Help

I just need to admit something right up front: this is all my fault. I have badly abused a tree and whatever the equivalent of the DHS is for trees should be called on me.

In the NE corner of my yard, the one I want to be the focal point of the garden, I planted a Cryptomeria japonica 'Elegans.' It was beautiful. 

But then we took off its braces and lines and it started slouching. It got much worse than this.

I finally yanked it in November and put it the only place I had room: the vegetable bed. And it immediately flopped over and I did nothing. I just left it like this all winter because I am a terrible person.

I needed to plant up the vegetable garden but I didn't have a big enough pot for the tree. I was hoping to pawn the tree off on Jane, who I was confident could teach it to stand up straight again.

So I plopped it here, just to the right of where it used to be. I was hopeful that it standing up straight-ish. I thought, "Maybe if it's a little more protected, with some shrubs to lean up on, it will be okay."

I even thought that maybe I could move it over to the left and plant the Korean fir to the left of that, and it would look something like this:

But then I realized that the Cryptomeria will always be bigger than the Korean fir. And while I was in the shower I thought, maybe I'll just plant a deciduous tree like a Japanese maple and be done with it. Yes, they're ubiquitous (and not evergreen) but they are pretty.

And then the Cryptomeria did this and I'm back to thinking it can't be saved.

Can this tree be rehabbed? And what would you plant in this corner? I feel like it needs to be anchored with something tall, preferably evergreen.

The view in winter

I currently have a bunch of grasses and Joe Pye weed planted in the back, so we'll have winter interest next year. I still feel like it needs an exclamation point, though. Maybe I should just move the potted weeping blue spruce here and call it good? If you have ideas or opinions, my ears are open. 

Blank slates and fun natives I'll never plant again

Did you ever have something really hard or bad happen in your life, and maybe you were super worried or stressed about it, but once you had a plan you felt better? You still have to deal with it and go through all the pain or hassle, but having a plan makes you feel like you're being proactive. Plans in the garden make me feel better too. I'm still going to have to deal with plants dying or growing slowly or not growing the way the tag said they would, but I have a plan.

In the northeast corner of the yard, the corner we stare at all through winter while we drink coffee in bed, I finally gave up on the Cryptomeria japonica 'Elegans'. It couldn't stand on its own for whatever reason (I think that corner is just too windy). This corner has been a mishmash of stuff, mostly natives that I got on the cheap because I was so cash poor when I first bought my house. Behind the cryptomeria was an Ocean Spray (Holodiscus discolor) that looked absolutely terrible all the time and it had no winter interest. It was also going to crowd out that tree eventually. Between the weeping blue spruce and the cryptomeria is a huckleberry that is going to take a million years to get up to a good shrubby size. I'm willing to wait on that one because it's evergreen and very pretty. There used to be a native flowering currant in that spot but the pink blooms clashed with everything else so I dug it up and gave it away. While we're on the subject of natives, I planted a nodding onion here on a whim and I will be forever pulling up seedlings as a result. Except the seedlings have to be dug up, they're so stubborn. Worst native ever.

Our view in winter

The cryptomeria is going to be replaced by a Korean fir but I've yet to find one with a form I like. I ripped out the Ocean Spray this weekend.

To get some height and winter interest in this area I'm finally getting smart and incorporating tall grasses and fast-growing perennials. Behold, my amazing MS Paint skills!

Two Panicum 'Northwind' will lend some height in the back, along with Joe Pye weed. I'm planning to put in some Zauschneria starts to obscure the tulip foliage once they start dying. I'm really excited about the lupine here, Lupinus regalis 'Thomas Church,' which Annie Hayes described in a lecture I attended last spring. Its blooms are two toned purple and yellow and it's fragrant and (supposedly) mildew-free.

Image source: Annie's Annuals

Just to the left lies the apple tree stump that I attempted to turn into a birdbath.

The birdbath couldn't hold water after the second year and the stump keeps suckering along the root line, so I've yanked out all the peonies and penstemon from this area and the stump will be ground out in two weeks. The peonies have been permanently relocated to another area of the yard and soon I'll have a blank slate in front of the bamboo. I don't have a plan for this area yet.

I want to plant a gunnera but I'm worried it will dwarf the ninebark to the right of the bamboo. I'm also worried it won't fit in a yard where there isn't much in the way of tropical plants. I have about 50 square feet of blank slate here. I think I might need another Melianthus major but that's all I've got so far. Anybody have good ideas? Has anyone ever crowd sourced their yard as much as I have? I don't think so.

My poor tree

I'm practicing tough love with the Cryptomeria  in the backyard. After a year with stakes and wires, we're burning its bra. It's going to have to learn to stand on its own.

Rise up!

Initially it flopped forward, now it seems to want to go back. If it can't support itself by next winter I'll relocate it and plant the tree I really wanted: a Korean fir. They are prettier but they grow so slowly.

For f*ck's sake.

Me and this tree, we are in a fight.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Not so elegant now, are we bucko?'

I removed the stake, since it's been in the ground almost a year now. We still have some lines up, which we need to loosen so it will learn to stand on his own. Unfortunately, one line snapped and now it's doing this. Will it ever learn to stand up straight? I knew I should have put in a Korean Fir but they take sooo long to grow.

Putting the garden to bed for the winter

I told myself that I would go easy while I was cleaning up the garden, so I could leave shelter and food for the birds, but I started weeding and pruning and pretty soon things were looking kind of bare.

I've spent the last couple of weekends slinging compost, dressing all the beds in the hope of improving the soil. I had a yard and half delivered; at first I thought it was too much, now I'm thinking it wasn't enough. We were going to broadcast it on the lawn, put it in the raised beds, and apply it under the rhodies, even though we don't want to encourage them. I'm hoping this application won't interfere too much with self-sowing perennials like forget-me-not. I planted some this year, after falling in love with them on a garden tour. When I pulled them out of the ground I made sure to give them a good shake to disperse the seeds. Hopefully I didn't apply the compost  too heavily to let them come back.

After appearing in new places, failing to bloom, and hiding my beautiful rust-colored ninebark behind six-foot shoots, I decided to dig out the nootka roses. 

It turns out they had never bloomed because they were so busy trying to take over the world. There were canes running underground EVERYWHERE. I dug out every one that I found but I suspect that I haven't seen the last of them. It pains me to remove something native but this isn't 'Nam; there are rules. I wanted to put something evergreen here but ultimately I went with a spirea 'Magic Carpet.'

I've always loved this plant but it pops up in places like the Fred Meyer parking lot and I was stupidly worried that more experienced gardeners would look down on me for planting something that has been used so widely. It turns out it doesn't matter, people plant it because it's beautiful and takes full sun like a champ. I think the chartreuse foliage on this one is going to look great against that dark red of the ninebark. In spring the peonies (on the right) have very dark green leaves and I think it's all going to play nicely off of each other. Ultimately I think I'll remove the peonies to a pot and plant something non-deciduous with very dark green foliage. Anybody have any ideas?


This is the first time my creeping snowberry has fruited and I'm in love. In July it bloomed with tiny hot pink flowers and now the branch is so weighted down with white berries it looks like it could snap.Congrats, snowberry! You get to stay.

Creeping snowberry (Symphoricarpos mollis)

I bought my flowering currants from different nurseries, paying more for two that were supposedly var. King Edward VII. I didn't actually believe they were a different variety until they fruited. This one was trained poorly as a tree, thus it has a terrible shape, and yet it blooms better than any of the other currants and now it's loaded with black fruit. 

Ribes sanguineum 'King Edward VII'

I was going to remove it but how can I remove something that is so loaded with bird food? I'm not confident in my pruning abilities to bring this back into my good graces. I might just go for it and prune it down to the ground after it blooms next spring.

In comparison, this currant (presumably not King Edward VII), the first I planted in the yard as a wee seedling, has light blue fruit, a fantastic shape, and a reluctance to bloom. I'm hoping that was its youth showing and that it'll perform better next year. Learn from the nootka rose, currant! Gimme flowers or I'll cut you.


But the really exciting news this weekend is that we finally bought a specimen tree for the back corner! I went to Portland Nursery and spoke to several bearded men about what to plant. We finally settled on a Japanese Cedar, Cryptomeria japonica 'elegans'. It looks great in a garden with bamboo and it will top out at about 30 feet.

My little guy. Grow, baby, grow!

An older Cryptomeria. Photo by phildert.

It's going to turn this color in the winter.

Picture source: nestmaker on Flickr

So picture this burgundy foliage backed by the purple fruit of beautyberry that is planted behind it:

Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion'

 . . . and then flanked in front with a honeysuckle on the right . . .

Lonicera nitida 'Baggesen's Gold'

 . . . and a Mexican Orange on the left.

Choisya ternata 'Sundance'

And then this little baby is in front. It's Corokia cotoneaster, a bonsai variety of wire-netting plant.

How freaking cool is this plant?

All three of these plants are evergreen, which means when we open the bedroom curtains in the winter, instead of seeing this:

We'll see something closer to this:

Minus the hose and yard debris bin.

 I can't wait for everything to grow bigger and to intersperse these plantings with perennials, tulips, and lillies. I couldn't stop smiling all weekend--I'm so excited to finally have this area edited and on its way to being awesome. 

While I was working this weekend, planting the Japanese cedar, I learned a couple of things:
  
1. This soil in this back corner is almost completely made of sand. It explains why my blueberries didn't do well here and why it smells like the beach when it rains. I think they must have dumped the extra sand here when they put in the patio slab that we removed. Or maybe a previous owner had a sandbox here? I worked wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of compost here and the soil makeup still looked really sandy.

2. I will never ever stop finding buried concrete. My yard is apparently made of it.

Happy fall, y'all!