How do they know?

How do they know? Because they do, they know. They know when I've mentally moved them to the "not sure they're earning their keep" side of the garden ledger. The first time this happened was in 2009 and I stumbled upon a much smaller Magnolia macrophylla with a flower bud. I left thinking, why hasn't my magnolia bloomed yet! The next morning I spotted the first ever bud on Clifford, our big-leaf magnolia. Coincidence? I think not.

My Clematis tibetana var. vernayi has been an extremely vigorous grower this year but without buds or blooms. Once it started to overrun the adjacent scheffleras (S. delavayi pictured here, but it's also tried to strangle the S. taiwaniana) I started thinking maybe it needed to go. After all the flowers are why I wanted this plant. No flowers = no point.

This is what I saw when we returned from vacation...

An invasion!

The entire plant is convered with green buds and yellow flowers.

How did it know?

The flowers are so "squish-able" they beg to be taken between your fingers and squeezed. Of course they bounce back, if you don't squeeze too hard.

This another of those plants that knew. Usually I garden for the foliage but occasionally I buy a plant just because the flowers rock. Such was the case with this Abutilon 'Red Tiger' - I wanted flowers! All summer it's grown like mad, but I've seen maybe, MAYBE, 3 flowers. Now there are 7 and buds everywhere. Just when I'd decided if winter didn't kill it it was still outta here.

They know...

Yes they do.

Visiting Nancyland…

Last July I had the opportunity to visit the garden of Nancy Goldman, which goes by the name Nancyland. The name is sort of an homage, I believe, to her full on embrace of all that makes her happy. If you live in Portland and are part of the gardening/plant loving community your life has no doubt been made richer by the volunteer work of this lady.

This was actually the second time I’ve been to her garden, the first was in the dead of winter and I only spied things from the sidewalk. A photo from that post, of the garden's hellstrip pebble mosaic (of which this is just a tiny sample), has become one of the most frequently "pinned" (on Pinterest) photos from my 1500+ blog posts, I believe it is the work of Jeffrey Bale.

Forget the pebbles I was more enchanted by the echium...

And this is the first garden where I've seen Dianthus 'green ball' growing. A darling of the cut-flower industry it hasn't really taken hold in the gardening world.

The tiny strip between house and driveway has been well planted. Some might say over-planted (and that's why I love it)...

Heading into the back garden...

And this catches my eye and takes me back to 2011 and my visit to Lorene Edwards Forkner's garden in West Seattle. Her book Handmade Garden Projects has detailed instructions on creating these imaginative works of art.

Stepping into the garden I am immediately at home, all those containers!

But that "contained" space opens up on a much larger landscape...

Before we explore just look at all those layers! How many different plants do you count? (8? Maybe?)

"My garden kicks ass" (or so I was told)...

More Bale artwork? One would think...

All the cool gardeners have a schefflera.

In the "deep forest"...

Yep, more of the metal work from Lorene.

Rebar and branches, hard to tell apart.

Those pebble mosaics are everywhere!

A shoe rack and planted shoes on the raised deck, Nancy is known for those shoes...

Glancing around the deck before...

Descending into the front garden...

Metapanax delavayi I believe.

Our front doors are an extremely similar green, maybe even exactly the same shade...

Compare this growth to when I first discovered this garden in late December.

The curved metal backdrop was so much more visable then.

Twisty Baby Locust (I think - it seems a bit large but has the right leaves) is a huge feature in the front garden.

And at the sidewalk level the poetry box stops passers-by.

As, of course, does the hellstrip mosaic...

House? What house?

All material © 2009-2014 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Paulownia tomentosa is my favorite plant in the garden, this week…

One day early last spring I had a bit of a garden related crisis. Or maybe I should call it a panic attack. As I've written about here before, I realized there were many people visiting my garden in just a few months and I had ripped out an atmosphere/view/reality changing wall of overgrown foliage. The result was not pretty. I needed something “of size” to plant, not a long term solution but a NOW answer. In an impulsive attempt to solve the problem I considered planting a few inexpensive magnolias that friends and I discovered at Means Nursery. $30 and I would have had a forest. I came so close, but in reality I didn’t like the plants. Thank god I didn’t make that mistake. I did however stop at Portland Nursery later that day and spotted a Paulownia tomentosa for only $16.99, I’d always loved their giant leaves. Smart phones are good, and dangerous. A quick look-see and I was swooning over words like these…

“Paulownia tomentosa is the fastest-growing tree in the world” (source)

“…reaching 20' in a single season” (source)

“Grows up to 10' per year in full sun and most soils” (source)

So it was to be mine, here it is (on the right, that straight twig with the handful of leaves at the top) shortly after planting. Photo from a post in May…

Here it is as seen from our bedroom window earlier this week. I do wish I'd planted it a little further to the left, to hide that consistently offending paint line. However there are two other slower-growing, but long term plants of size, in that spot.

It certainly can't be accused of having grown 10 ft, or reaching 20ft, but I don't feel robbed. What it has done is nothing short of amazing. How many 4 foot tall trees (at planting) can you stand under just just 4 months later?

The other monster grower which you've no doubt noticed, and I must mention, is the Pennisetum 'Vertigo'...

This once tiny plant has exploded and completely buried my prized variegated daphniphyllum. Every once and awhile I pull back the grass blades to make sure it's still there.

I hate to admit it but I'm actually kind of relieved the pennisetum is not going to live through the winter.

Funny thing though, they haven't all been so successful, I have three and the other two just don't measure up. This one was the first one planted this spring...

And this one was a mid-June addition. Of course neither of these have received the water the one in the back garden has.

But wait, I'm here to talk about the Paulownia! It's stats:

• also known as the Empress Tree and is native to central and western China
• hardy in USDA Zones 5-10
• can reach 30 - 60 feet tall, 30 feet wide
• can be copiced/pollarded to be kept smaller and increase leaf size (which I intend to do)
• if allowed to mature (not copiced) will produce fragrent lavendar blooms in the spring
• prefers sun and regular water

As always please do tell us about the favs in your garden this week...(link to a post if you can, if not just share the excitement in a comment)...

All material © 2009-2014 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.