{"id":103999,"date":"2024-05-18T21:07:23","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T01:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=103999"},"modified":"2024-05-19T12:02:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T16:02:00","slug":"mid-may-2024-oregon-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=103999","title":{"rendered":"mid-May 2024 Oregon Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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photos below pick out a couple things happening in the above overview<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Morning is always my favorite time in the garden, with the plants softly exhaling into the warming air while the sun slowly traces its way through tree canopies and clouds. The surrounding town is quiet while I study the garden as it ushers in another day of surging spring growth, and I love that juxtaposition. Now that May has typically brought ferocious afternoon winds, mornings are savored even more. It is a riveting time in the garden checking out what’s formed shape and gathered strength seemingly overnight, some things familiar and others entirely new. Here’s a quick sketch of the back garden mid-May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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asphodels in bloom in a cloud of Omphalodes linifolia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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last photo of asphodels this year, I promise! <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Helianthemum ‘Henfield Brilliant’ and Euphotbia ‘Copton Ash,’ a replacement for ‘Dean’s Hybrid’ that melted away<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Penstemon ‘Dark Towers’ seems to be the next-gen ‘Husker’s Red,’ bigger in leaf. First spring in the garden, so haven’t seen it in flower yet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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center, clump of Sanguiisorba ‘Red Thunder’ making size, cirsium and dianthus on the right. Background in bloom left to right is euphorbia, erysimum, geum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Dianthus barbatus ‘Oeschberg’ was planted a couple years back, more as a filler while the garden grew in, but I’m finding its early dark-leaved presence invaluable, and several clumps are threaded throughout the garden. All these early spring plants from seed — dianthus, hesperis, lunaria — have been incredibly enjoyable, a big change from staring at bare ground in the garden’s early days a few springs ago<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Milium effusum ‘Aureum’ is also good in early spring, and I’ve been spreading it around open ground that’s waiting for stuff like melianthus to fully leaf out<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cerinthe major purpurascens — I could never make much sense of this plant in zone 10, where it was an irritating sprawler with pinched leaves on the gaunt side that looked nothing like the seed packet photos. In the Oregon garden, one plant that was gifted from a Portland blogger reseeded copiously, but only a handful survived winter so it’s not really a pest. Seeing their lush, upright performance in May, now I get why honeywort is a thing!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Polemonium ‘Golden Feathers’ found local early spring — looks promising!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Allium karataviense has wonderfully thick, pleated leaves<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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buds just forming<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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tetrapanax, hesperis, rhodocoma, Darmera peltata in stock tank lower left<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Stipa gigantea brings that golden summery haze to the garden so early in the season and is invaluable for it. A few days ago the gravel path was impassable — both the stipa and rhodocoma had to be thinned quite a bit, to neither’s apparent detriment nor loss of good looks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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digitalis\/digiplexis<\/a> from the ‘Illumination’ series — overwintered outside, with an overturned bucket easing conditions during the January ice storm. I had forgotten all about this former “it” plant, an expensive annual in zone 10, but took another chance when it turned up at a local nursery last fall. Really surprised it’s come through the winter, a challenging one. On the right is gillenia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kniphofia hirsuta showed great stamina over winter and is a gorgeous spring presence as it elongates from its winter rosette. Haven’t seen a bloom yet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I brought up north from zone 10 fat bulbs of eucomis, which all squished out and rotted over winter — but look at the unexpected offsets! So maybe big bulbs are more susceptible to winter wet\/cold? <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There’s a few more rainy days forecast for May, and then we won’t see much rain again until…October (sob!), but at least the winds will be dying down as the temperature gradient adjusts. I’ve been nursing flats and flats of seedlings for a cutting garden that needs to be a lot bigger than what’s available to me to accommodate 40-plus zinnias, scabiosa, cosmos, sunflowers, and more. Floret Farms launched their own seed strains this year, and if I can bring just a few of their zinnias to flower it will be so worth it to see what they’ve dreamed up (‘Dawn Creek<\/a>,’ ‘Alpenglow<\/a>‘!) May is such a deliriously fresh month in the garden — I hope it brings you lots to look at!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morning is always my favorite time in the garden, with the plants softly exhaling into the warming air while the sun slowly traces its way through tree canopies and clouds. The surrounding town is quiet while I study the garden … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[2478,550,5119],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-r3p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103999"}],"version-history":[{"count":71,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104071,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103999\/revisions\/104071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}