Shishigashira

Timo and I stopped by Whitney Gardens on our way to Aberdeen. Timo ‘popped the question’; “do you still want one of those japanese maples?” I knew exactly what he meant. We had seen their mature Shishigashira that spring and were wowed. The tree was covered in tiny crinkled leaves. Later research showed that the fall color was also spectacular. It was on my wish list. We ran in, picked a nice looking sapling and continued down the road.  I have just the spot for it!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

I’m adding a note to myself to schedule time to go again in the spring to see the rhodies in bloom as well as a trip in the fall to see all their maples turning.

Check out a photo here:

http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/forums/attachment.php?s=7427377321047576c96a969dadde9ef6&attachmentid=40560&d=1210401862

Sunny November Day

Note I didn’t say days. It is a gorgeous and calm day. I saw some Beauty Berries along the street in Seattle today. Lovely purple. I wonder why I don’t see more of these shrubs around.

Rains are supposed to start back in tomorrow.

Another PNW fall day

Rain is letting up for now. There are still leaves on about half the trees.

I still need to post the pictures from when I went to the arboretum a couple weeks ago. Next year I want to make firm plans to go to Whitney Gardens on the penninsula when the maples turn. They have so many unusual japanese maples.

Last dry day before the big rains

 

The needles and leaves (particularly from the big leaf maples) are getting out of hand. Today is supposed to be the last dry day before the rains start. I used the blower to push the leaves over to mulch the mahonia and rhodies. The mahonia anthers are about 6″ long and the heather has just started to bloom. I expect the mahonia to be in bloom by the end of the month.

 

The cedars smell so good right now.

Preen is your friend

My wild and crazy garden is in need of some serious work. I’ve been making progress, but sad to say there are way more weeds blooming than I would like.

This calls for serious action. My strategy is to scope out an area, quickly pull up all the weeds at least waist high and get them out of the way. Then I put on my trusty gel knee pads (best money I’ve ever spent), get on my hands and knees, and pull up everything else. I use my hori-hori knife to get the deep rooted plants like dandelions. I call it my Garden Ginsu. I’ve spray painted mine flourescent pink so I don’t lose it. I still can’t figure out what happened to the first one I had.

Then, once I finish the section, I go back over it with a light sprinkle of Preen. I was reluctant at first, but one application of Preen is good for the entire season. It significantly reduces the weeding, which leaves more time for more interesting gardening activiites.

Four Legged Visitor

Backyard Visitor

My cat Sami alerted me to a guest investigating the creeping thyme this morning. The raccoons have been out during daylight hours, probably because of the nearby two acres of woods that was cleared for new construction.

Gardening with Native Plants

I have found I generally prefer to landscape with native plants, or at least plants that resemble native plants. There are plenty of good resources here in Washington State. Plus, there is plenty of crossover with Oregon and British Columbia.

A pair of resources that I have found helpful are the Washington Native Plant Society and King County’s Northwest Native Yard and Garden.

Both of them provide information on local programs, identifying and selecting native plants, nursuries, plant sales and various resources. I’m particularly interested in having someone from the Washington Native Plant Society coming to my home and evaluating my yard for appropriate plantings and encouraging native wildlive. The program is called Growing Wild.

As long as it doesn’t encourage coyotes or cougars, I think it would be great.

Bamboo

I’ve been learning about bamboo lately. The man I’m dating used to grow and sell bamboo plants. He gave me a black bamboo plant, which I planted as a barrier plant.

It is a running type of bamboo, as opposed to clumping. I had always thought that all bamboo ran, but that isn’t the case at all. Clumping bamboo, well, clumps. Kind of like Pampas Grass or any other kind of ornamental grass. Bamboo is a type of grass, so that isn’t entirely surprising.

Still, most of the bamboo I’ve seen is running bamboo. We went over to my neighbor’s house to look at his bamboo.  He didn’t know what he had, so Tim identified them.  There was Yellow Bamboo, Golden Bamboo and a timber variety, but I can’t remember the name. Apparently they were in good health. One particular planting of the Yellow Bamboo was well developed and spreading nicely in it’s fenced in area. Tim explained how it was relatively easy to dig up offshoots and make new plants. Waiting until the shoot hardens helps when digging it up and try to get 5 or so ‘eyes’ for a substantial plant. Bamboo also likes to seek water, so watering next to the plant helps it to spread.  Planting spreading bamboo near a grass lawn is a disaster waiting to happen. Every time the lawn is watered, the bamboo acts like a heat seeking missle and will try to get to the moisture. The result is bamboo infiltrating the lawn. Stick with clumping bamboo when it is near a lawn.

!@#$% Yellow Jackets!

Last weekend I was installing a soaker hose around my incense cedars (long story, appropriate for another post) Seemed like a relatively innocuous task. While attaching the hose to an automatic timer, I noticed that there was a yellow jacket nest in the empty stack of window boxes which happened to be sitting right next to the spigot. No big deal, I’m not going to bother them. I’ll deal with that later.

While I was trying to get the hose attached, I spilled some water. Apparently one of the yellow jackets decided to get territorial over the water and stung me twice on the wrist. Ow!

Fast forward to today, exactly one week later. I noticed that two of my oak leaf hydrangeas were looking a little worse for wear from the dry weather. I moved the hose and turned on the water. I’m about 20ft away from the water/nest and another yellow jacket stings me on my arm! I’m even wearing a long sleeved polypropylene shirt.

Argh…last bite ended up sending me to the doctor’s for a round of prednisone. I went in the house, took off the shirt, checked for a stinger and washed the bite. I also decided to lance the bite to get out some of the toxin.  Good call, I think. No swelling, no heat, not even much redness except where I cut myself.

Then a trip to the hardware store for a can of wasp and hornet killer.

Salvaging Native Plants

There is are some great resources here in King County for salvaging native plants. Last fall I took a free seminar on identifying native plants and techniques for successfully transplanting them into a home landscape. Following the seminar, there was an opportunity to go on a plant salvage. A local developer worked with the county to allow volunteers to collect native plants before the land was cleared. Since all of the vegetation was going to be removed, it meant that there were lots of plants, that if the transplant didn’t survive the net result was the same, and you even could salvage otherwise off-limits plants like trillium. Last fall I salvaged a Salmonberry, Sword Ferns, Low Oregon Grape, and a beautiful Deer Fern.

So, when a developer started clearing a couple acres east of my home I knew what to do. I grabbed my spade and some plastic grocery bags and snagged more Sword Ferns and Low Oregon Grape. I even found a decaying log with two very nice Licorice Ferns. I only wish I knew about the development earlier, or I would have been looking for good specimens earlier.

Check out http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/stewardship/volunteer/plant-salvage-program.aspx