Garden Chats

Many thanks to commentor delphinium:

The local library sponsored a Garden Tour last June as a fundraiser. It was a great chance to not only support my library but also check out my neighbors’ gardens.

This first part provides an overview of the various gardens. Will then get a closer look in Part 2, and lastly in Part 3, will share some miscellaneous photos of textures/shapes and personalization in these garden spaces.

The tour was a nice mix of larger properties on the outskirts and smaller homes within the city limits. It was amazing what these folks did with their garden spaces, and each one was a beautiful oasis in its own way.

For example, one gardener created koi ponds surrounded by statues and rocks that enhanced their garden views.

Another gardener with a very small yard made the most of it by creating some fairy gardens alongside their regular gardens.

Included on the tour was a community garden where folks were in the process of planting items. These trees were on the way to the entrance.

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What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Touring InspirationPost + Comments (13)

This week’s lifeline, courtesy of Scout211:

Top photo: Our daisy bush is in bloom. I’m never sure which type of daisy bush this is. I’ve tried to research it and so far I can’t find one that looks exactly like this one. But I suspect it is one of the California bush daisies.

A field of Blue Dicks, one of our most plentiful early Spring native wildlfowers (Dipterostemon capitatus, also called Wild Hyacinth, Purplehead and Brodiaea (alternate spellings, Brodiea, Brodeia)

We planted these rosemary shrubs about 17 years ago. They seems to thrive and the bees love them (Salvia rosmarinus, synonym Rosmarinus officinalis)

One of our small Western Red Bud Trees (Cercis occidentalis)

The blueberry bushes are blooming.

The navel oranges are also in bloom, and the scent is amazing. The bees are busy today enjoying the nectar.

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Serendipitous discovery at our ‘new’ house: The sprawling clump of untidy sticks at the far corner of the pool fencing is forsythia, beloved New England harbinger of Spring. (Why the former occupants put it in that particular spot is unknown, but I do love seeing those bright yellow flares after a hard winter!)

In related news, Schreiner Irises just let me know that the potted dwarf irises we reserved are in the mail… and the Spousal Unit reports he can’t find the planters that were *supposed* to be waiting at the new house. (“They may be in a box”, somewhere among the several hundred boxes in three separate locations.) So, if it doesn’t rain, we’ll be making our first garden shop run of the season later today…

What’s going on in your gardens, this week?

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: California DreamingPost + Comments (24)

 
Thank you, Mike in Oly:

We currently have cyclamen blooming in the garden due to our early onset of spring so I thought I’d send you a selection of photos I’ve taken over the years of them.

Being Mediterranean plants they are ideally suited to our PNW climate and need no care at all. They grow from corms that like to remain undisturbed, and easily cross with each other to make new leaf patterns and flower colors, though all in a shade of pink or white.

I’ve no idea what pollinates them as they bloom before the bees wake up, but I have heard it is ants that spread their seeds about.

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Cyclamen in the Pacific NorthwestPost + Comments (24)

 
Thank you, master gardener & commentor Pondwoman:

Here are some signs of Spring from a garden in north central Florida.

Top photo: Our first saucer magnolia blossom of the year.

Life is returning to the koi pond. The pickerel weed is leafing out and the iris may bloom in about a month. The braced tree is a cypress that fell over in a windstorm.

Our azaleas began to bloom this week.

These violets look white but are actually the palest purple you can imagine. They are popping up everywhere.

This purple oxalis makes a nice contrast to the surrounding green.

Closeup of a blueberry flower. We’re glad to have these flowers for the emerging bees.

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Daylight savings starts today, and here in New England we’re supposed to reach temperatures approaching 60 (a/k/a, False Spring)…

What’s going on in your garden (returning / planning / prep), this week?

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Spring Returns to North Central FloridaPost + Comments (17)

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

In the midst of my interminable winter, I have summoned some invincible summer by ordering a bunch of potted irises from Schreiners’ Iris sale. (I think it was Satby who introduced me to their catalog, which is amazing, and their plants are every bit as wonderful.)

If y’all want garden pics every Sunday, you need to step up & send me photos!

I would like to have a garden like the apartment patio the NYTimes describes here:

… Mr. de Mornay, a horticulturist at Flora Grubb Gardens nursery, has assembled a diverse plant collection and as distinctive a range of containers to showcase them in. He put several large potted palms to work to create a kind of canopy for bromeliads and orchids that appreciate relief from the sun, which the cacti and succulents arranged in the patio’s more open areas relish.

His garden may all be staged on level hardscape, but the sense of terrain Mr. de Mornay has conjured with 300 tightly packed vessels seems anything but flat, thanks to their varied heights, and clever positioning.

“The way he has some staggered at different heights kind of creates a stadium-like look,” said Ms. Woodard, who also noted details like a collection of tiny pots raised on a table for closer inspection, and others hanging on a wall…

… but IRL, I’m what one reviewer gleefully described as a cramscaper.

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: All Gardening Is LocalPost + Comments (25)

 
Master landscape designer / photographer Dan B, once again keeping hope alive:

I was inspired to muse on garden design from the last couple garden posts I sent.

I like doing color and textural echoes. This bed has ‘pink cupped’ (coral orange actually) daffodils and a soft orange Frittilaria imperialis. I enjoy the color link between two different bulbs with completely different shapes. It’s as though they’re speaking to each other in a teasing exchange.

This Alstroemeria ‘Princess Frederica’ has a couple different colors. Next to this clump I planted an Alstromeria ‘Inca Gold’ that echoes the soft gold in ‘Frederica’ and some red Daylilies that echoes the reddish colors.

In summer this bed is full of Daylilies of many colors, and I’m thinking of adding more. The secondary colors in the flowers were my guide for the mix.

Here they are inside. The various shades of red in the eyes of the creamy and soft amber / buff blooms are easy to match to the red flowers. The solid yellow bloom is slightly to the amber end of yellow so it seems barely compatible to my eye.

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Garden Design ThoughtsPost + Comments (25)

And master designer / photographer Dan B is here for it!

Spring is here in Seattle although it’s turned chilly. This should slow it to a crawl, which is not bad. There are Rhodies, Quince, Plums, Almonds, and more in full, and very early, bloom.

Top photo: This combo is Hellebore ‘Purple Sunrise’ and Sempervivum ‘Chick Charm Gold Nugget’ – a name much larger than the poor plant.

This Hellebore is a Bee magnet. It might be because the big flowers are hard to miss. It turns to pale gold and hot pink then to pale cream and pink.

Several beds are starting to fill out so the pictures, and enjoyment of the garden, are less myopic. This Hellebore is ‘Blushing Bridesmaid’. She’s so thoroughly blushed she’s achieved full ecstatic flush. She could double as a traffic signal. Are we complaining?

Even the back terrace is looking like Spring, at least early mossy Spring. The Alstromeria foliage, on the left, was damaged by nighttime freezes a couple weeks ago. This one, ‘Aztec Gold’, is reputed to be hardy to Zone 5. It is a vigorous clump former so place it accordingly. In other words, be warned. There are other Alstromerias that will pop up several feet from the main clump so this one is better behaved, by comparison.

Farther north on the upper terrace white daffodils are in bloom. They’re very fragrant. I don’t remember the name but might be able to find it from my photos. The paving warms up so these daffodils are among the first.

The “paving stones” are concrete from the ugly curvy sidewalks that encircled the house. I flipped them upside down so the underside that had been stained by decades of soil contact, was up.

There are tiny red dots of flowers of Distyllium ‘Lucky Charm’. It’s an evergreen spreading form of a genus that is typically ten feet tall. It flowers in late winter or very early Spring as does the Azara microphylla, seen in the upper left. Its tiny dark gold flowers emit a vanilla fragrance that wafts around the garden on still days. They must be pollinated by gnats which are active very early in the year. The Bee that favors the Hellebore may also be attracted to them.

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Spring Sneaks Up on the Pacific NorthwestPost + Comments (26)