Bloomday, September 2010

Summer blooms are still running the show in the garden this September. I love that they are just as obstinate as I am about summer not ending.

This is my one and only Eucomis bloom for 2010. I’m really sad that the E. Oakhurst haven’t bloomed this year, but I'm trying to focus on the positive and how beautiful this one is.

Kniphofia caulescens …two different plants, two slightly different blooms.

The front garden Canna’s, which I thought I had lost due to the cold winter temps.

They are considerably smaller than last year but they’ve come back…and that is all that matters.

A couple of other front garden plants have made a reblooming appearance this month. One of the Ceanothus decided to bloom again…

And the Opuntia has produced a second blossom.

I really thought (hoped) the Tillandsia would be blooming come this September bloomday. No such luck. It is escaping from it's cage though.

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’

The bees love it…

Thus I love it.

Hibiscus syriacus 'Red Heart'

Eventual Height: 10-15' and Spread: 6-10'

Patience…

This Canna bloom has been pulling in the hummingbirds. I don’t understand why this particular one is so much more attractive than the others but I am enjoying the show.

Chasmanthium latifolium, or Northern Sea Oats. I love this grass and have 4 plants. You would think I could have got a better photo than this one.

Sedum 'Vera Jameson'…I’ve heard the hummingbirds love this one too, but due to the large quantity of neighborhood cats I think they are too smart to go so close to the ground.

I’m so glad I bought this $3 'Cardinal Climber' Ipomoea multifida…it‘s been non-stop flowers…and I love the fabulous leaves.

A lonely Sempervivum bloom.

And yes…speaking on non-stop, here is the Kangaroo Paw, again. The best $11.99 I spent this spring.

Look…new blooms are still pushing out!

For more on what’s blooming today in gardens around the world click on over to May Dreams Gardens, our host for all the bloomday fun!

Making compromises

My husband wanted a dog. I wanted a garden. Wait. I already had the garden; I wanted the garden to remain undisturbed. No digging, trampling or munching, the things dogs do.

Plus there was the issue of containing the dog. Our back garden was already completely fenced but we needed a gate. I wanted a gate that I could see through. On hurried winter days sometimes the only glimpse I got of the garden as I jumped in my car to head off to work was through that slice of space where the gate would go. I had visions of a custom aluminum gate with cutouts of stylized agaves and the other spiky plants I love. Instead we got a chain link gate, and the dog, Lila.

That was almost two years ago. Now I can’t imagine our lives without her.

I’ve also made peace with the chain link gate. It does help that this year I’ve been growing 'Cardinal Climber' Ipomoea multifida on it. Sometimes I forget about the gate and only see the amazing leaves and tangled stems as they vine around and through the metal.

Lila loves to lie at the base of the gate and watch the driveway and street beyond. You never know when a cat, or the mailman, might walk by and need to be barked at.

Because of this I had left the area alone, no fancy plants, just grass and sempervivum. Fairly indestructible when little paws are jumping on them (because sometimes the cat or the mailman don’t go away when told politely too, and things need to be amped up a bit).

On a recent trip to Joy Creek Nursery I purchased a few new sedums (yes that is all I purchased….huge restraint don’t you think?). Not knowing where they would go but certain that I would find the perfect spot.

When I was ready to plant I realized I could essentially double my purchase by clipping off the tall stems of the Sedum palmeri and tucking them in around the existing sempervivum by the gate, and then plant the actual plant elsewhere. Sedum roots so quickly and the tall stems seemed out of proportion to the rest of the plant anyway.

Plus planted like this the single yellow clusters look a little like an aeonium, one of those plants I yearn to put in the ground but is just a little out of my zone. The Sedum palmeri is good to zone 7, so I’ve got a zone to spare!

The other new purchase is Sedum rupifragum, I’ve been unable to find any hardiness information on it. I guess it will be another of those winter tests I seem to be so fond of conducting.

As for the dog and the garden, I don’t know what I was worried about...

happiness is…

Standing under a tree you planted in your garden and looking up at the blue blue sky.

(it's a 5 yr old (to me) Magnolia macrophylla if you're wondering)

Fragrance in the garden

When you think of fragrance in the garden I bet you think of flowers first, right? It’s only natural; scent is a big part of their appeal (for the ones that still have a fragrance and it hasn’t been bred out of them…but that’s a whole different subject). As a gardener who puts priority on foliage rather than flowers I’ve discovered the garden can still be alive with scent, and the effect isn’t nearly as fleeting.

Herbs are an obvious choice for delicious foliar scent. I can’t walk by a Rosemary bush without dragging my fingers across it. Lucky for me there are several planted in parking strips around the neighborhood. Stepping on or dragging the garden hose across the carpet of Corsican Mint releases a powerful burst of odor that can stop me in my tracks. I highly recommend planting this “stepable” in your garden.For me Basil is the smell of summer. This year my plants are growing along the front of the tomato and pepper stock tanks, when watering, picking a tomato (in an admittedly infrequent occurrence this year) or just walking by, you brush against the leaves and their distinctive scent fills the air.But there is another type of scent that I have been enjoying this summer. This awareness began in the most enjoyable of places. I was invited to a gathering of plant people, serious hardcore plant people. They were meeting at Sean Hogan’s house. Since Sean is the force behind Cistus Nursery naturally his personal garden is going to be a pretty amazing place. Well as luck would have it my visit was in the early spring, in the evening. By the time the gathering began it was already dusk. By the time I got a garden tour it was completely dark…so you guessed it. No pictures to share.

But as we carefully made our way around the garden my tour guide, Kate Bryant, mentioned the strong resinous smell that filled the air. On some level I had been aware of it but as soon as it was pointed out it became undeniable, and I was hooked.

In addition to being a garden writer, Kate is also a garden designer; whenever possible she incorporates that wonderful resinous scent in the gardens she designs. As you would expect, in her personal garden plants are placed where she can fully enjoy the aromas they provide. For example this large Cistus ‘Blanche’ is growing near her back steps, and it smells divine! She phrases it best: “I'm a crazed sensualist when it comes to foliar scent and that sticky, resinous Cistus 'Blanche' by my back steps is one of my favorites.” Last June she wrote a post on her blog Plantwise, about planting favored plants where you can really appreciate them…you can read that post here.My garden smells extra good now too, as Kate gave me a Salvia clevelandii 'alpine' from Xera. It smells AMAZING, thanks Kate! I still haven’t managed to find the perfect place for it to go in the ground. So in the mean time it’s in a pot on the patio…right next to the chair I like to set in. It fills the air with aroma of far away places, vacation places, relaxing places. For a few fleeting moments I am transported away and in sunny warm California. We had a freak rainstorm a couple of nights ago (over an inch of rain in less than an hour) and the smell in the garden the next morning was amazing. Of course the fresh air was lovely but that little Salvia was on overdrive. So wonderful…I’d love to learn more about what plants you depend on for fragrance in your garden, and you earn extra credit if they have nothing to do with flowers!

The 2010 Veggie Report

I haven’t talked much about the vegetable garden this year because there is so little to talk about. The long, wet, cool spring got things off to a slow start, although it was great for the sugar snap peas, the tomato plants just look so pathetic!Unless we have a sunny warm September and October this will go down as my worst tomato crop ever, I guess I need to start researching recipes for green tomatoes. Although we don’t even have very many of those.

In a strange turn of events this is the best year ever for my basil plants. I’ve never experienced such basil riches. If I just had a few ripe tomatoes to go with the basil I’d be in heaven.

I’ve learned that it is simply hopeless to grow tomatoes in the same large pot with the ginger mint. Look at this spindly specimen! Pitiful. Whereas the mint has never been happier.

This was my first year growing Sungold tomatoes and I had such hopes. Next year I’ll try them again but in a different location.

The peppers are looking good. I think growing them in a black container really helps boost the soil temperature and give the plant a little burst of heat, even when the air temperatures aren’t so hot.

This will be the first year I harvest fresh horseradish. I am very excited to see what’s hiding under the gravel. If there is a decent harvest I’ll post pictures along with my recipe for horseradish crusted salmon….it’s so good!

And the carrots. They are supposed to be baby carrots but it has taken them forever to achieve even this size. Still…they are on their way, and fresh carrots are so tasty. A bonus…I won’t have to cut them up before I mix them in a salad!

I had a few seeds left over so I’ve even sown another crop, hopefully we’ll be enjoying carrots in November. Hey….it could happen!

Cucumbers. Oh the cucumbers. While there are still a few left to harvest, the plants have begun to look like hell. This is definitely one of those plants that can go from gorgeous to hideous in just a few days.

I hope to tear these out and plant a fall crop; I know it’s technically a little late for that but hope for a long sunny fall springs eternal around here. Do you have any favorite fall veggies?

Another plant gift arrives at my door

Everyone knows gardeners are generous people; they’re at the ready with the shovel or snips to share a seedling or cutting. Knowing this I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they are also willing to dig up, package, trek to the post office and pay the postage to send off a desired plant to a far-away gardener.

I shouldn’t be surprised but I am. Its one thing to hand a plant to a visitor standing in your garden, but it’s another to send one to someone you’ve never met.

Or maybe not. Maybe that’s part of the power of the internet, and blogging. We do feel like we know each other and want to share the spoils. For example in July when I posted pictures of an unknown agave I purchased and thought might be Agave ‘Mr. Ripple’, Denise of A Growing Obsession sent me this pup from her Mr. Ripple for comparison. How nice was that? (and in case you are wondering mine was not A. ‘Mr Ripple).

The latest gift to arrive at my door is an Agave potatorum pup from Reuben, of the blog Rancho Reubidoux.
His A. potatorum is throwing up an amazing bloom spike (and it’s planted in a container! see it for yourself here), rather than enjoy the pups himself he decided to give them away. The other one is destined for the slightly more agave friendly lands of San Francisco and the amazing succulent garden of Megan and Matti of Far Out Flora. But have no fear; this one will be very well loved and cared for here in Portland.

Since I didn’t have the perfect container on hand to plant it up I used a trick my brother taught me for preserving pups, and wrapped the base in a moist towel. Then I realized how much it looked like a perfect spiky flower, and voila! It joined the tableau on my mantle.It’s a silver grayish blue plant palette…started just the day before when I walked into the market to grab a bottle of wine, and instead found myself side-tracked by the most amazing branches in the floral department. They had to be Leucadendron argenteum or Silver Tree, no I couldn’t remember that name at the time, I’m not that smart. I just knew it was the amazing tree (from the Protea family) that we saw in the San Francisco Botanical Garden last October. I bought all three of them! Extravagant maybe, but at $2 each an affordable extravagance, and I just bought a cheaper bottle of wine to make up for it!