Jaci Dawn

The rains have come, and with them we have cooler temperatures than normal. The switch from dryer and warmer than normal to cooler than normal caught me off guard. I’ve been waiting for the rains to come and soften the hard ground so I could transplant several items, but I was hoping for a little warmer Autumn. Ah, well, we get what we get when it comes to the weather, especially during a La Niña year. And the rains did do what I wanted them to do: seep into the dry earth, soften the soil, and lend some good transplanting weather.

It was dry on Thursday, so I donned my rubber boots, several layers of clothes, and found my garden gloves. I had plans of digging up some sod, but it hasn’t rained enough for that chore or I am feeling my almost 66 years of age. I gave removing sod a hard pass.

We leave a lot of dying plants standing: mullein, evening primroses, sunflowers, and plants in the sunflower family – anything the birds will work over during the next few months. The cosmos is still unruly and blooming, so I didn’t touch that. I pruned the hydrangea flowers back as far as I dared without damaging the bush: hydrangeas do not like to be pruned but this one has taken a beating by the sun in the years since our tree fell down and it lost its shade. I feel badly for it.

Last spring, I bought a number of bushes that I potted for the summer. I had a few potted plants left over from 2021 as well, waiting for me to decide where I wanted to permanently place them. One I decided I didn’t want, period: a cutting from my rosemary that had grown root bound in the pot I had it in. That went down on to the corner with a FREE sign on it. It was gone within three hours (she came back the following day to thank me for it – that has never happened!).

I placed the mock orange and the red flowering currant, native bushes, about five feet apart. The soil is rocky and I don’t water that flower bed very often which should be perfect for both bushes. I have four roses and a Rose of Sharon in the same border in front of our house. One of those roses will be history next spring as I have decided it was not what I expected and I really don’t like it that much. I’ll put it out on the street as free when I dig it out and replace it with a rose I do like. It’s a floribunda (Burgundy Iceberg – Jackson Perkins) and I prefer English tea roses. The point is: I will have a row of bushes blocking our house from the street from the mock orange through the small lilac. Lots of small flowers in between, like marigolds to repel the aphids.

I have an accidental strawberry patch out front as well. I planted one Hood strawberry in the ground as it did not fit in either of my two strawberry planters – and it took off, filling a 4×4′ of cleared ground.

I pulled a number of huechera (coral bells) out and a handful of geraniums. These have been sitting in a bucket of water waiting for a nice day to replant. I can move more of them in the Spring, but for now I wanted to see if I could get them to take root during the rainy season under our vine maple out back and along the shady south flower bed. I lost my blackcap raspberry this past summer. I’m sad about that: I love my raspberries and it is a native that the bees, spiders, and birds love (and me – did I mention I love my raspberries?). Not to worry: there are seedlings coming up where the old vine was and they will be fruit bearing by the time I run out of frozen blackcaps.

While I was in back, I remembered I wanted to move my Lenten rose to a shadier spot: it was growing under the yew tree but the yew tree inexplicably died last summer. It was a native yew, too. The loss of the yew left the Lenten rose in full sun, not a good combination.

On the subject of the yew that died, it came as a package deal my husband dug up in the National Forest (permits are free): a mountain maple (also dead now), a sword fern, and a plethora of poached egg flowers (limnanthes douglasii). The latter have taken over that flower bed but they only bloom early in the Spring and die completely back afterward. The sword fern is large enough that it shades my perennial fuschia. I threw half a package of Pacific Northwest wildflower seeds back there this year and to my great surprise, most of the seeds germinated. I’ve had wild mallow in shades of pink and white and now I had tall cosmos in shades of pink and white. I planted one of my hyssop plants where the Lenten rose ad been: it was potted and had been in the same garden area all summer, so I know it likes the lighting.

The dog dug it up right after I planted it and I cried and swore and replanted it, blocking the dog with bricks and big rocks.

The dog has smashed my poor English lavender to smithereens. I dug it up and planted it in a different location and threatened the dog’s life if he so much as sniffed it. Sometimes he takes me seriously. The rue was planted in the same sunny flower bed, root bound as it was. It dies back in the winter.

The mystery plant was planted into the ground. I don’t have a plant marker or tag for it. I know when and where I purchased it but I cannot remember what it is. I pawed through all my plant tags and labels – nothing. I didn’t even write it down.

I did deadhead a few peonies that already have blackened leaves. I cut the hops down. I pruned the small lilac away from my roses.

We have pulled all the tomatoes and peppers from the ground.

I am leaving the tender perennials and self-sowing annuals to spread their seeds. I will cut them back in the Spring. I will cut the cosmos down as they fade and cease to bloom. The Japanese anemones will have to be cut back as well as they fade – birds don’t feast on the seed heads. I need to dig up and separate irises, especially the invasive yellow Japanese flag irises. I had no idea when I planted them, but I also had no idea when I first planted fireweed in my yard. Fireweed is a native. And, oh, can it take over, much like our native milkweed. Someday e will die or sell this house and the person buying it will curses us for the milkweed.

And maybe the fireweed, too: I discovered a new fireweed plant amongst the wildflower seeds that germinated. I didn’t dig it up, but left it under the Camellia.

I left so many plants waving their seedy heads. We have lesser goldfinches, golden-crowned sparrows, and our usual juncos, chickadees, and song sparrows: they love the left overs of our garden, unruly as it seems. The grapevine ran down the length of the fence in both directions, providing us with a little more privacy from the little entomologist next door: she’s six and is always asking us to catch bugs for her. Her parents allow her to paw through their compost and we are often regaled by loud announcements of what she’s discovered in said pile: maggots, worms, native snails, slugs, non-native slugs, and more. We are hopelessly in love with the neighbor girl.