now if only we could get a plant person in the big white house...

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  11. Really interesting to see what and how plants are protected where you live. I will put wire cages around things to keep bunnies away and pile on some leaf mulch on new plants, but that's it. No wrapping. They have to make it or out they go. Kind of cruel but our winters would make you crazy if you have to do too much protection beforehand.

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    1. Yes I think it comes down to the temping "almost" of so many plants we can grow in this climate. If they're "almost" gonna make it then we do what we can to push them over to the positive side...

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