Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Just keep working...

This spring is hard! We've gone from record breaking cold and wet, to record breaking heat with high wind and low humidity. It's enough to make a gardener crazy! I've been working like a much younger version of me, trying to make up for the havoc the bad winter caused in the garden while also doing my usual spring container migration and implementing a few design changes that I felt needed to be made. I prefer to share projects here on the blog once they're completed, but with the demands of our extreme weather I've been skipping around the garden dipping in and out of things depending on what could or could not be done for the sake of the plants, in other words a lot is in the works, but not much is completed. Here are a few quick updates with more to come later...

I bought several new plants this spring, the idea was that holes from winter needed to be filled and I was fleshing out a couple of new plantings. However, we went from the soil being to wet to dig in, to temperatures that one should not be planting in. Thus we wait (this was supposed to be a photo of a few plants in holding in the driveway stock-tanks, instead it turned out to be mainly peony foliage). I need to get these plants out to their permanent homes so I can plant tomatoes and basil here!

Here's a glimpse of a few of those "yet to be planted" plants, in the tanks on the left and right, but also a look at the sarracenia bog that replaced the dead Agave weberi that used to be in the large black container. I lost a lot of my carnivorous plants last winter and wanted to change things up and move what did live into a sunnier spot, so here they are. 

There's another carnivorous container out of frame on the left, and the surviving Darlingtonia californica are on the patio with the nepenthes.

Remember Holman, the plant I brought home from the Yucca rostrata rescue my friend Eric and I did last September? Well, after spending winter in a container in the driveway he's finally in the ground.

I've yet to deal with the surrounding Leucothoe fontanesiana 'Rainbow' (it's got to go) or plant the xeric plants I've collected for this area, but getting Holman in the ground is a start.

Another big front garden change is underway, as the annually pollarded Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' was removed (thanks Andrew!) and a previously hidden Yucca linearifolia was moved into it's place, along with a stunted Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Wissel's Saguaro'. More to come on this area as well, once I can get back out there and finish it up.

Winter did a number on the area to the left of the palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) and I've got to get in there and dig out a couple dead stumps and plant a couple of "new" things. Soon...

This area was bare soil a few weeks ago, thankfully fresh spring growth has exploded! Usually there would be a couple of galvanized dish planters in there standing tall, and colorful bromeliads that I drop into the ferny undergrowth. Not this year. Changes underway. Slow changes....(rusty changes).

The shade pavilion greenhouse walls came down (finally) on May 6th. Containers were moved to the patio, and then I spent most of the week after that hauling plants up from the basement, including the ones that get mounted on the fence. The patio is currently a mash-up of containers plopped in their approximate place. I'm planting-up some of those (ones whose contents didn't make it through the winter) with new occupants and hoping to have the time and energy arrange them all soon (maybe when the temps drop back down into the 80's?).  

Ya, so that's what's going on here. I keep reminding myself this is what I WANT to be doing. Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy... (also, please overlook the dingy late evening iPhone photos)

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25 comments:

  1. It's interesting to hear that you have had extremes of weather. Over here it has been wet and cool for most of the spring. However, the weather does seem to have changed to something a bit more seasonal in the last 7 to 10 days (Scotland is supposed to have decent weather in May, I don't believe that to be honest).

    I had been wondering about your rescue Yucca rostrata recently and I am glad to see that it survived the winter. I hope that it reroots for you. It is quite a specimen.

    Yucca linearifolia is one of the best looking Yuccas in my opinion. I can't wait to see the other plants go in around it.

    I too have a few (not as many as you mind) places that I need to fill. My youngest daughter, Claudia, and I, will be travelling down to the south west of England in 5 weeks time and I always make a point of popping into Nick Macer's excellent nursery, Pan Global Plants https://panglobalplants.com/visiting on the way.

    I am sure that I will pick up plants there that will fill the holes nicely!

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    1. I wish I could visit Pan Global Plants with you! Nick Macer was here in my garden a few years back, nice fellow.

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  2. I've found myself jumping from one project to another without ever finishing anything on my long list of projects too, and as I don't have to deal with the weather extremes you faced (yet anyway) nor a massive migration of pots, I can imagine the juggling you're doing. Meanwhile, Holman looks happy in his new location. I wonder if my Yucca rostrata would finally put on some serious height if I gave it a name to make it feel like part of my plant family?

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    1. In my experience it's best to start with a sizeable rostrata, the little ones are glacially slow. However maybe you're on to something?

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  3. Looking great, Loree. We've had back-and-forth weather all spring, too. Record heat followed by cold, followed by more heat, and back and forth. I love the photo of the foliage toward the end of your post.

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    1. Isn't it crazy? So much weather weirdness.

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  4. I think we are all in the same boat. Changing climate with wild temperature and weather swings. It's killing our treasured plants, making it difficult to get out in the garden and work. I ordered from Digging Dog and they have to send my plants a month later than scheduled because it has been so cold at their nursery. I have all kinds of reliable plants acting and looking so-so this spring. Trying to just stay calm and enjoy the fact that it's not winter.

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    1. Yes, there is that! The sunshine energizes me and I'm up early ready to tackle the projects.

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  5. AnonymousMay 18, 2023

    This post feel like a teas to me... I need/want details and conclusions :-D
    Holman is such a terrific rescue! Was it a large Fatsia in that spot before? And what's the reason for removing 'rainbow'?
    In the rusty corner, there's so much chartreuse beauty it would be hard to improve on that. (Though I know you will).
    And ending with my favorite, the shade pavilion, with an all inclusive photo I can linger on for a while...
    At this point of our home gardens, major 'renovations' aren't required every year. Lucky, cause it could finish us off...
    Chavli

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    1. That's it exactly! Everything I'm doing in the garden feels like a tease, I need a little closure. Yes, out with the fatsia. I feel like the rainbow just doesn't belong without the fatsia...

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  6. Despite the challenges you seem to be getting a whole lot done. The garden is starting to really come together. Looking forward to seeing the changes you have in mind. We are in a similar situation except we are super smokey and dry. It's currently like living in an ashtray so we are all inside. Trays of seedlings and new perennials are overflowing all available spaces. I used to enjoy Spring but having second thoughts at the moment.

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    1. I heard about your fires and smoke! Yikes. It's too early for that. Scary. Re: your second thoughts, spring? I feel like it's rapidly disappearing.

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  7. Slogging through garden recovery is not the best part of garden making for sure -- but once you get it all squared away I know that old excitement will return. I need to go salvage hunting in Portland! I may have exhausted sources here at the coast...

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    1. Unfortunately one of my favorite local salvage places is closing! But you'd love a trip to the BBC Steel remnant yard.

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  8. From freezer burn, to intense heat burning new leaf growth...good time in Portland. I lost my jubea chilnenses, a double butia capitata in a large pot, 4 small trachycarpus fortunei, one wagi, 2 agave americanas, 4 phoriums, and all but one of my astellia's. Im wondering if my 3 foot trunk cycad will sprout new growth in June or if it dead too...it has been tough. I think the cold hurt a lot plants and then the April rains did not give them a chance to dry out. But...this gives me room to plant more plants...always a good thing, right? Who am I kidding, I am shattered.

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    1. That's a lot to deal with, enough to discourage even the most hardy gardener. Those who respond to news of plant death with "but you get to buy new plants!" do not understand the emotional attachment we have to these things we've selected and nurtured. You'll understand the excitement I felt yesterday when I noticed one of my astelia is staging a comeback. It's only about an inch high, but there is life.

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  9. Oh let's not forget my favorite plant who is not going to make it - yucca queretaroensis...sad.

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  10. AnonymousMay 18, 2023

    I've enjoyed seeing your work in progress pictures. I'm not the gardener you are, but it's nice to see you're still having the same challenges I am, and are kind of in the same state of incompleteness and out of sync from normal. It is hard to deal with!

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    1. Glad to know I'm not the only one, there is comfort in that. Garden on...

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  11. Looking good! Keep giving yourself that pep talk Loree. Seems to be working.

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  12. I seriously questioned my sanity this year and realized I need a new attitude and a new approach to gardening. Thanks for sharing your in-progress projects even if they aren't completed. I've made a new policy that I make progress on at least one major project each weekend, even if it's small (such as digging one fence post, or making 5 new stepping stones). Otherwise I flit from one disaster to the next and the major stuff never gets done.

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    1. New attitude—where do you get those? Flit is the perfect word. I've actually resorted to making lists to keep myself focused.

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  13. Jeanne DeBenedetti KeyesMay 19, 2023

    Yep, just keep working! Good advice, as I "flit" from one weed infested location after another, mourning over dead plants that should have made it, dead plants that were hardy but were newly planted last spring and didn't make it, and surprises from plants that shouldn't have survived but did. I was surprised to see a papyrus plant that survived being frozen in pond water and inundated in gooey muck all winter/spring only to be saddened to see a 5 year old Arctostaphylos columbiana with dying foliage. WTF?Turns out it had a huge crack down the middle of its main stem. Thanks for putting our gardening woes into words, Loree!

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