Day Trips for Gardeners

Summer is congested with tours – most of them sponsored by worthy local organizations who work hard and make some money for their causes by convincing local gardeners to open their gardens to hoards of people for (usually) one day.  What fun! – at lest for those of us doing the visiting.

Highlights for this coming weekend include the Woodinville Garden Club’s tour (Saturday, July 18^th), where for the price of a ticket ($15) you get not just gardens, but a wine tasting at the end of the day at Molbak’s.  How convenientthat you can also buy plants there.

The Federal Way Symphony tour, also on Saturday and also $15, shows off some lovely suburban gardens. The West Seattle tour on Sunday (July 19^th), also $15, almost always includes some fine water-view gardens.

A bit pricier at $75 each – but going to a worthy cause – is the Mediterranean Garden Tour in Edmonds on Saturday (18^th).  The proceeds go to the Hunger Intervention Program; you’ll get food and wine, plus a close-up look at the winner of the Pacific Northwest garden contest.

You’ll find loads more tours listed at the Miller Library’s Web site.

Kubota Gardens

Not up for a one-day tour?  Then head to one of Seattle’s fine gardens that are also city parks:  the Japanese Garden and Kubota Gardens.  You’ll be able to enjoy a quiet stroll and fabulous landscapes.  No food allowed in the Japanese Garden, but you can take your picnic to Kubota

Trevor Kincaid would be proud

The garden group – Jane, Dorothy, Jutta and I – made the trip to Lewis County yesterday to celebrate Lupine Field Day at Mallonee Farms, an organic dairy (part of the Organic Valley co-op) where the farming practices of the Mallonee family create the right environment for the endangered Kincaid’s lupine

John, Maynard, Mary Mallonee

 

 

 (Lupinus sulphureus var. kincaidii) to thrive.  Thanks to Mary and John Mallonee, and their son Maynard, who care about the land and their family and know that organic practices make a healthier world.

 

Joe Arnett, state botanist with the Washington Heritage Conservation Program, talked to the group gathered at the Baw Faw Grange in Curtis about endangered plants and conservation, noting that usually the location of conservation sites were kept quiet, but that the Mallonees wanted the world to know that rare plants, people and cows can live in harmony (also growing in the pasture – the pale larkspur, Delphinium leucophaem, and the thinleaf peavine, Lathyrus holochlorus).

Joe Arnett checks Hitchcock for lupine ID.

 

 

We also celebrated the family connection:  Dorothy is the daughter of Trevor Kincaid, for whom the lupine is named.  Two of Dorothy’s sisters, Polly and Kathleen, and their family attended the festivities, and everyone hiked well into the field to view the lupines, which were just finishing flowering (and then got soaked as a shower of rain arrived).  Trevor Kincaid, University of Washington entomologist and self-proclaimed “omnologist” (a word he coined, meaning he was interested in everything), would’ve enjoyed the day.

Dorothy with lupine.

Tra la, it’s May

The hedgerows in England are coloring up – with colors of green and white.  One of the lovliest hedgerow shrub is Viburnum opulus, known in the States as the high-bush cranberry and in Europe as the Guelder rose.  Its flowers appear like small lacecap hydrangeas, with a ring of sterile florets surrounding tiny true flowers.  The much-loved cultivar ‘Roseum’ or ‘Sterile’ – the snowball bush – doesn’t hold a candle to the straight species, as far as I’m concerned. It goes no further than globs of flowers, and so the late-summer berries that decorate hedgerows and feed the wildlife are lacking in our gardens.

We see another viburnum with globs of flowers – and more beautiful than ‘Roseum’ – on our U.K. travels.  Viburnum plicatum f. plicatum ‘Grandiflorum’.  Yes, it’s a cultivar of what’s called the doublefile viburnum.  

Viburnum 'Grandiflorum'

Best spotting:  Branklyn Garden  in Perth, Scotland – there’s still time for you to get there, because it won’t bloom for another month.

 

            It’s easy to see where those viburnums get their cultivar names; sometimes it’s not so easy to figure it out.  I have the fabulous Viburnum ‘Onondaga’, which is not quite blooming yet.  For a couple of years, I thought it was some Japanese cultivar; then, we went to New York, and I discovered it’s the name of an American Indian tribe (and lake).  Live and learn!

Best accessory for garden travel in May:  a raincoat, unlined (better to layer) with a hood that can be cinched.  You don’t want to wear a hat that flies off in the wind or an umbrella that turns itself inside out.  I need a new raincoat, and so am considering the mesh-lined trench coat from LL Bean.  Not the full-length version – it’s just to easy to drag that through the mud – but I like the ¾ version.

The Plant Hunter

There was a sad lack of both hebe and Pittosporum selections at last week’s Arboretum Foundation plant sale – just when we all need to beef up the garden with interesting evergreens.  Sure, several of them died during the winter, but I don’t see that as a reason to stop growing them – we won’t have another winter like that for a while, will we?  And ‘Irene Paterson’ looks great:  a few leaves lost, but new growth coming on just fine – although will mine ever be as large as the ones we see in Ireland?

'Irene Paterson' in Ireland

 

 

(Is this global warming?  It reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode – with someone who later became a star, of course – about how the earth had gotten off its course and was heading for the sun.  Everything was getting hotter and hotter, and then the main character woke up to find that it felt really nice and cool.  The truth was that the earth had gotten off its course and was heading away from the sun, and everyone was going to freeze!  Cue creepy music.)

I did find one Pittosporum tenuifolium cultivar:  ‘Eila Keightley’ from Fair Meadow Nursery, in Olympia.  It’s the only cultivar listed on their Web site, but they have fabulous other plants, and so I hope that they will add to the P. tenuifolium list.  In fact, this nursery would make a great road trip.  Although I love garden travel to faraway places, short trips nearby to gardens and nurseries keeps me going between the big trips.

Master Gardener Foundation of King County plant sale is this weekend:  What will I find?

Hope Springs Eternal

It appears that we may – at long last – be finished with the terrible winter weather that has played havoc with our gardens in the maritime Pacific Northwest.  I lost four Pittosporum tenuifolium, although two of those were in small pots, and so I can point the finger of blame at no one but myself.  Two hebes succumbed to the elements along with a potted Acacia baileyana ‘Purpurea’, which I got because we had seen such a lovely specimen at The Garden House in Devon.  Strangely enough, the potted Olearia macrodonta survived, although it doesn’t look good.  As usual, no sign of life from my Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blue’ – just as well, I’d rather buy a pretty new one-gallon plant now that try to nurse along a leaf or two on last year’s plant.

'Black and Blue'

 

 

My friend Jane says she won’t replant any hebes, because hers all died.  I say, bring on the hebes.  Four of mine still look good – in fact, the selection I bought as ‘Dorothy Peach’ but is actually lavender (and so I call it ‘Not Dorothy Peach’) is just as huge and impressive as ever.

We have fallen in love with hebes around here, and so it’s a good thing that the Great Plant Picks program is selecting some of the best to recommend.  The recommendations come from the years of testing by Neil Bell, extension agent at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center.  One of my newish hebes (H. odora ‘New Zealand Gold’) is on the list.

A bad winter or a big wind storm shouldn’t dampen our gardening spirits – and, in fact, it doesn’t if the crowds at the nurseries last weekend are any indication.  And so, with that in mind, I will be shopping at the Arboretum Foundation’s presale event (nothing like wine to help you shop) on Friday, April 24.  My goal:  more hebes, a new ‘Black and Blue’, and just about any Pittosporum tenuifolium cultivar I can find – except for ‘Silver Sheen’.  I’ve killed that one twice, and so will move on to something else.

Garden changes, big and small

Our own gardens change every year, but usually the changes are small, and we see the gradual shift every day, so it’s not noticeable.  We can look back in photos and think “how small that maple was when we first planted it, and look how it’s grown”, or “that’s right, we had grass there before the patio.”

When we’re absent from a garden for a year or more, the change seems sudden

2008

 to us.  And sometimes the change was sudden and we see the results.  Last year, we took our Charleston tour group to Middleton Place, and I took a photo of their old live oak (Quercus virginiana).  This year, we visited again and saw the tree much changed. Still lots of Spanish moss

2009

 dripping from its arms, but one huge branch had been lost, and the difference was remarkable.

 

In 2006, we visited Inverewe in Scotland, just a year after a huge wind storm had taken out many of the trees that Osgood Mackenzie planted soon after he acquired the land in 1863.  Inverewe remains an impressive garden, and we loved the woodland walk as much as the protected walled garden down by the sea.

Those gardens changed because of cataclysmic events; although she isn’t a hurricane, Helen Dillon changes her Dublin garden almost as swiftly.

The first photos I ever saw of her garden showed a long grassy corridor with dense plantings all round.  By the time we took our tour group there in 2004, the grass was gone, replaced by a formal pool, which perfectly sets off the garden.

I meet up with Helen occasionally where we are both speaking, and every time I see her, something has changed in the garden.  She ripped out the red border, and now she’s changed the front entrance terrace into a birch grove.

We’ll take our group to Helen’s garden on next summer’s tour, and who knows what we’ll find.  Change, for sure – change is the norm, in gardening.

This Just In

A short and delayed note to add to “Gardening Isn’t Going Away”.  The Northwest Flower & Garden Show posted a 3-percent increase in attendance this year.  Yes, yes, I know what you’re saying: owner Duane Kelly said this would be the last one, so more people came to see.  But if they didn’t care about gardening, why would that make a difference?  I don’t care for basketball, so I didn’t go see the Sonics play when they were up for sale just because they might leave town.

            And, the Philadelphia Flower Show welcomed 251,000 visitors – not a record itself, except for one-day attendance on March 7 when 48,000 people were there.  Gardening on the decline?  Apparently not.

            I mentioned Great Dixter in the earlier post, and Christopher Lloyd’s love of teaching others about plants and gardens, as well as learning more himself.  I contacted the garden to find out about their attendance, and the reply was that 2008 attendance was “exceptionally good” at 44,882.

It looks like the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show is sold; so who would buy a business if its future didn’t look bright (besides the government)?

 

The Myth of the Outward-facing Bud

I pruned the roses on Friday – a lovely, sunny dry day that appeared like a miracle between snowstorms.  Enough of this snow in Seattle!

            As I pruned, I looked for the outward-facing bud that we are told to find and prune above.  I don’t think they exist.  Is this some joke the roses are playing on us?  Buds face inward, off to awkward angles on the side, but I never see any that face outward.  As I tend to be fairly fierce in my rose pruning, I suppose it doesn’t really matter.  After a while I don’t care what kind of bud is or isn’t there, my Felcos go to work.

            In England, land of “rose replant disease”, they’re just as likely to rip the whole rose garden out as to prune carefully (or not) each year.  I don’t really understand what rose replant disease is, but I believe it has something to do with monoculture – those rose-bush ghettos, where a confetti mix of colors are planted for display, must be ripe for an attack of some fungus or another.  I love rose gardens for their historical interest, but it isn’t something I’m going to copy in my garden.  I’m not a rosarian, just a gardener.

            Last time we were at Hever Castle, they had just replanted the rose garden, and as it was May, there was little to see.  Against the wall, however, was a ‘Maigold’ climber in bloom – it’s practically the only rose we see blooming in England in May.  In fact one May, we visited Hodges Barn near Tetbury – a lovely place where Amanda Hornby showed us around her garden.  The house (originally a dovecote) was surrounded by brick walls that had rambling roses carefully pegged down, and the ramblers were full of buds, but not a flower was open.

            When pruning ramblers and climbers, you never have to worry about outward-facing buds.  Instead, if you secure the long, wild stems horizontally (pegged on a brick wall at Hodges Barn), the roses send up loads of flowers all along.  It’s a spectacular show.

Gardening isn’t going away

I don’t know what all the fuss is about; gardening isn’t going to disappear, even though garden writers seem to be wringing their hands over the prospect.  I believe that there are gateway plants, and we are at the tip of a new gardening cycle.  Plant a potato today, and tomorrow it will be an aster, the next day a hydrangea after that a paperbark maple.  Do you think that Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll said, “Oh dear, gardening is on the decline, so let’s just not talk about lavender anymore.”?  Did Christopher Lloyd care that you don’t know what an Aeonium is?

            OK, he probably did care, because he was a good garden educator, witty and opinionated.  I still pick up his books and begin to read them, often going over the same passages again and again.  My favorites are The Well-Tempered Garden, Christopher Lloyd’s Garden Flowers and, with Beth Chatto, Dear Friend and Gardener.  His home and garden, Great Dixter, are open to the public, so although he died a few years ago, he’s still teaching us to be daring in the garden.

            Geoffrey Smith, a UK gardener, writer and broadcaster, just died last week, and I include him here when talking about how gardening will continue.  I just listened to Friday’s broadcast of Gardeners’ Question Time on BBC Radio 4 and they included a tribute to Geoffrey Smith.  I love his Yorkshire accent, and appreciate his ability to cut to the chase.  Good writers and speakers are good, no matter if their topic is gardening or politics (although given the choice, gardening is much more interesting to read about).

            Gardeners and gardens abide.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

The Missouri Botanical Garden announced the spring installation of a floral clock to mark the garden’s 150^th birthday and as a nod to the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904.  The flowers on the 20-foot-diameter display will be changed out seasonally from its debut in May until October, and each season’s arrangement will use up to 8,000 plants.

            Floral clocks tell time — since their popularity arose in the early 20^th century this has been mechanical, although Linnaeus devised a clock that told time by the opening of flowers.  I can’t imagine trying to find the right mix of flowers to open at each hour of the day.  (A scientific look at Linnaeus and his floral clock can be found from the Linnean Society).

            At the Missouri Botanical Garden, ever mindful these days of our energy usage, a small solar panel will be set up to run the clock.  Even better than the hands turning, will be the electric cuckoo that will mark the quarter hours.  Emerging from its house will not be a cuckoo, though — it will be a bluebird.  Even better, in July, when St. Louis hosts the All-Star game, the bluebird will be replaced by a cardinal.  Go Cards!

            What a fine combination of horticulture, history and civic pride.  All this from a place that is already well known for its fabulous online plant database.  Good on you, Missouri Botanical Garden!