garden impostors and other July blooms

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Digitalis ferruginea

The clumps of leaves on these two foxgloves were impossible to tell apart in winter, but in bloom Digitalis parviflora and Digitalis ferruginea are very distinctive. Apart from very different coloration, D. parviflora is the first to bloom, and D. ferruginea is the taller of the two.

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Digitalis parviflora

In this coastal Oregon zone 8b garden, July brings the first dahlias, more lilies, and…(add intro to Beethoven’s 5th)…dierama.

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opened this week, ‘Camano Sitka’
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Dahlia ‘AC Rosebud’

The first dahlia to bloom by a couple weeks, ‘AC Rosebud,’ is over 7 feet tall and towers over the back fence — the only way to get a decent photo is to cut the flowers for a vase. All dahlias were planted May 2022 and no new dahlias were added for this summer.

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A dark strain from Dancing Oaks, dierama hangs and sways with the Golden Oats grass Stipa gigantea.
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Kniphofia ‘Timothy’
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Patrinia scabiosifolia
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Two plants of Sanguisorba ‘Red Thunder,’ one over 5-feet in height, the other under 3 feet. I’m assuming the taller is the true ‘Red Thunder’ — the shorter variety would be fine at the front of the border
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Veronicastrum ‘Fascination’ — I can either wait for it to bulk up or add a few more plants for a bigger impact
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Unlike veronicastrum, one Lobelia tupa is ample! Love the pale celadon-colored leaves as much as the flowers, about 5 bloom stalks in its second summer
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Salvia ‘Mesa Azure’ slowly coming back from complete winter dormancy
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Sown in spring, about a dozen Lychnis viscaria ‘Blue Angel’ were planted in the garden and in pots. Weak and spindly as small plants, I had low expectations but July turned things around. They are similar in growth habit to corn cockle, agrostemma, but maybe a foot in height.

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with variegated oregano and little white flowers of Parahebe catarractae
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Viscaria oculata, Lychnis viscaria ‘Blue Angel’
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Madia elegans

Another annual, this one very tall, Madia elegans was brought in as plants with hopes for resowing. I saw this “tarweed” in bloom last summer, had no luck with seeds, but grabbed a couple plants this spring, very unimpressive in their nursery pots but I knew their potential: grey-green, slightly furry leaves, fringed petals, dark center, tall graceful habit, a beautiful Oregon/West Coast native. It can be grown hard or in luxurious conditions like here, where it will soar up to 5 feet. A couple stalks did break off during a very windy June but it recovered and branched out.

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Scabiosa ochroleuca just opening this week — like knautia, it’s all about the clouds of bobbing dancing flowers which endlessly entertain me and pollinators. Similar is Succisella inflexa, very pale, almost white, not yet in bloom
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Morina longifolia
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Teucrium ‘Summer Sunshine’ spreading mat in bloom
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Bought in bloom, the sublime purply/green/blue Mendocino Reed Grass, Calamagrostis foliosus, maybe a foot to 18 inches in height and width. Apparently not easy to propagate or grow so not a sure thing for surviving winter here
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Salvia ‘Amante’ wintered in a stock tank with Verbena bonariensis, the salvia just now coming into bloom
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Solanum laxum — I thought I stumbled onto a new-to-me vine especially suited for the PNW, but turns out it’s the old potato vine Solanum jasminoides with a new name. To zone 8b, it came through its first winter in the ground, under the awning, growing up a supporting beam.
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the cardoon Cynara cardunculus hardy to zone 7
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the best I could do to show the height of Peucedanum verticillare, over 8 feet — its enormity defies capture by my point-and-shoot camera and what looks here like a mad jumble is an elegant architectural presence surprisingly resistant to heavy wind

And now I get to set the record straight and correct a misidentification. I thought I was digging up Angelica stricta ‘Purpurea’ from the Long Beach zone 10 garden in autumn 2021 to transport to the Oregon garden. Prior to this post, I’ve referred to photos of this plant as an angelica. It is not. I’ve puzzled over the enormous height and lack of purple color to the umbels but assumed seed variation. Browsing a catalogue the other day, I found photos of Peucedanum verticillare — boing! Instant recognition — this is the plant! And I was growing it in the Long Beach garden in October 2020, so must have dug this one up instead of the angelica, which I also grew down south (see post here). If that’s not weirdly confusing enough, this spring I planted a Peucedanum ostruthium at the base of this plant when I thought it was angelica…

Peucedanum verticillare Giant Hog Fennel June 2023. For the record, it’s also known as Angelica verticillaris!
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biennial or short-lived perennial with amazing rose-flushed seedheads
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I love the drama of big plants so wasn’t too bothered by this one tripling its anticipated size when I still thought it was Angelica stricta…
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Podocarpus macrophyllus ‘Mood Ring’

And lastly, I’m not impulse-buying many shrubs, but the colors on this podocarpus reminded me so much of the coloring of the leucadendrons in my zone 10 garden that I couldn’t say no. To zone 7b, it appears to be trademarked and heavily marketed. (Some of the photos may show as links only, not sure why, but clicking will bring up the image.)

Posted in Bloom Day, Oregon garden | 7 Comments

July surges

On drives through the coast range I note the prominence of naturalized foxgloves in bloom is being replaced by fireweed (epilobium), the color and shape so similar that I didn’t notice the change at first. Around town rhododendrons are done, hydrangeas, dahlias and Shasta daisies are up. In my garden, July brings the penstemons and agastache into bloom, the first dahlias, Digitalis parviflora (but not D. ferruginea yet), the cool season grasses, sanguisorba, the double-flowered sterile form of Lychnis coronaria in screaming magenta, gaura, Watsonia pillansi, Lobelia tupa, patrinia, Rudbeckia triloba. Oregon Sunshine, Eriophyllum lanatum, has been cut back just as the echinacea are budding iup. Geum is having a second flush of bloom. Needless to say, July shows how I like plants in concentrated doses, where juxtapositions of leaves, shapes, and colors fire off each other.

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from the patio against the house
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in the furthest stocktank looking east, Cassinia leptophylla subsp fulvida aka the Golden Bush, one of my fav shrubs in the garden. No luck with cuttings yet.
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Anisodontea ‘Strybing Beauty’ and the hummingbirds are having a lovefest. A runner has escaped the tank and is growing in the strip of soil between tank and patio. A cutting is being trialed in the open garden to see how it handles winter there
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Between the cool-season grasses and the warm-season grasses like miscanthus now filling out, the garden is heading into grassland territory. There’s some formula out there that says no more than 30% grass — I may have exceeded that ratio a bit. The giant with the red stems behind the phormium is a eupatorium, also budding up.
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Never saw blooms on Anemanthele lessoniana in zone 10, another surprise
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Only one bloom stalk from two clumps of Eryngium ‘Big Blue’ this year — it bloomed better in its first year.
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fasciated bloom on Digitalis parviflora showing some love
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A foxglove I’ve long wanted to grow — very exciting to watch its development
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Lysimachia ‘Beaujolais’ showing staying power into July
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and now it’s surrounded by some good leaves like melianthus and astralia which are just now making size
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Dianthus barbatus ‘Oeschberg’ and sanguisorba hitting the same color notes
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Achnatherum calamagrostis arches its plumes outward with a vase-like symmetry
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Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ in front of achnatherum was cut down by half in June — the “Chelsea chop”
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Deschampsia ‘Goldtau’ is a disorganized fizz of bloom.
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Purple spikes coloring up are Teucrium hircanicum. Big leaves are an unnamed species of salvia from Szechuan from Flowers by the Sea
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Penstemon ‘Cha-Cha Purple’ is one of the best dark-colored varieties I’ve grown. Healthy leaves, strong growth. Penstemon ‘Raven’ is still way behind in growth.
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July ramped up growth on a cardoon planted in spring
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Rudbeckia trilloba
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Agastache ‘Blue Boa’
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Two 5-foot stalks of Watsonia pillansii came up in July
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more lilies continue to open
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A seedling from Malva sylvestris ‘Zebrina’ that was miserable in the garden last year, much happier in a stock tank
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Filipendula ‘Red Umbrellas’
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A closeup of the leaves would have been more helpful — maple-shaped, red venation
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Hebe ‘Western Hills’ — new to hebes and still thinking of them as foliage plants, the flowers are a surprise!!
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Morina longifolia sending up a bloom
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Bulbine abyssinica looks like it’s going to seed, but it does this before opening blooms!
Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 8 Comments

Bloom Day June 2023

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Persicaria polymorpha

Not to be duplicative of recent posts, but just a few things that caught my eye this morning. I actually lost track of the Bloom Day timeline (15th of the month) but was out with the camera this morning to document a few things — nothing splashy, just documenting what’s up and growing and flowering — like the fabulous shrub-like quality of Persicaria polymorpha. (Side note: nearby Dahlia ‘Rosebud’ is nearly as high as the persicaria and in bud, so that will be representing for July. All four dahlias were left in the ground over winter and all returned. A local grower, Old House Dahlias, said that’s how he’d handle them here in a home garden. His operation is offline this spring/summer, don’t know why. Mine all came from OHD. I did cover them with branches from the Christmas tree, if that explains anything! But locally, in front gardens, it’s apparent that the dahlias are all treated as perennials and left in ground. Rainy zone 8b.)

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Second year in the garden and first bloom for Iris x robusta ‘Gerald Darby,’ a naturally occurring hybrid of two native species, Iris versicolor x Iris virginica. It is especially celebrated for its plummy-colored new growth and season-long good looks. Not for dry soils, it can even be grown in standing water but does fine in retentive garden soils like mine.

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Purple coloring to the soft, arching leaves mostly gone now. It was flooded under a drainspout all winter. Very exciting to find yesterday the potted francoa has a bud too! One of those unforgettable horticultural moments was seeing francoa growing like weeds in Mendocino.
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Lysimachia atropurpurea surprised me by returning this spring. It is very short-lived in zone 10, one summer only in my experience.
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Osteospermum ‘Voltage Gold’ — a color I couldn’t resist. Planted this spring though I’ve noticed they do overwinter here, at least the pale lilac color. And these daisies are said to bloom til frost in cool-summer climates like this
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Another photo of Kniphofia pauciflora, such an impressive performance in its second year. In flower about 18 inches tall. Biggest danger with diminutive plants like this is getting swamped by growth of surrounding plants. ‘Millenium’ allium is budding up, and these two are in perfect scale for each other and would make great mates
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Euphorbia ‘Copton Ash,’ planted in spring. ‘Dean’s Hybrid’ did not return after winter. The peachy diascia just started blooming this week, overwintered in stock tanks and garden. ‘My Darling Tangerine’ maybe?
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In its second year evergreen Bupleurum fruticosum is throwing its first bloom and making good size and shape
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Textural treasure Cassinia x ozothamnus in flower
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a martagon hybrid ‘Guinea Gold’
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Cotula ‘Tiffendell Gold’ opened blooms this week
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When nearby Origanum ‘Xera Cascade’ starts blooming, these two are going to be best buds! If you stopped by Xera’s shop last summer and saw this flowering oregano displayed in a container, you probably are growing it in your garden this year too!
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A couple seeds from last year’s Orlaya grandiflora grown in the stock tank made it into the rocked area and liked what they found
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I must be subconsciously attracted to sisyrinchiums because I have a few now. This is ‘Quaint and Queer’

We had light rain for a few minutes yesterday morning, the first since…the beginning of May? Daytime temps mostly in the 60s, nights in the 40s. Hope you’re having a fine June! May Dreams Gardens collects bloom day reports the 15th of each month.

Posted in Bloom Day, Oregon garden | 7 Comments

Flora Grubb Takes on LA

Memorial Day Weekend was the official launch of Flora Grubb Gardens’ new location in Los Angeles. When I heard Mitch was going to take advantage of the opening 20% sale, I pleaded for a few photos. With the recent closing of the beloved Atwater Village shop Potted, the opening of another design-forward, cool-plant nursery in LA comes not a minute too soon.

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FGG’s history is briefly this: With financial partner Saul Nadler, Flora Grubb opened her first shop in the Mission district of San Francisco in 2003, a neighborhood that was at that time still one of the most affordable neighborhoods in SF (before the Google bus regularly made stops there and rents became unaffordable to teachers, nurses, chefs, etc.) A series of very smart business moves quickly followed. A wholesale growing operation was acquired in San Diego in 2005, a frost-free climate ideal for growing agaves and aloes and the other beautiful dry garden plants FGG loves to showcase in their nursery and designs. In 2007 FGG moved from the Mission to Jerrold Street in the Dogpatch neighborhood, which is where I first became acquainted with FGG. At that time, Dogpatch had an industrial, tumble-down vibe and was just starting to become filled with interesting, brave, pioneer businesses like FGG. But cool things have a way of following in Flora Grubb’s wake — Dogpatch was recently named the 36th coolest neighborhood on Earth by TimeOut.

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The LA branch of FGG is located on the site of the former Marina del Rey Garden Center, a nursery I routinely visited whenever court reporting work took me out that way to the conference rooms in the office towers with distracting views overlooking the glittering marina. The 90 freeway that takes you to this very upscale coastal town pretty much ends at the nursery.

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From Marina del Rey Garden Center’s Facebook post of 4/23/23: We’re so happy to announce that Marina del Rey Garden Center is now Flora Grubb Gardens! We are open daily 9am-6pm at 13198 Mindanao Way in Marina del Rey. Come visit us! We can’t wait to see you.

Marina Del Rey Garden Center has served the community since 1977. In recent years, as they became more focused on sustainable gardening, they turned to Flora Grubb’s farm, Grubb & Nadler, for rare and exceptional drought tolerant plants.

When Flora Grubb heard they were ready to pass the nursery along to a new owner, she was thrilled! In 2022, the Flora Grubb Gardens team began operating Marina del Rey Garden Center and updating the site.

At Flora Grubb Gardens we believe that gardening makes people happy, brings peace into their lives, and offers a powerful antidote to the stresses of life. We believe in creating lavishly beautiful gardens that require minimal water and chemicals to maintain.

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a very festive opening weekend
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Welcome to LA, Flora Grubb Gardens!

Posted in MB Maher, plant nurseries | 4 Comments

June takes over

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February 2023 — June is such a startling transformation, a resilient, resurgent renewal — words fail!

June is happening. Whatever garden plans you made, whatever winter took away, June is here, right now, and blots out everything else. The job now, as I see it, is admiring the incredible architecture of plants in all their phases, leaf, stem, bud and flower.

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Broom-handle stem on Angelica stricta ‘Purpurea’ — actually, bigger than a broom handle and reaching over 5 feet. It’s been able to withstand Incredibly fierce afternoon winds.
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Nepeta and hesperis have made a huge difference this year, providing an enveloping color wash and early flowers for the pollinators that adds a dynamism I was missing last year. The nepeta is planted in the second-tier border right up against the retaining railroad tie, where it has room to billow but not smother neighboring plants. The hesperis is biennial and will reseed, and there are a few young plants established for next year. It’s a simple field of grasses and flowers that I can easily manage. The horticultural heavyweights are conspicuously absent — I can admire the roses and peonies, the Japanese maples, rhodies and lilacs around town.
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Parahebe perfoliata aka Veronica perfoliata, Digger’s Speedwell
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Oregon Sunshine, Hebe ‘Karo Golden Esk,’ Yucca linearifolia, Eryngium pandanifolium arching over it all
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Yucca rostrata with sisyrinchium, erinus and sedum
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Eryngium variifolium getting busy
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Ditto Eryngium paniculatum
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Sicilian honey garlic
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Festuca arundinacea ‘Glow Sticks’ living up to its name
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The rusty foxglove, Digitalis ferruginea in spike
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lush and lovely Gillenia trifoliata
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the ground is nearly covered
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green leafiness with the white midrib is Euphorbia stygiana, to its left Clematis stans x heracleifolia, backed by Persicaria polymorpha with white plumes. Intense honey scent from this euphorbia
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Trying another asphodel, a gift from Ketzel/the Wonder Garden in Manzanita where they likewise haven’t flourished so far. ‘Italian Gold’ is either dead or taking summer off
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Nepeta ‘Blue Dragon’ looks like a chunky agastache. A yunnanensis hybrid from Terra Nova
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Kniphofia pauciflora reminds me of a miniature K. thomsonii. The little black stakes are to flag the presence of small seedlings nearby like Verbascum roripifolium
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Kniphofia thomsonii var. snowdenii
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Primula bulleyana in a stock tank
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Euphorbia ‘Silver Swan’ flowers in much looser heads than E. characias, a very different effect that I like quite a bit
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Just beginning to flower are the dark-leaved ‘Oeschberg’ dianthus started last summer from seed. A biennial, right? Not so fast — they often can live up to three years. And the darkest flowers and leaves can be selected by taking soft cuttings of nonflowering shoots

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 5 Comments

late May 2023

Fresh clumps of healthy new leaves covering the ground, strong clear colors — I really like the direction the 2-year-old garden is taking in May.

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New growth on Olearia x mollis ‘Zennorensis’
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Foreground shrub is Corokia x virgata, possibly ‘Frosted Chocolate’ — takes to clipping well so will join the box balls in the clipping regimen. I’m on the hunt for an Eleagnus ‘Quicksilver’ to plant roughly in front of the green chairs
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Pagoda spires of plush-leaved Marrubium supinum with blurry white flowers in foreground of Libertia ‘Nelson Dwarf’
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Omphalodes linifolia obligingly reseeded into the rocks — wonderful grey-green leaves too
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Stipa gigantea in its second year, such a strong early presence. Looking east, the biennial Hesperis matronalis was sowed last summer and transplanted all around the garden, and the effort has paid off — loves the wet soil, is sweetly scented, and covers the ground and blooms early in spring.
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more hesperis, looking west
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A few clumps of Eriophyllum lanatum ‘Oregon Sunshine’ started blooming this week. I’m thinking the dark-leaves are Lysimachia ciliata. Fence was painted black last weekend. The geums did not like recent temps into the 90sF but have recovered like it never happened — same for me!
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I’m a fool for beschornerias. This one was plunged into the garden, pot and all, to be lifted next fall/winter
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Milium effusum ‘Aureum’ is an early blooming, moisture-loving grass that I’d like to spread around. Lanky silvery leaves are of an overwintered Senecio candicans — maybe a spring cutback would have produced compact growth? I didn’t expect it to survive at all…
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the lewisias are blooming fools
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I’ve got a couple potted hostas and doubt I’ll be adding more, but they are fascinating as they unfurl their leaves from tight, pirouette-cookie shaped tubes into soft and beamy agave substitutes
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Faced with so much bare ground last spring as stuff slowly filled in, several clumps of fast-growing golden oregano were deployed
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tetrapanax making size. I like the leaves close to the ground and prefer that it doesn’t trunk

Have a relaxing long weekend (Memorial Day in the U.S.) and see you in June!

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 7 Comments

covering the ground in early spring zone 8b

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every morning Billie and I inspect the garden, each with a different agenda of course

Dead or alive? Since April I’ve circled the garden carefully every morning, spine at a right angle to the ground, and posed that question to the plants…or the empty space I remember growing plants. Looking for signs of life in Salvia uliginosa (no-show as yet/dead); Salvia nutans (growth from one clump out of two); Aloe cooperi (strong growth from one plant, new nubbins from a second plant.). I inspect the garden daily both for signs of survival and also for what makes an early presence in spring.

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Aloe cooperi, a grass aloe, showing new growth, second winter, zone 8 hardy but iffy as far as all the rain. No blooms last summer and most likely none this year. Just had to have an aloe! Another hardy aloe. A. boylei, came thru in a stock tank. Plant on left with blue flowers is Wolfenia x schwarzii with evergreen leaves in winter
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the dog fennel last summer. The shrub Rhamnus alaternus ‘Variegatus’ is looking a little peaked this spring and may not be a good fit for the excessive winter rain

There’s visible growth on veronicastrum, on eupatorium. But one of my favorite plants from last year, the dog fennel Eupatorium capillifolium ‘Elegant Feather,’ is so far a no-show. Too early or dead? Canna ‘Cleopatra’ is showing growth. I had no idea if planting this last fall was sane. I left the dahlias in the ground more out of neglect than planning, and surprisingly two are showing growth. All the Sideritis oroteneriffae in the ground perished, but one planted in a bottomless container slightly under the eaves is producing new growth at the base.

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Dianthus barbatus ‘Oeschberg’

At least this year there is some growth to inspect. Last year, the first spring in this Oregon garden, was an agonizing time without much to look at in May. Since then I’ve focused on early growth from mostly herbaceous, sun-loving plants after a cold, wet (rain forest wet!) zone 8b winter. I’ve sown biennials like sweet william and hesperis for their early presence. It’s a vast subject, to get a wet 8b garden in sun up on its legs in early spring, so if you have any suggestions I’m all ears! I’ve been adding bulbs but avoiding peonies and early flowering shrubs for now.

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Italian buckthorn this spring. The grass behind it is Anemanthele lessoniana, which looks decent all winter but because it shouldn’t be cut to the ground looks a little shabby by spring. I’ve been thinning out the old growth. Carex testacea in foreground is flawlesss. The phormium came through the winter OK, and Eryngium ‘Big Blue’ has strong spring growth
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Sanguisorbas are a strong early presence
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Not afraid of orange, both in wallflowers and geum. Other early silver leaves come from several clumps of Lychnis coronaria, a sterile strain called ‘Gardener’s World’

The wallflowers, erysimum, thrive here and ignite the May garden. The large-leaved lamb’s ears is scruffy all winter but rights itself early for some gorgeous clumps. Foreground left is a miscanthus, late to bulk up, but behind the wallflower is a treasure, an Oregon native, cool season grass Deschampsia cespitosa in the very good form ‘Goldtau.’ I’m also growing quite a few clumps of the older variegated variety ‘Northern Lights’ which is easier to find.

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Milium effusum ‘Aureum’ is an electric presence in April/May
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Festuca arundinacea ‘Glow Sticks’ found local last year kept its leaves in winter. Didn’t bloom last spring — will I see glow sticks this year? The open space behind the grass is waiting to be filled by melianthus and an Aralia ‘Sun King’ — a good place for spring bulbs while waiting for these two to make size. The heat wave projected for this weekend should kick the melianthus into gear.
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Out of three ‘Goodwin Creek Grey’ lavenders, one pulled through, all planted in the gravel
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Teucrium ‘Summer Sunshine,’ planted in fall 2021, made it through two winters but just now showing the chartreuse coloring
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Salvia argentea after one winter — really had my doubts about this one surviving
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One of several clumps of Oregon sunshine, Eriophyllum lanatum, nearly evergreen, bulking up to an artemisia-like lacy clump before bloom. With early-appearing dark-leaved lysimachia (bought unlabeled).
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Asarina procumbens, the creeping snapdragon, thins out a bit in winter but still evergreen, thickening and flowering early. Filling in the graveled area under the tetrapanax and restio rhodocoma
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Iris ‘Gerald Darby’ planted near a downspout. Everything else is kept in pots here because the ground is just sooo wet
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Closest to the garage gets the least amount of sun. Aruncus aethusifolius is center, Eurybia divaricata upper left. Lots of early stuff here not pictured — Gillenia trifoliata, Angelica pupurea ‘Stricta,’ tricyrtis, Filipendula ‘Red Umbrellas,’ Anemone ‘Dainty Swan,’ Potentilla lineata, astrantia
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Eurybia divaricata
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Astrantia ‘Star of Fire’ planted last week
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Peucedanum ostruthium ‘Daphnis’ aka Peuce Masterwort planted last week is a lookalike for dangerous bishop’s weed but is in fact a well-mannered umbel
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Also planted this spring. Loved the leaf color of Arctostaphylos ‘Pajaro Hybrid,’ a standout among the arctos at the Wonder Garden’s spring manzanita sale — volunteers hard first choosing rights! Approx 200 plants sold out in a half hour.
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view early this morning east of my neighbor’s flowering fruit trees. The double pink (a cherry?) is in bloom all over town. The single white is lovely.
Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 6 Comments

what’s up (April 2023)

Waiting, longing, wracked with anticipation for the garden to jump into growth is an entirely new experience for me, born and raised in the eternal sunshine of zone 10. When the slow emergence of spring in zone 8b begins — lord have mercy it’s exciting! It feels like there needs to be some sort of authoritative summation on the state of the garden, on life, on the disgraceful behavior of our species…but that feels too much like homework. So instead, here’s a brief roundup of what the camera found today, at the ass end of April, on the Oregon coast, after what I’m told was an exceptionally rough winter. (There was snow! A blanket of it swaddled the garden for a week!)

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Phlomis monocephala

What looks good when the garden is just starting to stir in April? In my garden, in one word, phlomis. Unscathed, fully clothed, holding it together all winter. I didn’t expect phlomis could deal with this much rain, hail and snow, but see for yourself.

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Phlomis monocephala is planted slightly under the eaves in the rocked area; P. anatolica and aurea are in the main garden borders
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Phlomis anatolica ‘Lloyd’s Variety’ with that other great, unchangeable winter stalwart Carex testacea
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Phlomis aurea

And for mainlining the life force, jumpstarting slumbering rods and cones, another easy answer: tulips in pots. In colors you’ll never find locally available. (You must rouse yourself in July and order then for the best selection.) They’re the perfect aperitif for opening the growing season, especially for me because I don’t plan for much strong color for summer.

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‘Orange Princess’ — grit your teeth and order despite the name
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‘Orange Princess,’ ‘Slawa,’ lower right, tall in the back ‘Amber Glow,’ purple is probably ‘Queen of the Night’
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And you’ll need to look back at the garden in March 2022…
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because gradually planting has encroached into the wide open rocked area by a couple feet — a barrel band, to be exact. In the above barrel band, lower right Hebe parviflora angustifolia, Sedum ‘Capo Blanco, upper left Kniphofia hirsuta, upper right Bulbine abyssinica. Dasylirion texanum is in the concrete tube. Sprawling behind the tube, Marrubium supinum looked presentable all winter. Spikes are Libertia ‘Amazing Grace’ and Libertia ‘Nelson Dwarf.’ I’ve gone libertia mad — not shown is L. chilensis. The empty band in the distant left is awaiting arrival of another phlomis. I need all the phlomis!
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looking the other way, east
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detail from the band plantings, Crambe maritima
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Eryngium paniculatum is another of those plants much appreciated for looking impeccable all winter
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Eryngium varifolium
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in the center stock tank, zone 9er Anisodontea ‘Strybing Beauty’ won big in a cold zone 8b winter. If you don’t like pink, you’ll dismiss it outright, and I don’t seek out pink myself — but I know of no other plant that performs like this. Bees were visiting it all winter. Battered by winds, a main trunk split — but that didn’t stop it either. Another form I hear is equally good is ‘El Rayo’
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Thalictrum ‘Elin’

Thalictrum — I’ve daydreamed about growing thalictrum for many years, in a good, moisture-retentive soil. Early emergence of delicate ferny leaves followed by a massive rush of growth to head height. ‘Elin’ was planted last year, two ‘Black Stockings’ were added in March. Yellow-flowered Thalictrum lucidum will arrive in May.

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Thalictrum ‘Black Stockings’
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The euphorbias bring a strong early presence.

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Euphorbia characias supsp. wulfenii with ‘Vulcan’ wallflowers
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Euphorbia cyparissias is irresistible to me, bright and early — but it is incredibly invasive!
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Euphorbia stygiana was struck flaccid from cold so many times I thought it couldn’t possibly recover, yet here it is
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And geum is another that holds onto a robust rosette of leaves all winter in cold, wet soil then is quick off the mark in April
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Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’
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Mukgenia ‘Nova Flame’

And always shopping for more. I bumped into this bigeneric cross of bergenia and mukdenia last week with the sempervivum-like flowers and couldn’t think of a reason not to buy it. There is no reason, right?

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ethereal, starry Lychnis flos-cuculi ‘Petit Henri’ is said to bloom all summer, also brought home last week

Light snow again mid April. Yesterday spiked into the high 80s, at least 20 degrees over the norm, but we’ve climbed back down into the 60sF with the possibility of rain tomorrow…and some more in May but then drier days ahead…

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 8 Comments

swamp lanterns at Rockaway Cedar Preserve Hike

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In 2019 a mile-long raised boardwalk was built over a small remnant of old-growth coastal bog right off of Highway 101 about 20 minutes north of us. Typical of many beautiful places in Oregon, signage is not conspicuous, and if you didn’t know it was there you’d never find the Rockaway Cedar Preserve Hike.

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Had I known it was there last year, I could have experienced the luminous skunk cabbage spring bloom leisurely, up close and on foot, instead of craning to see the blooms whizzing by through the car window while passing by boggy roadsides with no turnout.

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Western skunk cabbage aka swamp lanterns aka Lysichiton americanus, whose roots were roasted by native people, the enormous leaves used as baskets and food wraps, along with every part including sap utilized for all manner of medicinal uses. It is a big, strappy, charismatic, lusty aroid, a swamp dweller, beetle-pollinated, stridently blaring the imminence of longer, drier days ahead to the disbelieving. A fluorescent yellow exclamation mark to herald the end of winter. Huzzah!

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It’s just the fecund, primordial experience needed while spring slowly stirs itself and sleepily gets up on its elbows…

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Posted in garden travel, Oregon garden | 5 Comments

Billie in the snow

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February was not just about prettily frosted plants. Later in the month the garden was buried in almost a foot of snow. Unheard of amounts of snow, I’m told! Schools and city hall closed for a couple days, and the snow stayed on the ground about a week.

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For most of February the Oregon garden continued to be pummeled by frosts and feet of snow.  This amount of snow, I’m told, is unusual.  The garden and gardener may be on winter hiatus, but the energy normally poured into plants and garden inevitably spills over onto the wider surroundings, which to me are a novel and fascinating ecosystem. 

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I haven’t said much here, but  after growing up in Los Angeles, living among small towns in a temperate rain forest is an extraordinary change.  Traveling along the coast, I compulsively check the population numbers of every town we pass through — Marty is used to this tic now.  Renowned PNW writer Ken Kesey described them as “Towns dependent on what they are able to wrest from the sea in front of them and from the mountains behind, trapped between both.”

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The geographic isolation works to both attract and repel. I’ve met families who’ve been here several generations that can’t conceive of living anywhere else. But word occasionally gets around that so-and-so is leaving, moving away because they can’t take the small-town isolation anymore.

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All the fiercely independent small towns have a lot in common: “There will be a small scatter of boxlike dwellings somewhere near a mill, usually on a river, and a cannery on the docks, needing a new floor. The main street is a stripe of wet asphalt smeared with barroom neon.” — Ken Kesey

Our own small town of approx 5,000 functions as a “15-minute city” (I can get anything I need on foot in 15 minutes). It will never see sprawl — not through proactive design but because there’s not much buildable land in a small town surrounded by farms, rivers and floodplains.  Big enough for reliable buses, trash pickup, utilities, supercharger stations a block away. Veterinarians, dentists, hospital, groceries, seasonal farmer markets, schools, haircuts, hardware store, microbeer, boat launch, library, all within walkable distance.  Most of the other coastal town populations come in under a thousand. The majority of towns appear to have a seasonal population — tourism replaces industry. 

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crab yields are still strong on the coast, and we had to put oyster stuffing on the Thanksgiving menu

How many people does it take to keep a town functional?  What industries have come and gone, and why?  Forest fires ravaged the timber industry in the fairly recent past (see Tillamook Burn), and my town is down to one lumber mill.  Every morning I am greeted by its plume of smoke to the east when sitting under the overhang having the first coffee in the garden with Billie.   The replanted burn areas have grown in surprisingly fast, but the mills are gone for good.  Lumber will no longer be the powerhouse employer it once was.  A coastal railway operating from the coast to Portland was so severely damaged in winter storms that in 2007 is was decided the cost was too great to fix, and repairs would also likely damage spawning grounds, so the railway line was abandoned. Overfishing ended most commercial fishing, with sport fishing taking up the slack now.  Oysters, clams and crabs still multiply lustily in this unique five-river estuary, the second largest in Oregon.  

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Indigenous people became “complex” hunter-gatherers here in this narrow coastal strip bounded by the Coast Range, able to build permanent houses and complex social structures without a written language.  This defies the old anthropologic saw that agriculture and its surpluses are first acquired and then permanent dwellings and complex societies follow.  Here the abundance of food, and especially the predictability of the salmon runs, allowed for permanent villages of cedar plank houses.  Cedar also made water-proof clothing, baskets, canoes — it was put to protean uses. 

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“Graveyard of the Pacific” — many came for the otter furs and other goods, but the ferocity of storms on the coast claimed hundreds of ships

The geographic isolation of the coast worked to the advantage of the native people for thousands of years, until European fur traders sailed in.  Very soon after, the native people succumbed to European diseases and settler disputes, with the rapidly dwindling number of tribal members eventually pushed to reservations. Just driving along the coast brings all this readily to mind.  The rivers, the ocean, the mountains, the geographic isolation even now with just a couple roads, the winter-long rain — all tell vivid stories of the limits and possibilities here.   

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local boat ramp after rain and high tide — a 15-minute walk away

The dairy farmers seem to be thriving despite new rules protecting wetlands, spawning grounds, and the watershed.  There is grumbling but respectful cooperation.  Small farms are gaining a toehold, growing seasonal produce for restaurants, farmer markets, and CSA boxes. 

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blueberries picked last fall from bush in the front yard

Unlike Los Angeles, everything is tangible, visible on the surface, the systems easy to read.  Geography rules! Los Angeles is a subtle ecosystem easily overrun by ambition, at least in the short term until water supplies capsize. Here geography and climate have the final say. Cause and effects happen in real time.   Housing is scarce and locals cannot afford to buy a house on local wages — some things are constant.  Child care is not just scarce but impossible to find — another constant.

Just some quick thoughts on small towns where, for good or ill, the machinery that makes towns run, or not, is in full view.  In LA it was always inscrutable to me, starting with that crazy concrete-bottomed river, which I hear is near to overflowing lately…

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 6 Comments