Just a girl with a hammer

Tag: garden

  • I’m in love

    I’m in love

    I know it’s likely that I’ve been this enamored of a plant before, but it feels like the first time. I thought I knew love before but I didn’t. Because this? This is the most beautiful plant I’ve ever seen.

    I want to send out Christmas cards with it. I want to call my mother and tell her I’ve met the one. It’s an Echium candicans ‘Star of Madeira.’ Loree has posted about it a number of times but it wasn’t until I saw it in person that I fell in love. I was shopping this weekend, first at Joy Creek, then at Cistus, and I was being really good. I was picking up plants I had planned on and avoiding impulse purchases. But then I saw this and we ran in slow motion toward each other and it leaped into my arms. Or something like that.

    I put it in the berm, behind the agaves that are getting so big!

    In between the echium and the agaves is a Carex flagellifera ‘Toffee Twist’ and a dormant (or dead?) ruby crystal grass (Melinis nerviglumis). I think I’d like to put a swath of the Toffee Twist through here. I’m really digging the color combination with it.

    In a Bachelor-like twist, I think I’ve fallen in love with a second plant. I never knew this would be so hard! This was an impulse buy at Joy Creek.

    What do you think it is? Greg said it looks like an arbovitae. BITE YOUR TONGUE, GREG.

    It’s a Hebe ‘Karo Golden Esk’! Look how adorable it will be.

    Image source: OSU

    I love it when I attend a garden lecture and someone mentions hebes because the entire audience moans and groans. In the snowpocalypse of 2008-2009 gardeners lost a lot of New Zealand flax and hebes, both believed to be hardy in the Pacific Northwest. People are bitter now. I’ve actually heard people shout, “I won’t get fooled like that again!”

    Luckily that happened before I became a gardener so I can rush headlong into love, like a 24 year old dental assistant who thinks some dude on a reality show is “the one.” We’ve registered at Crate and Barrel and Bed Bath and Beyond and we’re gonna be so happy.

  • Blank slates and fun natives I’ll never plant again

    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.

  • Invaders from hell

    Invaders from hell

    I’ve been removing popweed this last couple of weeks. I get it really bad in my hell strip and in the area under my neighbor’s Doug fir. Despite the fact that I try to remove every last seedling before they set seed, I must manage to miss one and it shoots ten thousand seeds out when the wind gusts. And then the next year it’s back. This last weekend I spent hours and hours carefully pulling up popweed and patting myself on the back for the effort (of course, it was sunny and my daphne is blooming, so I couldn’t really complain). Then I moved onto moving all my ferns under the cedar and I happened to look to the left, to where we removed that huge pile of dirt last summer.

    You’re looking at one million popweed seedlings

    Oh holy hell.

    This is what happens when you leave disturbed earth bare. We neglected to cover it with mulch or overseed the lawn, so we now have a colony of popweed that is *this close* to releasing seed.

    This reminds me that one of the focuses I have in my garden right now is ground covers. I need ground covers to unify, to block weeds, and to look nice. In the area under my neighbor’s Doug fir it’s dry and sunny. Anybody have a great plant to cover the bare mulch in this area, preferably one that doesn’t need supplemental water every day in the summer? I have a variety of sedums there that are spreading at a glacial pace. It might be time for something else.

    p.s. THANK YOU to everyone who has voted for me in the JDR blogger contest. Right now I am in the lead! It’s such a silly narcissistic thing to ask your friends and family to vote so you can have money, so it got me all misty eyed that people would support it so enthusiastically. Y’all are the best.

  • Is it enough?

    Is it enough?

    Not too long ago I wrote about the difficulty I’m having with the area under my cedar tree and a bunch of you chimed in with some really great ideas.

    One of my favorites was Laurrie‘s suggestion to let the ferns develop into a large swath, “But make it a nice big sweep, not just a few.” So I added eleven sword ferns to the four that were already there, along with four lady ferns (for a total of five of those). The lady ferns are in the back, along the fence, and they are sleeping right now.

    Everything looks sort of ratty and sad right now but I’ll trim back the trampled and brown fronds once the new growth starts to come up. And then I’ll follow Laurrie’s other advice to plant a Dart’s Gold ninebark to brighten up this corner, a gro-low sumac (Rhus aromatica ‘Gro-Low’), and to move the hellebores into the foreground.

    It looks just like a ninebark!

    And then I get to redesign the side entrance to the yard, from where I borrowed all these ferns. Hooray! Thank you Laurrie, and thank you everyone who lends gardening advice to me. I really appreciate it.

  • Garden bloggers’ bloom day February 2013

    Garden bloggers’ bloom day February 2013

    I’m kind of in love with this moment in time. My Mahonia x media ‘Arthur Menzies’ is still blooming.

    Sweet box just started to bloom. Sarcococca ruscifolia.

    My Oregon stonecrop is making the prettiest rosettes and mingling so nicely with Sedum angelina.

    My Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’ is about to smell really great.

    My hellebores are still going nuts.

     And my first crocus bloomed! Crocus chrysanthus ‘Romance’.

    The sun is shining and Cara Cara oranges are still available in stores . . . I’m giddy. Happy bloom day, everyone! Be sure to check out the full show at May Dreams Gardens.

  • Yard, Garden and Patio show: Foliage First

    Yard, Garden and Patio show: Foliage First

    Dan Hinkley held a packed seminar “Foliage First: Exquisite Hardy Plants with Great Folial Interest” at the Yard Garden and Patio show. This was my first time hearing him speak and I found him totally charming. He started the talk with a joke about flowers where the punch line was, “You have to bend over to enjoy it.”

    He had a couple of tips, like using lots of self-sown annuals to break up your plantings (they tend to sow themselves where they look good) and using photo editing software to pull the color out of your garden photos. With the color removed you can assess your texture to see what you’re missing. Loree explored this idea a while back and the photos are gorgeous. You can see that I have way too much fine foliage. I need big leaves to break everything up.

    The talk was mainly plant porn with jokes thrown in. These were my favorites.

    Gunnera. It can really only be grown in the U.S. in Northern California and the Pacific NW. Dan said it makes gardeners elsewhere insanely jealous and gardening is all about making other people feel bad about things they can’t grow.

    Image source: Wikipedia

    Musa basjoo. Dan leaves his in the ground for the winter, mulching them well.

    Image source



    Panicum ‘Northwind’.

    Darmera peltata, a shade-loving NW native that loves standing water but doesn’t necessarily need it.

    Image source

    Podophyllum pleianthum.

    Image source: Dancing Oaks

    Chinese fairy bells (Disporum cantoniense), whose new foliage emerges purple.

    Melianthus major ‘Purple Haze’.

    ‘Purple Haze‘ Image Source: Far Out Flora
    Melianthus major ‘Antonow’s Blue’.

    Image source: Dancing Oaks



    Yucca rostrata ‘Sapphire Skies’. I’m getting this, I need this.

    Image source



    Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘County Park Dwarf’, which my notes indicate Dan uses as a groundcover.

    Image source

    Helwingia, a genus whose fruit fuses to the leaves. Super cool.

    Image source



    Schefflera delavayi.

    Image source

    I’m trying to figure out where I can fit a Gunnera right now because, come on, giant rhubarb! I need that.

  • Best laid plans

    Best laid plans

    In the backyard I have a mature Western red cedar that has thwarted all my under-planting attempts. I’ve tried a number of natives, few of which have thrived. Of course, I never bothered to plant things that could survive with almost no water. One lonely hosta looks great until August, at which point it dramatically keels over. The sword ferns are happy but everything else malingers. It’s my fault.

    There are sad neglected boxwoods in the corner that I leave only because they’re evergreen and they live despite getting no water. I really want something large to fill the space in the foreground but I’ve yet to find a medium shrub that can handle dry shade (but sometimes hot summer sun!) and fierce root competition. My next attempt will be gro-low sumac (Rhus aromatica), which won’t get quite as tall as I want, but should be able to survive here.

    I consulted with a guy at Joy Creek about ground covers because my wild ginger just never took off here. He suggested hellebores and epimediums, so I’ll try that, damn it. I moved my hellebores here and thus far they are doing great.

    I searched high and low for an epimedium I liked and found one called ‘Black Sea.’ It’s supposed to turn almost black, which I thought would look great interplanted with Hakonechloa macra.

    The only problem is that this epimedium turns black in winter, when everything else is dormant. You can’t even see it, it melds with the mulch so well. During the warmer months it turns a very unremarkable shade of medium green. And I planted hakonechloa eight feet away. It’s like I’m not even thinking, some days.

    So I’m not quitting my day job. What other dry shade (but sometimes hot summer sun!) workhorses am I missing?

  • Agave update

    Agave update

    Loree recently asked how my agaves were handling their first winter in the ground. They were planted back in May in the berm. I amended the soil with chicken grit and mulched them with gravel.

    I’m happy to say that so far they are doing great. No black spots or rot as of yet.

    Of course, we have many wet months still to come. My fingers are crossed!

  • Did I make a terrible mistake?

    Did I make a terrible mistake?

    We’ve had a tiny dusting of snow and many nights of frost and the castor bean leaves had all shriveled.

    People kept telling me it would turn to mush as soon as the temperatures fell but it was still solid as a rock. I pruned off what I could without a hacksaw and left this poor trunk.

    Now of course I’m second-guessing this decision. What if it would have survived the freezing cold to rebloom next spring? That’s impossible in 8b, right?

  • Garden bloggers’ bloom day January 2013

    Garden bloggers’ bloom day January 2013

    It finally got really cold here in Portland. As a result, I finished all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls (spoiler alert: everything turned out okay) but I’m still working on my knitting project. I find my mind wandering to the garden and I’m starting to obsess over problem spots in the yard again. I missed that.

    And things are blooming! Aren’t winter blooming plants the best?

    Helleborus x ballardiae ‘HGC Cinnamon Rose’

    NOID Penstemon

    Mahonia x media ‘Arthur Menzies’

    Salvia ‘Black and Blue’

    My daphne is budding and my crocuses are poking out of the ground, so I’m hoping the next bloom day should be a good one. Check out May Dreams Gardens to see what else people have blooming this month.