I got an unexpected peek at my Long Beach, Calif. garden courtesy of the watering crew. It does my heart good to see it in fair shape for July, even if a little on the wild side. So many kangaroo paws!
Have a great 4th of July!
Isn’t June great? I’ve decided to hang out with June for as long as possible, so bear with me for yet another post on what’s possibly my favorite month.
Looking at other June gardens is a great way to find unfamiliar but promising plants. It’s also massively instructive to observe familiar plants in growing conditions different from those at home. I popped in briefly at the Wonder Garden last week and found some stellar performances by plants in June that are doing absolutely nothing in my garden yet. The heat and berms with freer drainage make all the difference for plants like eryngiums and berkheya here at the coast. My struggling berkheya was moved this spring for some breathing room on an open edge. It is alive, but feast your eyes on what a happy berkheya looks like in bud, leaf, flower and stem.
The flowering shoots on my Eryngium paniculatum are just now swelling, whereas in Manzanita it’s in full-on flower. It’s a little confusing to find this eryngo occasionally described as a towering giant. Flowering to 3 feet is what I’ve observed, both at home (eventually) and at the Wonder Garden. There might be some confusion afoot with the tall Eryngium eburneum, but I’m not sure who’s got it right. Adding to the confusion, sometimes the names are treated as synonyms. Could they be the same plant, with height variations due to seed strain and geographic location of seed collection? I just brought home Eryngium eburneum from Cistus Nursery (along with Euphorbia ceratocarpa!) so in time I may be able to compare for myself.
Also newsworthy at the Wonder Garden, the heirloom Dianthus ‘Chomley Farran’ has finally hit its stride after malingering for years. Exquisite as a cut flower, it flops about a bit in the garden. A survivor of the 18th and 19th century craze for “bizarre” carnations, it’s a living embodiment of the changing tastes and fascinating idiosyncrasies that occasionally erupt throughout horticultural history.
At home Gladiolus ‘Ruby’ began opening the last couple days. Here’s a bulb that’s done some traveling. Ordered from a grower in the UK in 2014, it’s been speared and disturbed since that time, a casualty of the zone 10 garden’s frequent upheavals and changes in direction. This April I noticed bulb foliage nosing up in a path. The shape of the leaf indicated either the inferior strain of Byzantine gladiolus that proliferates in the garden or the choice ‘Ruby.’ Having already stepped on the emerging foliage repeatedly, I dug up the pathway bulbs and brought them north for a chance to reveal their true identity. These are what are in bloom now. Looking at the photos in the link provided, it’s pretty clear where this bulb is happiest.
And that’s the last post in June, promise. More soon, AGO.
The only way to keep up with June is weekly reports. Last week the biennial Verbascum phlomoides was in bud, and the four or so planted last fall have started to open this week. I’d forgotten but obviously I got ahold of a white seed strain of the so-called Orange Mullein, sold as ‘Spica’ or ‘Snow Maiden.’ And I’m really glad I did. Yellow in the garden doesn’t bother me, and I’m growing other yellow verbascums. But this cool ruffly creamy white is so unexpectedly elegant. I hope it reseeds true.
I’ve been seeing a lot of large gardens lately and have been surprised by a lack of envy. A small garden suits me. I like the intensity, the dailiness of watching it change up close, the manageablity. Though we have expanded to the east a bit.
Forecast calls for a little rain the next few days, which if true would be rare for the normally summer-dry June. More soon, AGO
Dairy Creek Meadows was one of two gardens I visited last weekend under the HPSO Open Gardens program. Both were familiar to me, one because I had visited it a few years back (the Courtneys’ garden), the other because I had visited the owners’ previous city garden in 2014 before they moved to 30 acres. Some elements of that incredible city garden, Floramagoria, can be seen at Dairy Creek Meadows, but overall it’s a newly imagined style of gardening that plays out over acres, more Oudolfian than tropical town garden. I’ll be posting on both in the upcoming weeks but want to highlight DCM’s pond and creek. They were certainly a highlight for me.
You would think with five rivers emptying into Tillamook Bay, that there are endless river trails and opportunities to engage up close with moving water. There are not. I’ve been on a mission to find an easy river walk and have so far met with failure. Obstinate factors include geology, with river banks that are usually steep and rocky, land rights. Locals probably have knowledge of wide banks and easy access if you know where to go, but they’re not talking. For all those reasons, this little scene bowled me over, a small slab of level rock with a couple of adirondacks, a shade umbrella, and a dancing stream. The essentials. All you need.
Have a great week. More soon, AGO.
These photos were taken over the past few days. More things are coming into bloom like thalictrum, sanguisorba and dierama, but I’ll catch up with them later. The ground is pretty well covered, and shifting plants around will be minimal now with the end of the winter rains and beginning of the summer dry season. Standing back and watching the progression into summer is the order of the day.
Penstemon ‘Mockingbird’ was found last summer at Miller’s Manor Garden Nursery during a Cascadia Nursery Trail event. The penstemon was described by the proprietor as the best of the dark-flowering kinds, and it’s true. I have a ‘Raven’ near by for comparison, and there’s no comparison. Miller’s own find, ‘Mockingbird’ has tall dark stems, strong growth, vigorous after its first winter. I like the spacing of the flowers, not too congested.
Allium ‘Big Beauty’ lacks intense color but is strong in line with relatively broad leaves for an allium. This allium is new to me, planted just weeks ago, already in bud.
Gillenia trifoliata (old. name) and early-summer blooming Anemone ‘Dainty Swan’ are having such a sparkling conversation, both clothed in crisp summer whites with red accents on the petals speaking to the gillenia’s red stems. I love bringing up the common name of the gillenia to Marty, which he finds intriguing — Bowman’s Root. Do you think it was used for poison arrows, I ask? He looks at the plant now with respect. (But a quick search shows it’s named for Dr. John Bowman, 18th century physician and botanist who collected North American plants.)
Have a great weekend! More soon, AGO
I visited this garden in 2014 with a group of garden bloggers and didn’t really absorb much of the back story of its creation. Visiting again this May, my knees aching after lengthy explorations along its sloping paths, I researched a bit after the visit to learn more about what I had seen. It’s a lot to digest in one visit. I know from long experience that gardens don’t just “happen,” but the origin story of Old Germantown Gardens surprised even me. Jerry Grossnickle and Bruce Wakefield literally created it from scratch in 1988, following old deer trails for the paths, clearing out 2 acres of scrub forest with chainsaws from the 5-acre parcel, sorting out marshy areas with drains, heavy laborious work that took two years. The house itself wasn’t built until 1990.
I think we can all agree that, while you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone vehemently anti-garden, there is a pervasive uneasiness about the work involved with making gardens. It’s not everyone’s idea of a good time. I recently came across the phrase of willingly being “in service to the garden” when Andrew Salter discussed the making of his garden on Garden Masterclass (here). He started the garden before his future home, a converted barn, had a kitchen or a bed. Andrew used that phrase over and over, of being in rapturous service to the garden. It’s a simple, very effective description of the relationship between the gardener and the garden.
Bruce and Jerry have been in service to Old Germantown Gardens (named after the street) since 1988, when they left their Portland homes to find 5 acres upon which to let loose their combined bottomless energies and plant lust. The deer-fenced garden constitutes two acres; the remaining acreage is managed forest, also with trails maintained by the couple. Coincidentally, a few other Portland city gardens visited in 2014 have also been exchanged by their owners for more acres outside the city.
Old Germantown Gardens is garden making at a physically heroic level, showing that a labor-intensive garden can indisputably be the personal definition of what constitutes a good time, and in fact can be at the very center of your ideal of a good life. Hand-built paths, rock walls, troubleshooting drainage solutions, hand-dug ponds, it’s always been a chainsaw-driven DIY venture from the get-go. Categories of responsibility may be a little too neat, but from what I’ve read Jerry is consumed with engineering solutions and Bruce with the planting.
To enter the garden, you park on Old Germantown Gardens Road and descend down a long steep driveway to the deer-proof gates. Bruce was waiting at a sign-in table to greet visitors and answer questions, and I admit I trekked back to his table a few times for plant identifications. At one point I let him know that his namesake Lobelia tupa ‘Bruce Wakefield,’ a rare orange variant, grows at the Wonder Garden in Manzanita, and he told the story of its discovery in his garden by the guys at Xera then humbly shrugged off the honor with: “And I don’t even like orange.” That little story provides a clue into the synergy of plant nurseries with private gardens that is an important aspect of the ongoing dynamism of PNW garden culture.
Collections of certain genera like iris, primula, hellbebore fill the understory. Bruce talked of the difficulty now of bringing home seed from his extensive travels — they had just returned from traveling through Southeast Asia and South America. The garden is famous for the Giant Himalayan Lilies, Cardiocrinum giganteum, that Bruce started from seed. I’ll always associate these lilies with reading of Gertrude Jekyll directing workers with donkey carts full of manure to dump them into the massive holes she instructed be prepared for these lilies. Growing these lilies is a long game; they take seven years to bloom from seed and years more to achieve established colonies. But I do think donkey carts are a great idea for hillside paths!
Old Germantown Gardens is emblematic of the thriving garden culture of the PNW, supported by plant societies that enable touring private gardens, the specialist nurseries, all in response to the amazing climate and physical beauty of the region.
Here's more info on the garden from the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon, of which Bruce was once president. And FYI, Forest Park is one of the largest urban forests in the U.S.: "Tucked away on a wooded parcel near Forest Park, Bruce Wakefield & Jerry Grossnickle's Old Germantown Gardens is a nearly 2-acre hillside garden that is a wealth of garden diversity, including ponds, bog gardens, perennial beds and borders, woodland plantings, rock garden, dry hillside garden, and a greenhouse full of unusual tropical plants. Each garden habitat is stuffed full of plants – rare, unusual and common ones too. Parts of the garden are now almost 36 years old; the process of renovation and serious editing has begun (while still procuring new plants like there is no tomorrow)! Adjacent to the house is a French/Italian-style patio-terrace with small decorative pools, a fountain, rill, and waterfall, all contained within hand-chiseled stone walls. They have recently restored woodland trails in the back 3 acres of their forest area. Take a stroll through the native woods. You might even spot the local herd of elk! After exploring the extensive hillside trails (both in and outside the garden), visitors are welcome to refreshments on the terrace or upstairs deck while taking in a birds-eye view of Old Germantown Gardens. Best to park on the road and walk down the driveway."
Small seedlings of the biennial Dianthus barbatus 'Sooty' were planted out last fall, and I'm happy to report it really lives up to its name. When the garden was new I used a lot of Dianthus barbatus 'Oeschberg,' a bright magenta, to cover all that bare ground, so I realized early on with the Oregon garden how invaluable this old-fashioned dianthus can be in late spring. And this biennial loves the growing conditions here, cool and wet, deep soil, so they bloom for months. There's still a few 'Oeschberg' dianthus in dwindling numbers, so they do seem to act as short-lived perennials here. Starting fresh from seed mid-summer is the best bet, but cuttings can be taken too. I might try cuttings with 'Sooty.'
My seeds came from Chiltern's in the UK. (A federal Permit to Import Plant Products is required, and I need to reapply. I think it lasts for five years.) I also started a white form that's just starting to bloom on the east side, which was newly dug so still lots of bare ground to cover. Weird that I chose the extreme ends of the spectrum, white and dark. I might use the white mostly as a cut flower. I'd hate to cut 'Sooty' from the garden. I saw masses of mixed color Sweet Williams recently at Old Germantown Gardens, including a peachy-pink strain 'Newport Pink,' all of which would be great for cutting. For the garden I prefer the dark single color strains like 'Oeschberg' and 'Sooty.'
Small seedlings of Verbascum phlomoides were also planted last fall. It's an intriguing sight as it twists and elongates a flower bud. This newly planted area, maybe 4x4,' previously grew Persicaria polymorpha which stretches to 5x5 by summer. After the persicaria's removal and relocation, there was a lot of bare ground in fall for planting. Biennials are great for such temporary opportunities, because they're something to watch early in spring, whereas annuals won't be a presence until July at the earliest here at coast.
More twistiness from Centaurea macrocephala, the Bighead Knapweed. Digging Dog Nursery describes it well: "An overgrown, sun-struck relative of the Bachelor Button, this “big-headed” native of the Caucasus Mountains has so many good qualities you’ll soon be inviting it into your garden. A medium green, rowdy mass of oversized, wavy-edged lanceolate leaves attached to stout stems gives way to intriguing, rust-colored buds as big as a chicken’s egg. Scaled by papery bracts, the bud’s rotund profile opens to offer a large, bright yellow thistle, a cheerful mop of thread-like petals bursting with sunshine and color."
There's three close to the back fence, which may be two too many because these are large plants, at least 3x3.' The seedlings were discovered one autumn growing in the thatch of the "basket," the seedhead, and a few were pried free and potted up, now growing in my garden. I wonder if this is common or done by any other plant? The mother plant is still flourishing in a nearby commercial strip with no signs of other seedlings nearby.
Along with Dianthus barbatus 'Sooty,' I can't stop adding dark notes to the garden, like dark-leaved penstemon and angelica, Anthriscus 'Ravenswing.' (And a new Astilbe 'Chocolate Shogun.') The earlier they show leaves in spring, the better. I know too much variegation can get a little hectic, and I use it sparingly, but I haven't found a limit yet to the dark side of planting.
Have a great Sunday! More soon, AGO
I really like this bit of planting, and a lot of that has to do with the contributions of Euphorbia ‘Copton Ash,’ the dark eucomis, and the tawny leaves of the Arctostaphylos pajaroensis hybrid. The flowers of Euphorbia ‘Miner’s Merlot,’ just seen on the left above, carry the same russet tones as the manzanita, as does Carex testacea. ‘Copton Ash’ reminds me of a miniature Euphorbia certatocarpa, seen recently and fawned over at Cistus. There are similar types like ‘Dean’s Hybrid’ and ‘Blue Haze’ which haven’t succeeded for me, and that might be on me. These euphorbias are not rubbery-leaved like characias but more willowy in habit. Billowy even. ‘Copton Ash’ doesn’t self-sow, thank goodness.
As a side note, on the subject of reseeding, I’m getting some light reseeding from supposedly sterile Eryngium ‘Big Blue,’ a cross of alpinum and bourgatii, which is totally fine.
The circular silver drum was some kind of farm feeder, its bottom drilled and handle removed to make a home for an agave. (I’m no stranger to salvage, but in this case finding a large, cheap container was the primary consideration.) A local nursery was carrying gallons of Agave ovatifolia ‘Vanzie,’ a rare offering for the coast. I passed it up a few times but ultimately couldn’t let it go. Such treasures do not normally make their way to the coast. It seemed inevitable, meant to be. Returning for ‘Vanzie’ I noticed nearby Yucca ‘Silver Anniversary,’ a cross by Plant Delights of filamentosa and pallida. Intriguing! Not really wanting a potentially gigantic whale’s tongue agave in my small garden, I left with the yucca. What were these plants doing at my local hanging-basket-petunia-calibrachoa nursery? I posed that question to its owner, and she laughed, “These are my plants — I’m from Arizona.”
More soon, AGO
When Sally Schmitt sold her ground-breaking, farm-to-table restaurant The French Laundry to Thomas Keller in 1994, she and her husband Don left Yountville and Napa County for an apple farm in Mendocino County.
Sally passed away in 2022, one of those people that used up every bit of energy, intelligence, enthusiasm, curiosity and inspiration that filled her body and soul for 90 years. Her restaurant The French Laundry has found world renown and 3 Michelin stars under its second owner Thomas Keller. The Apple Farm, on the other hand, that Sally helped her daughter operate in Philo, California, flies blissfully under the radar, a peaceful refuge for lovers of heirloom apples and rural simplicity.
Recently, friends and family stayed there over Memorial Day Weekend in the cottages available to rent surrounded by 80 varieties of apple trees, chickens and goats. I begged for some photos to share so we could have a look.
I’m daydreaming about a visit to coincide with the apple harvest.
An HPSO open garden visit on Sunday took me about 20 minutes from Cistus Nursery on Sauvie Island, so I popped in to check on some plants I’ve been eyeing in their catalogue. After parking I wandered into the private area near the residence, where I saw this euphorbia, my personal holy grail, lining a path.
As far as entering the verboten part of the garden, at an exciting destination like Cistus my eyes see only plants and inviting paths, not signage. I truthfully did not mean to trespass and was mortified when I realized I had done so. Later in the visit I confessed my mistake to the owner Sean Hogan, and he was kindly reassuring and said they were getting deliveries so everything was open and not to worry. (He actually sent me back into the private area to check out Carex secta, a New Zealand sedge that hoists itself up on a “trunk” of old growth.).
This euphorbia has been tantalizingly out of reach for decades. Nobody offers it for sale. Seeing it on the path, it was much larger than the spindly specimen I grew decades ago in Los Angeles. I nursed a couple cuttings but lost them and the mother plant ages ago. It is incredibly long blooming, willowy, full of that bright character that only euphorbias bring to a garden. And I just recently discovered it was in Citstus’ catalogue. No plants ready for retail sales yet (and still building size for mail order). And as Sean explained, Cistus is predominantly a mail order nursery, although the retail side is always full of fabulous plants and worth browsing. (Available retail was a chionochloa I’ve been looking for to billow out over the east “boardwalk,” Chionochloa conspicua.)
So close to the prize! I’ve been assured that Euphorbia certatocarpa will be available for mail order very soon. The garden I also visited that day was Old Germantown Gardens, which I knew from a blogger’s Fling visit back in 2014. I didn’t write a single post on that visit. OGG is a lot to digest! I’ll be making a stab at it shortly. Something I’ve been struck by is a lot of garden writing I read naturally focuses on the ground level for small urban gardens, whereas the careful buildup with trees and shrubs in larger gardens remains to my eye mostly anonymous shapes. In LA I could half-ass “read” the skyline; in PNW gardens, not so much. It’s frustrating to know that every tree and shrub at Old Germantown Gardens was carefully considered for inclusion because of its unique and special qualities, but are nonetheless shapes without names to me. No wonder I never posted on it back in 2014! More soon, AGO
