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Posts Tagged ‘flowers’

Catching Up on Posting

Posted in gardening, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2025| 2 Comments »

I’m ashamed: I have not kept up on the blog. Well, I’m not really ashamed, but I am a tad bit regretful that I haven’t kept up. I think of things to write during the day when I am elbows deep in something, but evening comes, and all that inspiration has evaporated. Poof! Gone! Dissipated into the Nether.

We put in a new shed, replacing the homemade one that came with the house when we moved in here over 20 years ago.

I have been busy canning enough for the two of us: salsa, compote, conserve, chutney. Herbs have been dried or are drying for herbal teas. We foraged huckleberries and elderberries from the National Forest (those are in the freezer, awaiting a moment of inspiration).

We also foraged some more native plants for the yard, some of which have already been planted in the ground and some which are waiting for me. They won’t have to wait long: I have been busy moving plants around and tilling new sites for more plants. I’m waiting for the next round of rain to pass through and will use the ensuing dry days to my advantage.

I have filled the hummingbird feeders and hung them out: I took them down during the hot days of late August when honeybees get lazy and swarm the nectar. I melted and mixed up a new batch of bird suet. That came down when the weather warmed up and the starlings started coming around. The starlings are gone now, moved to parking lots. The weather is cooler and the suet won’t melt or mold now. We’ve started feeding the corvids and small songbirds again. (Corvids: California scrub jays, Steller’s jay, and crows.)

I have cleaned up the space between our shed and the neighbor’s lawn. That’s a bit of a sore point: our garage is set back three feet as per the law, but the yard maintenance person insists on mowing our portion, including over my ferns and day lilies. ARGH. I have tried little fences, cardboard, and now I am merely tilling up the strip to plant more flowers. When we first moved in, the elderly woman who lived in that house asked me to do that so her lawn person wouldn’t have to mow that (because we aren’t the best at keeping up the lawn mowing, preferring to let our yard go “natural”). I wasn’t in a place to do it then, but I am in a place to do it now.

Too bad that Selma died several years ago and we have had renters living next door since. Renters who did not mess with our three feet until the landlord hired this current lawn guy. I have even posted a sign on the side of the garage: DO NOT MOW OVER THE FERNS, PLEASE. He still hits them. So I am in a passive-aggressive war with him (and by extension, the landlady to the property). Yes, I could make a phone call, but it is infinitely more fun doing it this way. Don’t judge me.

(If you’re thinking I’m afraid of confrontation, you’d be very, very wrong. Most people are afraid of confrontation with me. When I come into a confrontation, I come with both barrels loaded and a back-up cannon. The world is much safer when I resort to passive-aggressive flower planting.)

I hacked my poor hydrangea back by at least two feet. It used to be planted under the pine tree (Nature rest its branches and rotting roots). The pine tree fell over some seven or eight years ago. The hydrangea is now in full sun, and summers have heated up the past five or six years. I have covered it with umbrellas, sheets, and tablecloths, but it still gets sunburned. The flowers fade too quickly. It has grown spindly. I could either kill it outright or prune it way back and see if it survives.

A woman walking her dog by the house commented on it. I told her I hopes I hadn’t killed it by my merciless hacking. She said she’d watch it and if it lives, she’s hacking back her overgrown hydrangea next fall. That’s me: inspiring neighbors to bush cruelty.

I also cut the Rose of Sharon back quite a bit, the forsythia, and the mock orange. They aren’t as noticeable a hack job as the hydrangea that was five feet tall one day and less than three feet tall the next. Turn me loose with pruners and a saw…

I meant to do a blog on sprinklers, highlighting our eclectic collection, most of which we don’t actually use. I may still do that. It sounds like a wintertime post. Meanwhile, I am considering this post finished.

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I Cut the Milkweed Down

Posted in dracunculus vulgaris, gardening, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

It is time to cut the milkweed out of my garden.

I planted it many years ago. It never sprouted. Four years later, there was a tiny plant that looked suspiciously like a milkweed growing next to some peonies. I clipped a leaf off to see if it would ooze the sticky white sap that gives milkweed its name: it oozed. Excited, I let it grow. The milkweed plants are limited to a “triangle” between the garage and two sidewalks. I cut them down when the seed pods appear: I don’t need more plants. Also, I don’t want to wait another four years for the seeds to sprout when the plant does just fine by sending out runners from those very sturdy rhizomes.

I was afraid the milkweed would crowd out the peonies and the asters. It doesn’t. The three plants grow together happily. What the milkweed did affect was my arum, dracunculus vulgaris, or “Dragon Lily”. The milkweed runners take up the space the lily’s bulbs are in and I’ve slowly lost many plants in that tiny garden space. There are a few left and this fall I will dig them up and move them to a better location, free of water- and space- hogging competition.

Unfortunately, milkweed does nothing to impede the growth of grape hyacinth, I don’t think anything short of a heavy-duty herbicide affects grape hyacinth (and I refuse to go that route). Every year I pull several hundred bulbs out of the ground and compost them. (Sometimes, I will give them away to a desperate gardener who doesn’t know better than to start them in their yard. I’m pretty sure I’m digging up bulbs to send to my brother in Reno this fall. “Hey, Bro, your yard needs some early spring color. I promise you won’t hate me in ten years…”)

Now, when the first purple grape flowers begin to bloom, I do my first – and only – weeding of the space. I cut hyacinths for a bud vase. I toss the ones that pull up with the ever-present grass. I do my best to rid the space of grape hyacinth bulbs while enjoying the aroma and color. Of course, I fail and the hyacinth prevails.

In the Spring, I cut back the old stalks of peony and aster just as the first new stems begin to push their way skyward around the fading hyacinth. Purple stems of peonies, green stems of aster, the spotted stems of Dragon Lily rise above the fading green and brown stems of faded hyacinth. Buds form on the peonies and soon the area bursts with pink and red peonies so thick I have to tie them to stakes to keep them upright.

The peonies fade and drop their petals just as the aster and the milkweed stalks begin to mature. The green of the aster is first to top out at 2-3’ tall. Milkweed will soon tower over the asters and all one will see will be the green stalks of milkweed.

But before it does, at the end of May and always on our anniversary on the 7th of June, the aroma of rotten hamburger wafts in the air: the Dragon Lilies have opened. Flies and beetles rush in to await their demise in bowl of this carnivorous beauty. The smell lasts a couple days. The flowers wilt and the entire plant begins to wilt and turn yellow.

Now it is the milkweed’s turn.

I have two varieties: Showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa – native to Oregon) with pink florets and California milkweed (A. Californica) with white florets. The latter isn’t a native to Oregon, and it doesn’t grow as prolifically as the Showy milkweed does, but the blooms are pretty and the aroma is the same: sweet and enticing, the polar opposite of the faded Dragon lily.

I planted milkweed thinking I could attract migrating Monarch butterflies. I didn’t know then that this part of the lower end of the Willamette Valley is not on the migratory path for these beautiful and endangered butterflies. No worries: the value blooming milkweed has for other pollinators outweigh my misplaced intentions. Every early bee, butterfly, and tiny wasp brave the sticky edges of the flowers to get at the pollen inside. Occasionally, a honeybee will get stuck and will have to struggle free. A few plants wilt and die, host to the milkweed beetle which does exist in this half of the valley.

Below the tall stems that now tower between four and six feet, a junco might build a ground nest. The nests are soft grass circles, now much larger than the palm of my hand. We won’t know there’s a nest there until a fledgling bird hops out of the cover while the parent birds hover nearby.

The bloom of milkweed lasts a couple weeks giving us quite a show of pink and white, and busy pollinator insects. But then the flowers fade and the few that were pollinated will start developing seed pods. These are green and soft, and quite edible if you are not allergic (I am). When the pods ripen, they turn brown and hard then pop open to release thousands of sees hanging from wispy “umbrellas”. The wind catches the seeds and like the dandelion – well, you know the rest of the story! The ground is soon covered in tiny, milkweed parachutes looking for a home.

But I mow down the milkweed, not simply to avoid the parachutes, but because the milkweed towers above the asters. And the asters put on a late show of color lasting through August and into September. The tall asters are a riot of magenta pink. The aster that grows in the crack in the sidewalk puts out lilac-colored flowers. The tiny bees – those mining bees and other ground dwellers – love the asters.

The milkweed is gone now, and I wait for that last eruption of color. Too soon, the rain will come and everything will turn brown. (Photo is of a year I did not cut down the milkweed stalks and the seeds flew everywhere.)

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Native Plants in the Garden (Part 3)

Posted in gardening, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Oregon checkermallow
Oregon checkermallow – sidalcea oregana

Tiny pinks on long stems. This mallow started life in out garden as a tiny free specimen. I put it in a planter and it thrived. Moved it into the ground and it nearly died. It is in a large planter, soil mixed with sand, and it is happy once again. It is a bee favorite & common on the Coast.

stinging nettle – urtica dioica

I hope you know what plant that is without the ID below it: run into this without enough clothes on and you’ll wish you had never met it. I crawled into it once when I was a child. Nettle stings all over my face! Fortunately, the damage is never serious and the sting can be dealt with (in my case, I probably smeared mud all over my face. I was a clever child – HA!). I started growing it for the medicinal benefits of nettle tea. It is in a pot so it doesn’t escape into the yard and I deadhead the flowers before they produce seeds: this is all the nettle I need in my yard. Harvest with care: garden gloves, long sleeves. I dry the leaves in the dehydrator instead of hanging them to dry. I’ve read you can cook the leaves as a spinach substitute (I’m not fond of cooked spinach except on pizza). The leaves lose their sting when dry. I mix the leaves with feverfew and yarrow for a green tea that I can drink without sweetener.

Nettle may lower your blood pressure, help with blood sugar, hay fever, reduce inflammation, and help with enlarged prostate, and contains antioxidants and many vitamins. (I may write more on nettle in another post on herbs in the future.)

Oregon blue-eyed grass – stsyrinchium bellum
Oregon flag iris – iris tenax
Douglas iris – iris douglasiana

Wild irises.

I love irises! These are my wild native irises (I have “domestic” irises as well). The first two iridacea shown love moist soil and are planted in a little shady swale next to the south fence of our yard along with the camassia. I need to divide the flag iris this fall. The Douglas iris is more like its commercial counterparts: dry soil is fine. They love sunshine. The blooms are larger than the flag iris but still delicate.

wild camas – camassia quamish

Wild camas (which is related to asparagus) is a beloved forage plant for the Indigenous peoples of the PNW. I loves marshy areas. I have not tried eating it: I have too few of the plants to forage just yet.

false Solom0n’s Seal (m. stellatum) & bear grass (xerophyllum tenax)
bear grass – xeropyllum tenax
false Solomon’s seal – m. stellatum

My husband brought me a gift of bear grass one year along with the deer ferns. Falso Solomon’s seal hitched a ride. My bear grass has never failed to bloom: the spikes tower above the heavy leaves. I think one of my plants is showing its age and beginning to die out, but it produced three beautiful spikes of flowers this year. And the false Solomon’s seal never disappoints, but it is gone by summer and the ground bare where it flourished in the wet of spring.

“poached egg” flower/Douglas’ meadowfoam – limnanthes douglasii
“poached egg” flower/Douglas’ meadowfoam – limnanthes douglasii

This beautiful ground cover was also a hitch hiker. I think it came with the yew and maple (long gone now). It spreads quickly, covers the ground beautifully, and attracts every bee, bee fly, and wasp. It greens up in the Autumn, overwinters green, and blooms in the spring – and then it is gone. The ground bare.

I have not tried too many other plants mixed in with the false Solomon’s seal to cover the bare spot in summer, but I have tried where the meadowfoam is. And meadowfoam does not like to be shaded out during the dormant stage! The bare spots in the photo are where i removed plants that shaded out the meadowfoam and it died back. However… it seems to love peonies and grows profusely around them despite the shade of summer, so I may try putting a couple peonies in there.

vine maple – acer circinatum

Don dug this out of a bar pit one year. he intended to make it into a Bonsai tree, but vane maple grows too quickly and he had to put it into the ground. It is as large as it is ever going to get. The leaves turn brilliant red in the autumn. The squirrels love the helicopter seeds. Very little grows under it but I am hoping some huechera (coral bells) will take off.

narrowleaf milkweed – asclepias fascicularis

Milkweed. I could write a blog post on this, the last of my Natives to show off. I planted it by seed: two kinds of native milkweeds, the showy (pink flowers) and a few of the narrowleaf. They didn’t grow. Well, to heck with that idea, right? I could purchase some starts but it just never seemed to happen. And four years after I tossed those seeds in the garden, I had a thick stem poking out of the ground. Suspicious, I broke a leaf off and watched as it oozed thick milky sap. Eureka! It only took four years for those seeds to grow! And grow they did: I now have to fight the plants to keep them contained in the corner of garden where I planted them: milkweed spreads by runners underground.

Bees, flies, butterflies (but never Monarchs – so far), and milkweed beetles love the plants. Invasive as the plant is, it grows well in the little corner of yard where it is, sharing space with peonies, asters, Voodoo lilies, and grape hyacinth. The hyacinth blooms first, then the peonies, followed by the voodoo lily. The milkweed rises up and blooms, fades and dies, and the asters bloom. A perfect full summer garden of bloom.

That is it for my native plants! My next posts will be about herbs in the garden, uses, recipes, and cautions. I’m excited for those posts!

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Native Plants in the Garden (Part 1)

Posted in gardening, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Lewis’ or Oregon mock orange – philadelphus lewisii

It has not bloomed yet, but I’ve only had it since 2023. It grows rather spindly – perhaps too much good soil and water and growing too quickly? But I found if i staked those spindly branches, they were much stronger the next year. One of my favorite wild bushes, blooms in June – July, smells amazing, and reminds me of rattlesnake draws in Eastern Oregon or Nevada where it commonly grows along a spring in the basalt.

Large flowered colloma – collomia grandiflora
large flowered collomia – colomia grandiflora

We discovered this growing along the roadside after a fire. It grows about 3-4′ tall. It is a native annual and we could purchase seeds (we tried seed collecting last fall, but beetles had devoured most of them!). This year, we dug one up (you can get a permit at the USFS). Hopefully, it makes it. Pic on the left is the one we dug up, pic on the right is a photo from last summer.

penstemmon – what variety??
?Little flower penstemmon – penstemon procerus (?)

Penstemmons are hard to identify without a field guide and a key, but we love them. The one on the left is one we dug up on Saturday (we dug up two, we won’t know if they are the same species or not until they bloom. There’s a fourth one in the front garden, but it is still very tiny and hasn’t bloomed. The one on the right – I am fairly certain it is the Little Flower penstemmon: the flowers are tiny. It came with a yew and Rocky Mountain maple (both dead and gone now). Penstemmons make great ground covers, especially in those dry, rocky spots.

Note: we don’t know what killed the trees, but all the plants that came with survived. The trees thrived for about five years, the maple died off first. The yew lived a couple more years before suddenly dying on us.

Indian paintbrush – castelleja affinis
crimson paintbrush – castilleja

Who doesn’t love paintbrush? It is parasitic which I didn’t know (and which explains why I’ve never succeeded in growing it in the past). The plant on the right is one I just purchased from a native plant nursery, complete with instructions on how/where to plant it and what plants it might want to attach to. The second one is one we just dug up. Unfortunately, it is attached to an oxeye daisy – a native daisy, but one that is a bit of a weed. I prefer my Shasta daisies which stay in their place, but they aren’t natives, so…

I planted the purchased paintbrush near a large leaf arnica (also a native, no photo). I will plant the new one nearby as well.

?dense sedge – corex densa (?)
? dense sedge – corex densa (?)

I’ll be honest: this could be an ornamental sedge. I don’t know. Birds planted it in our yard. I made the decision not only to keep it, but to move it to a better spot. I’d be happy if I learned it was a native dense sedge as my husband thinks.

black hawthorne – cretaegus douglasii

Ah – the Hawthorne! Long ago we lived in a trailer park next to a large open space full of nasty Himalayan blackberries (very invasive) and a lot of native plants (including the afore-mentioned oxeye daisy). This little tree was bulldozed a couple times by our landlord and chewed on a lot by the local black tail deer population. When we purchased our house, my husband dug this up (it was about 3′ tall at the time) and planted it in the ground. I believe he was planning on making a Bonsai out of it, but it just loved its new location.

trumpet honeysuckle – lonecera cilosa

I bought a honeysuckle from a nursery. It is pretty. The aphids love it. But I *really* wanted a native one. Last summer, my husband and I made a foraging trip into the Cascades and found this growing there. No, I don’t have pics of the flowers (yet), but we know it is a hummingbird plant and it is what I wanted.

But the real story is about the bear. I have only seen one in real life, and that was a grizzly in Yellowstone when I was ten (1965). I take that back: I saw a black bear once as it raced across the road in front of us in Central Oregon. I was in a car. I’ve hiked, camped, and hiked some more, and never seen a bear in the wild that I could count. Until we were digging the honeysuckle. A young black bear was making its way downhill toward us as we finished up our lunch. Not a scary thing, but we had the dog with us (unleashed – we weren’t anywhere near other people or dogs). So we quickly packed up to leave and we let the bear wander off in another direction as we secreted the dog out of the area.

fireweed – amaenerion angustifoliam

I have seen this for sale at garden shows. That factoid makes me laugh: fireweed is invasive. Once you have it in your yard, you will never get rid of it. I know: I planted it. And I ripped it out. It is pretty, I will grant you that. Alaska’s State flower (my daughter tells me that you can tell when winter is near because the fireweed quits blooming in Alaska). It blooms all summer. I found this survivor of the fireweed I killed nearly ten years ago (hahaha!) hiding behind the shed. And I am letting it go because it is better than English Ivy, black nightshade (Solanum americanum), and Himalayn blackberries – all of which we also have (only the nightshade is native).

California bay – umbelluria californica

The birds planted this. I fell in love with it. I trim it up and will allow it to grow, It is not the same as a Bay Laurel, but it smells the same and you can use the leaves the same. Pretty yellow flowers in the early spring. Easy keeper.

This is just the beginning of a blog post I have been mulling for quite some time: what native plants do we already have in our garden? It began as a small idea but I soon discovered I have more native plants than I previously thought – and some plants I thought were native are really “naturalized” introductions (foxglove, common mullein, ground or creeping juniper). It also grew with the photos ♥

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Allergies, the Dog, and Me

Posted in gardening, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »

      A quick post tonight: my right eye is beginning to itch, and I will have to give it a rest soon. With all this sunny unseasonably dry weather, pollen has been high. The kind of pollen I am allergic to, to be exact: some pollen doesn’t affect me at all. But let it be haying season somewhere up the Valley and my nose knows. Or when the cottonwood fluffs are in the air – my eyes swell shut.

I have been taking OTC meds, eye drops, and drinking herbal teas. I have been putting cool compresses on my eyes (I learned a cottonball soaked in milk on the closed eyes for ten minutes works wonders at stopping the itch. Conversely, used chamomile tea bags are hell on my eyes: my eyes are apparently allergic to chamomile tea leaves). I’ve been getting in some gardening in mornings and heading to bed early to rest my eyes, blow my nose, and check out mentally. ‘Tis the season to go through boxes of tissues AND carry a hanky around the garden, even after taking the prescribed dosage of “24-hour relief” antihistamines. More like 12 hours, if I’m lucky.

 Toss in the dog’s antics this past week, and life has truly been a riot.

Yes, he is wearing the Cone of Shame. On Easter Sunday he decided socks were a better treat than hard-boiled eggs hidden by a bunny. Two socks came right back up, covered in undigested dog food and bile. But he didn’t get better and by Tuesday we were headed to the vet and a huge surgery bill. The THIRD sock was stuck in Ruger’s gut and had to be carefully removed.

The Cone of Shame really is FOR SHAME. Bad Ruger.

Socks now must be placed as high as possible when not on the feet they were made for. Also tissue and toilet paper, but at least those don’t come back up or block the intestines: he merely poops those out.

Still and all, I planted my herb plants out front. Spread some early seeds out as well (we’re pretty much past the last frost date – we hope). I need to edge my new beds. Plants need to grow a bit. The yard art is just what I do: I consider it “faerie gardening” and hope it entices some of those wee creatures along with the pollinators and birds. You never know.

I found a third plant to put around the base of the pedestal birdbath: a tickseed (the yellow and red flower). A Bidens something – I’d never heard of this perennial, but I’m excited to add it to the base of the pedestal along with the bugleweed (ajuga) and my mystery plant.

I love the faerie lights in the little garden statuette at the base. 😊

(Cover photo: my bottle bush (fothergilla) is looking very nice this year!)

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Garden Palooza

Posted in gardening, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

It has already been two weeks since we went to the “biggest” early garden sale of the year. Where does time go, we ask. Well, we have had unusually DRY weather, and I have immersed myself in gardening, not writing. Then allergies hit and I am presently confined to the inside of the house, my eyes itching, my nose dripping, and my life a prisoner to tree pollen. I have no idea which trees: ash, alder, birch? Not evergreens: I can watch the yellow pollen coat the cars and everything in the yard with nary a sneeze. But these deciduous trees try to kill me. Every year.

There was no allergen in the air on the day we went to Garden Palooza. I carried my list of plants and set a budget. No annuals: it was still much too cold during the days and nights for me to fill my planters with my favorite annuals: petunias. Petunias are a nod to a woman who was very influential during my childhood (my best friend’s mother). This year will be especially poignant: Marie passed away at the age of 98. I love petunias because she grew them every year and they were beautiful and sunny.

I wanted Native plants and perennials and a good ground cover. Something to plant around that pedestal bird bath, something that would bloom throughout the summer. I had it in my mind to get a couple creeping phlox plants, but learned they only bloom in the springtime. Well, shoot. But I found something else that blooms all summer and snagged those up.

Problem is: the vendor pulled the identification tags out of the pots when he sold me two of them and now I have no idea WHAT I was buying!

I did find a Native plant nursery that had one of the plants I want, but the owner read through my list and told me he would have several plants on my wish list later in the season – just call and ask in a couple weeks. Woot! He sold me a clarkia: “Farewell to Spring”.

I grabbed a peppermint to put in a planted by the front door to discourage rats from hiding beneath the stairs. Most of our house has been “rat proofed” but there are a few points where they *might* get under the house and peppermint works as a great deterrent. I’ll just pot it (to keep it from getting away – it can be invasive) and place it by one of those points. Lovely scent as well.

Rue for out front in the bed I am preparing for an herb garden. I’ll also plant holy basil, hyssop, English thyme. More, but I haven’t given that much thought (yet – it’s early for seeds). The English thyme was another purchase: I have one in a planter, but it would be nice to have one in the ground as well. My live-in chef uses a lot of fresh thyme in his cooking. (My husband, folks, I’m nowhere near rich enough to pay for a chef. Gourmet cooking is his retirement hobby, and it keeps me overweight and sated.)

Another creeping thyme for planting between pavers out front. It’s a yellow thyme, very eye-catching, and – I hope – drought tolerant and prolific.

Last was the mystery plant.

I tried my plant app, but it wanted to identify the plant as arugula. It is NOT arugula. We have that growing wild and unkept throughout the vegetable garden beds. I’m not a huge fan of arugula, but the aforementioned chef loves it. He let it get away. I know what arugula is.

Google lens wanted to make it arugula as well. What the heck!? Why did that vendor take the tag out!? (Well, I know why: inventory, plain and simple. The other vendors used two tags in the pots and kept one but left the other for me. This particular vendor only had one tag per plant.) Dang-nab it!

Soooooo – until it flowers, I have no idea what I purchased to put around the bird bath. In the meantime, I placed some bugleweed around it. I’ve been trying to get rid of the bugleweed since I planted it twenty years ago, but it returns every year in a new place. Might as well make use of it. It blooms early and has pretty purplish leaves. Whatever it was that I bought at the garden sale blooms late and has green leaves. Fingers crossed I can identify it sooner than later.

Oh, and I bought a few nasturtium starts. I prefer the trailing kind, but I had a weak moment and suddenly four starts were in the cart and paid for. Yummy nasturtiums. Pretty nasturtiums. I have since purchased seeds for the trailing kind so I can run them up trellises.

Also: I stayed under budget so I have more to spend later.

PS – yes, those are silk flowers. Some day I will explain those. Maybe.

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Grape Hyacinth

Posted in dracunculus vulgaris, gardening, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 6, 2025| 3 Comments »

 How I love thee, False Spring! I love the sunshine! The warm air! The wee buds poking up out of the ground!

Daffodils! (Except the parts the slugs came and nibbled on!)

Crocus! (Until the dang squirrel makes off with the flower and eats it all!)

The Camellia! (What buds have escaped both the dog and the squirrel! What the dog tastes in Camellia buds is beyond me but it isn’t harmful to him – surprise! – and he only picks off the blossoms on the lowest branches. Squirrels tend to the upper blossoms where I cannot see, so that leaves the bulk of the bush to me! Me, me, me!)

The Lenten Rose (Hellebore)! (Mine needs some fungicide, I think. The leaves look rather sad.)

The grape hyacinth!

No. Just NO.

Look at them there in my flower bed, crowding out the peonies. All those clumps of impenetrable hyacinth bulbs! I think the last time I purged them was about five years ago. And today they came out in the handfuls, all those little bulbs crowded together just under the surface, clinging to each other like seeds in a pomegranate.

Kill! Pull! Purge!

Except they don’t all come out and there are some with tiny promises of fragrant grape-colored clusters of bell-shaped flowers. I left those.

And I know I will do this again in about five years.

Because grape hyacinths. They merely regroup.

This particular flower bed is my most successful. It is low maintenance, except for the every-five-years purge of invasive and stubborn grape hyacinths.

This garden bed blooms from early spring  starting with the hyacinth, which I promise, will still raise up tiny spikes of purple flowers rimmed with a delicate white border. Not as fragrant as the larger hyacinths that come in a variety of pink, purple, and blue shades, but pretty enough to place in a bud vase and prolific enough to be a nuisance.

Then come the peonies. Blood red and scarlet. The peonies thrive despite the crowding of tiny bulbs. I throw them some light fertilizer early and a little copper fungicide to ward off brown spot, but otherwise, I ignore them. Well, I pick them and place them in pretty vases that I allow to sit outside overnight until all the ants fall off. Ants love peonies.

As the peonies fade, the Voodoo Lily comes on. Pungent, odiferous, and so dark a purple as to be almost black. We dug the parent plant up at a rental we lived in some 40 years ago. Didn’t think anyone would care if we took such an obnoxious smelling plant with us, and no doubt they haven’t missed it: surely we missed some of the bulbs.

It smells like rotten hamburger. It attracts beetles and flies (and not a few dogs). It repels neighbors and guests, but it also piques their interest: what is this mysterious plant? Dracunculus Vulgaris. Voodoo Lily. The harbinger of our wedding anniversary (it blooms the first week of June).

And when the lily fades and dies back, the milkweed springs upward. And upward. It blooms with a strong aroma, something far less offensive than the former: milkweed is aromatic and sweet, enticing and hypnotizing. Here come the bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles. Pink and white clusters of hundreds of flowers. And with it, our hope of seeing a magnificent orange-and-black Monarch butterfly or the yellow-green-and black striped Monarch caterpillar (that feeds exclusively on milkweed).

If you plant it they will come. We hope.

The milkweed, in turn, goes to seed and begins to fade, the seed pods hardening. Summer is at an end. And with a burst of color, the asters open up: tall magenta ones and shorter light purple ones. The bees and wasps that filtered off to other flowers when the milkweed faded are back in force. It is one last feast of nectar, of pollen, of summery intoxication.

Then it all fades away and the grape hyacinth begins to poke its persistent leaves upward, greening the winter brown ground.

**note: the only photo that is not mine is that of the grape hyacinth. Credit goes to NickyPe and Pixabay.

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I Committed

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I purchased an electric small rototiller.

Inexpensive and probably not highly rated, but perfect for all I want it to do, which isn’t much more than knock down the sod so I can plant more things.

But I had a heck of a time putting it together until I handed it to my husband and he had it assembled in 15 minutes. i hate men.

I tested it on a muddy section of yard (it is far too muddy to be doing anything right now, but this was just a test patch).

That’s what I want to achieve. So – I have the small rototiller I want and it works like I want and I should be able to post more about how I have opened up areas to more garden space. It does bounce around and work my back, but not like the old way of doing things with the manual edger. Yay.

ANNNND I ordered three roses from Jackson-Perkins. Their roses run from $35 – $44 but the day I decided to order two more roses, they had a special going for “3 roses for $75”. OY. Can’t pass that up! I have two yellow and one white English Tea roses coming.

  1. Oregold – a tried and true fragrant yellow rose
  2. Soft Whisper
  3. St. Patrick

Last year, for whatever reason, they sent me my rose in February and it was too cold to plant. I’ve never had this issue with J&P before. It was strange and the rose died, but I’m giving them a second chance since they have always been reliable over the last 40 years I have ordered from them. I will post when they come in and I plant them, but I am pleasantly surprised that they have not shipped them too early. I think last year was a fluke.

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Posted in gardening, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2025| 2 Comments »

Time to Prune  

I always prune my roses back on Lincoln’s birthday (or as close to that date as I can get). I grow English hybrid tea roses for the most part and they need to be cut back before their Spring growth.

As an aside, I was once attacked on a birding site because I do not like “introduced” and “invasive” bird species. I stand my ground: wherever you live, invasive species of plants or animals are a problem. And, yes, I already know white people are an invasive species. Spare me the guilt: I did not choose my ancestors; I did not make their choices. But I am here, and I am doing my best to not make the mistakes of past generations. Besides, I am the product of conquests and colonialism: my ancestry reaches deep into the unrest in the Baltic regions and England, Ireland, and Scotland. I do know my ancestors did not promote slavery (but some of them were racist) and they did not participate in the Indian Wars or Manifest Destiny (although I am certain some of them were sympathizers)

This person tried to “guilt” me by declaring, “I bet you grow roses.” Well, yes, I do. There are native roses to the Americas, although I do not have them in my garden. The roses most of us grow are from England or France (the “Old World” as it were) and are anything BUT invasive. They require a lot of work just to keep the one growing and disease-free. They don’t produce seeds or spread by runners or rhizomes or bulbs. They only provide aroma and beauty at the cost of a lot of labor (I need to stress the labor part). Roses are bit of a bright spot.

The time to prune them back is traditionally Lincoln’s Birthday, or the 12th of February (for those younger folk who don’t know the birthdays of the original two presidents who were honored before the date – President’s Day – became all-inclusive). The other birthday was that of George Washington who declined to become king: February 22nd. Now we celebrate all presidents, including Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover A. Cleveland, and even Richard M. Nixon. I suppose they all whined they weren’t given an award for participation at some moment in time and we caved. Not all presidencies are worthy of honor. But that’s getting political and I came here to talk about roses.

I have three at the moment. I had four, but I did a thing last year: I dug up one rose and gave it away to plant another rose which immediately died. I have veteran’s Honor and Rio Samba, both English Tea Roses, and a floribunda called Tuscan Sun. I am not a fan of floribundas, but this one has large, scented blooms and gets to stay. I want to order tow more roses this Spring: a yellow rose and perhaps a white rose.  But that is aside the point. I have the three to deal with right now.

I pruned them back to roughly 8 – 12” (20-30.5CM). Then I sprinkled them with copper fungicide.

My yard promotes the growth of fungus. My peonies and roses are the most susceptible: black or brown spot affects them. I’m at war with something I cannot see.  I have read the pros and cons of using copper fungicide (not good for insects). I know the devastating effects of the two fungi. Since it seems to attack those two plants specifically, I made the decision to apply it to those plants only. Both are cultivars from other parts of the world (there are native peonies to the Americas, but the Western peony does not like our maritime climate in the Willamette Valley – I have tried). Neither are essential to native pollinators. Peonies are resistant to most pests, and roses are subject to aphids and fungus. I think I am safe applying it to just those plants and crossing my fingers to not hurt the native pollinators.

I inherited the peonies: I did not plant them. They came with the property, and I counted over 100 plants last year. I have no idea what cultivars they are as the tags were lost to history after the original owner passed and the property went to the people who flipped it, and then to us. I love peonies. They were one of the deciding factors in purchasing this property. They don’t require a lot of care.

I planted the roses. I accept the amount of work it requires to have beautiful blooms. And who wouldn’t, once ensnared by the rose’s beauty?

It was 25° on Lincoln’s birthday and it was over 50° today. Time to prune. Only time will tell if the copper fungicide works against the black and brown spot fungus that lives in the soil. I have my fingers crossed.

Veteran’s Honor
Rio Samba
Tuscan Sun

(photos courtesy of Jackson Perkins, Edmund’s Roses, and rosesalesonline. )

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It’s Getting Cold Outside

Posted in gardening, tagged , , , , , , , on February 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

February

We’re staring down winter this month. The killing frost finally arrived and more is to come. Tender plants will be moved into the greenhouse for the duration of 20°(F) nights: Don’s Bonsai trees, our newest tree peony, and the curry plant (which is not the same as the spice you buy in the store which is actually a blend of spices). It is time to earmark seed catalogs and set aside money to buy those precious seeds.

Lenten Rose buds
Lenten Rose
Daffodils pushing up
Daffodils
Camellia buds
Camellia

The worst winter weather usually hits us in February when we’re ready for a thaw and the daffodils are pushing upward whilst the buds on the Camellia, Rhododendrons, and Lenten roses are swelling. February can bring all kinds of weather surprises in the Pacific Northwest and big freezes with sudden thaws are some of them.

We moved to the Willamette Valley in 1983, then a Zone 7b (it is currently a Zone 8 although I overheard someone claim we are now a Zone 9 – I haven’t verified that). It is a maritime climate, not the dry and arid climate of my youth. We are surrounded by mountains: the low Coast range to the West and the towering Cascades to the east. Snow, when it happens, usually coats the “upper” elevations: anything over 500’ above sea level.

Cloudy season runs from October through early June, sometimes into July. With clouds, the rain comes. We get more rain than we get any other precipitation, and more ice than snow when the weather gets cold. I hate rain and ice. I really, really despise ice. Where snow is insulating, ice penetrates. Snow rarely lasts long enough here for me to begin to wish for sunnier days or for the February thaw to just get over. Rain just covers the sun and makes the days seem dark and lifeless.

I have perfected complaining about the weather like a true Pacific Northwesterner.

I’d rather be outside with my hands deep in the soil, stirring up the things that live in the dirt and getting my fingernails broken, chipped, and full of mud. Sitting out the dreary days of February are the worst: there’s the promise of March and starting seeds in little pots in the windows or in the greenhouse. March, with the first teasing blooms on crocus, daffodils, Lenten roses, and rhododendron.

February is the month for taxes. The month for tying up loose ends in my art studio before I begin another season of pop-up markets. The month of marking my calendar for the upcoming garden shows (and the annual rock and gem show). It is the month to find a semi-decent day midway through to prune back roses and tame the wild grape vine a little bit (I rather like having it grow wild).

I will order roses the first of March. Start seeds in pots: tender herbs and rare wildflowers. The seeds I have placed in the freezer will be taken out and planted in seed starter soil. And I will repot all of my houseplants, at least the ones that have survived my indoor brown thumb. I will set aside money for the plants we plan to purchase in April and May. In March, we begin to hope again.

frozen planter 2021
Camellia Kisses the Ground 2021
There went the Rhodie 2021

For now, it is February, and I need to move my tender plants into the greenhouse before a week of below-freezing nighttime temperatures. Maybe we will get a few inches of insulating snow to play in. I hope we don’t get an ice storm. The “big” ice storm of February 2021 is not yet forgotten (we lost one rhododendron and went without power for eight days). But it is February, and if ice comes, so does the big thaw of warm south winds.

Real cold comes with sunny skies, and sunny skies mean Vitamin D and a fire in the Breeo fire pit. I can’t complain about sunshine and a warm fire pit.

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