danger garden

Friday, October 21, 2022

Back Garden Tour 2022, Chapter 2

Starting up where Chapter 1 left off, we're looking at the area behind our garage, the fence is our south-side property line. For the first fifteen years I gardened here, there was a trio of conifers right along the neighbor's side of the fence, thus the soil here was impossible to dig (dry, root-filled) so that's why I started planting in containers.

The shade pavilion, which will become a greenhouse in just a couple weeks.

Since these photos were taken this area has been completely reworked. The bromeliads are tucked in the basement and I've expanded the rock plantings. A subject for a future post!

It's so nice to see this area looking summery, since it's not nearly so full in real live (with the Great Migration underway).

This stock tank used to hold a huge chunk of Podophyllum pleianthum, while I miss it I do love this new version planted up with lots of my favorite things.

Now the fence! It's become my canvas for all sorts of experimenting: bromeliads, staghorn ferns... what can I grow vertically?

I have had so much fun here, some planting ideas only lasted a year or two, others are still going strong several years in.

What they all have in common is that they are summer fun, the fence is bare once the shade pavilion's greenhouse walls go up.

That means a lot of work cleaning plants up and moving them indoors. It's worth it though!

Looking at the southwest corner now, where I put in these tall columns late last spring.

Pay no attention to the agaves on the lower left below, they were moved here just as a place to land while Andrew worked on the scaffolding shown at the beginning of Chapter 1, they'd been soaking up the sun out in the driveway planters all summer and will move into the shade pavilion greenhouse soon.

Here's a new view, the shade pavilion as seen from the west end, back wall of the garage in the distance.

Same focus, but moved inwards from the extreme.

Turning left (north-ish) to look at the patio now.

The Magnolia macrophylla and Tetrapanax papyrifer are meeting over the patio dining table. What was once VERY sunny is now quite shady.

Stepping down on to the patio.

Looking towards the shade pavilion with the dining table in the foreground.

Patio plants in the southeast corner...

Same view, pulled back.

Southwest corner...note the Agave victoriae-reginae bloom standing tall!

The agave is all bloomed out now (I'm posting weeks after the photo was taken), but since it's one of the hardier agaves—and shows no sign of post-bloom decline—I'll leave it in place and see how it does over the next few wet and cold months.

The west side of the patio, many of these containers were moved to this location when the driveway scaffolding went up.

Dioon edule and friends.

Looking semi northeast now and the orange wall comes into view. What's really remarkable to my eye is the fact the Agave ovatifolia almost entirely blocks the stock tank "pond"...

When I first planted the agave in this large green container I put two others in with it becasue it looked so small (here). Not anymore!

A gunnera spent the summer in the stock tank pond, since every other plant I tried was tortured by the raccoons. I've since given the gunnera to a friend and plan to fill the tank with soil and plant it up in the spring. I am done fighting the masked asshats and trying to grow water plants.

Class photo against the orange wall...

Looking east towards the back of the house.

And just like that, this tour has come to an end! Today—October 21st—our typical autumn weather (cooler and periods of wet) is expected to arrive, more than a month late. I've loved every stolen minute of the extended summer, but since the last few days have been miserable with heinous levels of wildfire smoke making the air thick and unhealthy even I am ready for the rain to come...

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Back Garden Tour 2022, Chapter 1

We begin this year's tour of the back garden in the driveway, where instead of sharing a container garden like I usually do, we get scaffolding and a siding project. The cedar shingles on the upper side of the house were original (1948) and in need of replacement. The job was too small for a professional to take on (we tried!), so Andrew did it himself. Pretty darn impressive I thought, especially because it involved moving two soil-filled stock tanks and that humongous agave.

Just like the front garden tour, these photos were all taken on the same day in mid-September. Rather than try to put together a "best of" collection with lots of perfectly lit photos, I'm going with "a day in the life" style of reporting. Let's head into the back garden...

Oh! But first, I am very happy with how this Agave americana, 'Mediopicta Alba' has worked in my Point Pot. I hope it gets some size to it—even though that means I might have to break the pot to get it out eventually.

The entrance to the back garden continues to become more and more jungly. Or if you're my 6ft 2in husband, it continues to become less friendly—he doesn't like plants touching him.

Shifting our eyes to the right and the back of the house.

Passiflora 'Snow Queen' growing on the trellis.

Agave 'Cornelius' in the table planter. Yes there's a little soil in the rectangular tube, and no I don't know what this metal piece really is. I bought it at Portland's Rebuilding Center.

The view expands a bit...

And a bit more...

Looking west, our patio in the distance—at a lower level, just under 2-ft lower than the upper garden.

The orange wall comes into view! Looking northwest now, the entrance to the garden is directly behind us...

Orange accents help to pull the orange wall out into the garden.

The shrub with the bursts of yellow is Podocarpus macrophyllus 'Miu' / Roman Candle™ Podocarpus from the Sunset Plant Collection, I brought it home in 2018. To it's left is a Nolina hibernica 'La Siberica'—yes they are too close together. We'll see how I handle that.

I replanted this area this spring, but I don't think I ever wrote about it—a mix of ferns and rhododendrons: Rhododendron pseudochrysanthum, Rhododendron williamsianum, Epimedium 'Spine Tingler', Pyrrosia lingua 'Eboshi', etc... all too close together but hey, that's how I roll.

Ficus tikoua

Turning to look east, across the small upper lawn towards the back of the house.

And looking southwest towards the shade pavilion. Instead of focusing on the pavilion and ground level I angled the camera up to catch just how big Clifford—the big leaf magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla—is these days. That's a lot of leaves I'll be picking up in just a few weeks.

Here's the normal shot at ground level.

And focused on the trio of dish-planters.

You pass by this palm, a Trachycarpus wagnerianus, on your way into the back garden. However, since the patio and everything else is opening up in front of you, you don't really notice the plants on the trunk until you're in the back garden and you turn back to appreciate them.

I featured this Fascicularia bicolor bloom much further along in my October Bloomday post (here), but back when I took the tour photos it was just getting started.

Stagorn ferns hanging nearby, in the Albizia julibrissin 'Summer Chocolate'—which by the way was trimmed back pretty significantly early this spring and thus has been a much better garden team member this summer.

I love watching the orange wall and how it's changing as the light changes with the seasons. I am so very glad I painted it!

So the orange wall is the neighbor's garage, the north boundary to our upper back garden. This is our garage, the south boundary. No I didn't intentionally plant shrubs on only one side. There was a Schefflera taiwaniana on the west side that died a couple of years ago and I never got around to replacing it, instead dropping bromeliads into the space for the summer.