danger garden

Friday, May 17, 2024

A long weekend away; plant shopping and gardening

Last week at this time I was up in Spokane, WA, for a long Mother's Day weekend with my mom. We celebrated as any gardening mother and daughter would; we spent one day plant shopping (with a break for a nice leisurely lunch) and the next day planting.

A view looking out across mom's garden. Most of the plants we bought went into containers on the back deck, where I'm standing when I took this photo...

Spokane is a little behind Portland as far as spring plant development, so I got to see my mom's shredded umbrella plants (Syneilesis aconitifolia) in their fuzzy state, whereas mine are all grown up and green now.

This ginormous, beautiful green monster is a climbing hydrangea (no clue of its name), there is a trellis under there, somewhere. Mom says it blooms white, I don't remember seeing the flowers but I must have.

I'm sure I take multiple photos of this Rheum palmatum every time I visit, it's just so good!

We bought our plants at the same time (way back in 2011), mine is long gone—I wanted the space for sun loving plants that need less water—but mom's just keeps on keeping on.

So here's our haul photo from the day's shopping. We were both a little bummed at the selection on offer at our favorite stops (here for example) as we didn't find many of he unusual offerings we had in the past. Were we shopping too early in the season? Are there less plants to be had this year? Dunno, thankfully we managed to buy a few things.

Lots of Phormium 'Mat's Merlot', which went into multiple containers around the garden. Funny thing, she paid $16.95, $5.95 and $9.49 for these at different nurseries, plant prices do vary!

Dahlias (dark foliage at the back), lemon grass, Uncinia rubra 'Belinda's Find', red begonia and a striped cordyline.

I practically twisted her arm to get this orange blooming abutilon which will be an annual in Spokane. I pray it continues to pump out blooms all summer long.

Potato vine, wire vine, lobelia, asst. succulents, and a coleus round out our container-filling haul.

I was so tired and dirty after I got everything planted I took a shower and forgot to take "after" photos! (there may have been a glass of wine and a delicious bbq dinner to distract me)

Here are the two (only two!) plants I came home with...

Hosta 'Rainbow's End', cause I loved that variegation...

And a coleus (!), I haven't grown coleus for many, many years—but look at how dark it is with that thin green outline, I had to have it (mom got one too). It's part of something called the "Main Street Coleus" series that is bred to work in sun and shade, this one is Lombard Street. Other famous street names in the series include Ashbury, Bourbon Street, Rodeo Drive, and Alligator Alley. Can you imagine the meetings where these names were thought up?

Four days away from the garden in early May is hard—there's so much to do and things are changing fast—plus my time away coincided with a mini-heat wave here at home (two days over 90 bracketed by days in the 80's) so I was a little concerned what I'd find on my return. Thankfully the heat came after a very wet week (1.78" of rain!), so my plants did fine, even the ones in containers that I took steps to protect.

A few new blooms greeted me, like this Lewisia rediviva, aka bitterroot. Its succulent leaves are already going dormant, I think the flower looks a lot like a cactus bloom.

The Salvia africana-lutea I overwintered in a container (it's not hardy here) is blooming it's rusty-colored flowers.

And the replacement passiflora I bought already budded (winter killed the two I had) is starting to bloom, P. 'Star of Surbiton'...

And it's akebia time! Akebia longeracemosa 'Victor's Secret' that is...ain't spring grand?

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Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Bamboo, rats, and table fungus

How's that for a blog post title that makes you squirm?

Winter did a number on the screening plants in the NW corner of the back garden. That building (a two-tone garage, see the full ugly here) had been hidden by leaves and branches of Fatsia polycarpa, Pittosporum illicioides 'Strappy', and from this vantage point very dense bamboo.

Back in January sub-freezing winds whipped the bamboo raw. It's been dropping leaves for months. A knowledgeable friend assures me that as long as the culms are still green (and thus alive) they should sprout new leaves, and in fact I can see some tiny little bits of green emerging where there were none.

Still, I was very happy to see fat new culms emerging.

I even tossed keys into the photo for scale, to show Andrew.

Then the rats showed up. I should have protected it at this point, but I got distracted and the next thing I knew...

This had happened.

And another...they even dug down below the soil level to get this one. It's like they're training to sniff for truffles, or rather bamboo shoots.

The sneaky little bastards only come out at night (I've never seen one, well, except for a dead one [a neighbor had put our poison] some 10 years or so ago).

My first experience with bamboo-eating rats was the year I cut the Sasa palmata f. nebulosa back when it had mites.

The new growth was being mowed down as fast as it could shoot (that's this year's version in the photo), and smart friends insisted it was the work of rats. I didn't want to believe, but the more people I talked to, the more I learned I was fooling myself. I live in an urban environment. There are rats.

They're hitting the sasa again this year, but there's so much of it that the loss isn't as harsh.

Then, since it was nearby, they sampled the new growth on Mahonia oiwakenses ssp lomariifolia v tenuifoliola.

Winter killed off the old growth, then 2 out of 9 new stems are rat-food. You guys, gardening is too damn hard sometimes!

All the old foliage on Mahonia nitens x eurybracteata was also wiped out by winter.

One new stem survived the rats.

Okay... the table fungus in title, well it's a lot cuter than the damage left by rats. Although to be honest I fear I'm cursing myself by sharing photos in the same post where I'm talking about rats. Do rats eat mushrooms?

These photogenic fungus started showing up a couple weeks back and just keep getting bigger and multiplying.

Too bad they're not morels or something else easy to identify...

See what I mean... there are A LOT of them!

Here's a bonus late-addition to the post that seemed to fit the theme. See that healthy bunch of tetrapanax foliage? I picked it up off the sidewalk. I'm 90% sure the wind ripped it off (it was a very windy day), but there's always the chance it was squirrels.

There was a lot random tetrapanax die-back on my plants due to the winter weather madness and any new leaves was an exciting development, this is a sad thing. Before the wind event was over I also lost two substantial new stems on a Mahonia x media 'Marvel' and a branch of the Magnolia macrophylla. One step forward, two steps back.

Monday, May 13, 2024

The Saadien garden by the sea

This was the first garden I visited on the last day of the 2023 Study Weekend event in Vancouver BC last June. It was such a special spot that I saved it for my last post. I believe the land you see across the water is Bowen Island and the body of water would be correctly referred to as the Strait of Georgia.

But what caught my eye first? The agave of course! I didn't get a chance to ask the owner/gardener but assumed it was planted out once the weather warmed that spring. A friend who visited the garden later that day confirmed that was the case.

To the right of the agave is this elevated, lavender-bordered walkway to the lower look-out.

"Our home and garden is on a rock bluff approximately 100 feet above sea level and situated between 2 bays. The oceanside of the garden faces southwest and it follows the contours of the land. On the south side, there are several rocky outcrops around which the pathways wind. The plants, bushes, and trees are in beds at different levels. Nothing is allowed to obstruct the ever-changing views of sea and sky that are such a source of pleasure and interest for us. This is a garden with different microclimates, and over the years we have had endless enjoyment experimenting with different plants. The north side is more shady, cooler, and is home to more native plants."