Garden: Same Spot, Different Season

It's not a year-end retrospective, but it kind-of is…

I didn't plan to take a series of photos, but my garden is small so there are a limited number of photogenic angles possible.  This limitation has resulted in an unplanned progression of photos taken at just about the same spot throughout the growing season. The taller panel of fence (and the spires of the Digitalis parviflora, in later photos) make convenient reference points.

April 28, 2013

May 28, 2013

June 23, 2013

July 22, 2013

September 1, 2013

September 19, 2013

October 7, 2013

October 25, 2013

November 12, 2013

November 21, 2013

December 20, 2013

December 31, 2013

As I was putting together this post, it sure seemed like a lot of plants had come and gone!  In my defense, I will remind you that this was a rebuilding year.  I totally remade the right-hand side of the border in early spring and I remade the left-hand side in mid-Summer.  I hope that, now that I've established a good cast of characters, the pace of change will slow.

Garden: I Spy--A Design Flaw I Can Fix

This is the corner of my front garden bed.  While I am sure that there are lots of improvements that can be made, there is one flaw that I see RIGHT NOW that I can easily fix.  Right in the middle of the corner there appears to be a gap in the planting.  In spring and summer, this area is filled with "Jolly Bee" hardy geranium, a trio of Chasmanthium latifolium (Northern Sea Oats)  and various spires such as Digitalis parviflora, adenophora, and asiatic lilies.  Behind those, right in the corner, is a baby "Quickfire" hydrangea.  

Well...what if I replace the three Chasmanthiums with a Miscanthus "Adagio"?  In the spring/summer, I would lose some of the looser structure that I'd hoped to achieve by planting the Chasmanthium.  And I'd lose some of the continuity provided by the Chasmanthium which is part of a larger swath that wraps around the Eupatorium (dark brown hulking thing in the center back). But, I think I'd gain a much greater fall/winter value with the addition of the miscanthus' persistent, tan, winter foliage.  It would bring the blonde color of the pennisetum foliage all the way into the corner and would provide visual bulk to the corner throughout the year (but especially during the winter). 

What say you, yea or nay?

The spot in question--corner of my front garden bed.

Garden: GBBD--December 2013

Hey!  Better late than never, y'all.  Of course, a week of sub-freezing temps pretty much ended our floral display and a concerted search of the garden yielded...NOTHING.  So I tried to make something pretty out of the blooms I found.

*  Edited to add this photo for reference and comparison.  I think I like it better than than the below photo, but it doesn't harmonize so well with the whole photo story.

Hydrangea "Bombshell"

"Bombshell"

 H."Bombshell" with dwarf Deschampsia

Pennisetum "Hameln"

Sedum "Autumn Joy" with the pennisetum.

Rain on an ornamental cabbage.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, is a celebration of what is blooming each month in bloggers' gardens around the world.

Garden: A Frosty Morning

The frost and morning sun brought life to some things:

Even as they took life from others:

I wonder if the buds are still viable?

Poor little guy is crispy, flowers, too.

Just so you know...despite my troubled relationship with yellow-jackets, I picked this one up and moved him to a sunny spot near his nest (well, A yellow jacket nest--Washington state had a population explosion of yellow jackets last year and I had more than my share).  

Bonus long view:

Garden: GBBD--November 2013

Yea!  Despite some really inclement weather today, I scrounged up a few photos for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted each month by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.  

I've got fuchsias:

More fuchsias:

Camellias:

Campanula poscharskyana "Blue Waterfall"--makes a nice groundcover under alchemilla:

Leucanthemum "Shaggy" (I think?):

Alyssum:

These inmates of my son's garden (you'd think, maybe, I could have snatched that dead stalk out of the way. Maybe. But it is what it is.):

Japanese Anemone (A little ratty and just about the last one, I think.):

Well, that's about it.  There are still a few blooms on the Rosa mutabilis and a few buds.  Geranium "Jolly Bee" has a bloom or two, and Persicaria "Dragon's Eye" actually looks pretty fresh.  But, most of the garden is going down fast.  Notice...no wide views!

Until next time!

Garden: How Much Longer Will It Last?

In the Pacific Northwest, appreciation of the fall garden can be fleeting.  

When I peruse gardening books--especially those of the coffee table variety--I see many photos of the sculptural, winter-time seedheads of echinacea outlined with frost, silphium foliage standing tall and black against drifted snow, and dried seedheads of various grasses transformed by death and weather into garden art.  That is not-so-much the situation here, where persistent atmospheric moisture and mild temperatures rot the dying foliage and turn it to mush--really unsightly mush.  I've come to suspect that a sculptural winter garden is one benefit of harsher climates which basically freeze-dry the foliage as it stands.   Nonetheless, I am ever hopeful for a better outcome--especially as I have become more enamored of the "New Perennials" style of gardening with its focus on appreciation of the plant in EVERY season.

So.  Here we are at that time of year again.  Once again, I am heading into fall with the goal to leave the garden standing throughout winter for the appreciation of both humans and wildlife.  It's going to be hard.  The decision to leave the plants standing is not a single choice, but many choices made over a period of days, weeks, and months.  After all, I spent the summer deadheading spent blooms to prolong the floral show.  Maybe I should have let them be?  I cut down some browned astilbe blooms to improve the appearance of the rest of the planting.  But dried astilbe blooms look pretty fantastic in some of those photos.  In hindsight, maybe I should have kept my pruners in my pocket?

If I had a larger garden, the choice wouldn't be mine as the need for efficiency would prevail, but my garden is small and I can see and access every part of it.  It is also a front garden in a neighborhood of small properties.  EVERYONE can see and evaluate my choices.  In the past, tidiness has triumphed.  I've nipped and snipped, little by little, until the whole garden is cut down and tidied.  And yes, I've raked-up and composted the fallen leaves and replaced them with sterile, purchased, compost mulch.

But, what can I say?  I'm going to try again.  I took some photos of the back garden to celebrate what might be the last flush of fall beauty before things start getting REAL ugly. Whatever happens, I think that I will document it so all can see the true extent of the winter blahs.

This first photo is taken from the back patio, looking out toward the arbor.  The darmera still look pretty good.  The hakonechloa grew like gangbusters this year and shows some attractive red highlights.   I left a few astilbe blooms standing and, in this instance, I like them.  The yellow/brown foliage is Persicaria polymorpha.  I swept the patio, but left the blow-in leaves in the beds--they are pretty leaves, a mix of Japanese maple, redbud, robinia, and alder.

Arbor bed.

This view (below) is taken from the shed, looking back towards the patio and arbor--the persicaria is just out of view at the top right of the picture.  I like the mix of yellows, browns, and greens in this bed.  The greenest plants are Lobelia siphilitica and Brunnera macrophylla.  The browns are darmera, Lysimachia clethroides, and siberian iris.  That's an evergreen Acorus gramineus "Ogon" in the bottom right.  It's odd (to me) that these darmeras are well on their way to yellow and brown while the others, just around the corner of the house, are still green.  These get more sun, but also much more water.  In addition, they were  planted just this spring, while the others were planted the summer before.  

Swamp bed.

Again, I tidied the paths but left fallen leaves in the planting beds.  Although I will try to leave the plants standing, I may end up cutting things down little by little.  If that happens, I'll try to leave the cut foliage on the bed as mulch--a small step towards gentler, more "ecological" practices.

That's the plan, anyway, and we'll see what happens...

Garden: A Dark and Stormy Morning

We're having a pretty wintery storm right now--driving rain and gusty winds.  Most of the leaves (and a few smaller branches) are off the trees.  I also noticed that one of our neighbor's fences blew down.  Earlier today I went out to remove two black Hefty bags that had blown and caught in one of our trees--they look suspiciously like the bags that a neighbor filled with leaves and sat next to her house to await yard-waste collection.  

**And with a long hiatus while waiting for power to be restored...the rest of the post.

Espaliered camellia--blooming a month early?

Fothergilla gardenii "Mt. Airy"--a new addition to the garden this year.

Front garden on this stormy day.

Arts & Crafts: Stuff I made for Halloween 2013

Halloween is a fun time around here--lots of opportunities to make stuff.  All kinds of stuff.  Of course, it always turns into a costume extravaganza for my son.  One year, he was a Ghostbuster.  The next, he was a Transformer-style robot.  This year, he's going to be a knight. Of course, that's something that I had no idea how to construct so I did some internet research.  And then things started to get a little crazy as I began to think that the costume needed to be historically accurate (no mixing English armor with Italian or Spanish details!) But I came to my senses and realized that it doesn't need to be historically accurate, it just needs to fulfill a 6-year-old's idea of what a "knight" looks like.

I also made a halloween-themed quilt and a mantle decoration made of ping-pong balls decorated to look like eyeballs.

Are you ready to see it all?

Here's the quilt:

For this quilt, I did three things that were new to me:  I made wonky 9-patch blocks (a speed-quilting technique which was new to me); I made my own bias edging; and I used a darning foot to help me machine quilt the top.  Don't look too closely at the quilting!  I was moving fast and having a good time--much better than if my goal had been perfection.  There is a tutorial for the wonky nine-patch blocks (here) and a tutorial for homemade bias tape (here)--not MY tutorials, but some that I referenced when learning how to get the job done.

The eyeball garland was a quick and fun project--ping pong balls that I painted and drew on with colored pens before stringing them onto black yarn.

Ping pong ball "eyeballs".

The armor was a fun project, too.  I started early (mid-September) because I didn't want to have a rush to the finish.  It was a pretty quick project, though.  People have asked me how long it took and I really have no idea.  I definitely putzed around a lot.  And there was a lot of down-time while I waited for paint or glue to dry.  But the actual work was, probably, 15 hours or less?  That's just a guestimate.  Originally, I'd planned to make boots and armored gloves.  I had plenty of time and materials to complete those items, but, you know, I just started wanting to get the mess packed up and OUT OF THE KITCHEN already! So I did what I did and called it a day.

Here's the finished costume:

I made it (mostly) out of EVA foam--that's the foam that is used for play-squares and anti-fatigue matting.  The only thing I bought ready-made was the sword, which I embellished with leather scraps and painted.  My mom crocheted the "chain mail".  

Here are a couple of in-progress pictures:

It's a torso! (Sorry about the blurry, low-light photo.)

The whole thing got a few coats of Mod Podge to fill in the crevices and to harden the surface.

Yea for Mod Podge.

Sanding and painting.

Well, here it is almost complete (the torso, that is!).  

Almost complete! Still needs the buckles on the sides.

The leather accents came from a pair of boots and a belt that I sourced from Goodwill.  I was pretty proud of my use of inexpensive, second-hand materials--something that is definitely NOT a strong skill for me.  Baby steps!  From the belt, I made the tabs that connect the torso to the panniers and I used the boots for leather strips, the shoulder pads (under the pauldrons), and the decorative buckles.  The rest of it was mostly EVA, foamies craft sheets, Mod Podge, hot glue, acrylic paint, paintable caulk, fabric, upholstery tacks and sundry items, and a feather boa for the all-important plume. 

And there you have it--Halloween 2013.

Garden: The Lurid Colors of the Fall Garden

I hate to admit it, but the garden actually looks like this: 

The blues of the geranium are a little bright, but the rest of the color is just about spot-on.

And I don't know quite what to do about it.  The space is small and I already have a river of grasses running through the middle of the bed:  Pennisetum, Chasmanthium, Hakonechloa macra.  I guess this is what happens when the grounding/moderating greens turn orange and yellow.

Luckily, I did get a new, more subtle fish kite.  That really evens things out, now, doesn't it?  (Just joking--but it IS preferable to the lilac, pink, and orange one it replaces.)

New fish kite.

Garden: Finally, Officially, Fall

Fall.  Eventually, it will be a time to wind down and appreciate the slow close to the gardening year--but not this year, not at this time.  I am still angsting and twisting about the planting in the front garden.  Mostly, I think, it is an improvement.  But I keep circling around, moving and swapping out, circling closer to my original vision.  I edited a little bit this morning, and here's what we've got now:

Front garden beds.  The color of the photo is a little lurid (more so than real life).

The other day, I got the bright idea to remove all the grass (it's a small, intentional, kidney-bean-shaped lawn which I thought would be a nice nod to the mid-century styling of the house) and replace it with a smaller, oval, graveled patch.  The graveled area would be be home to two chairs and would allow one to feel much more immersed in the garden then is possible at present.  I'd have room for a couple of bigger grasses or shrubs on the fence side and I'd plant the front with low, mounding plants and ground covers.  The entire "micro-patio" would be surrounded with foliage.  So far, I've  bounced the idea off of a couple of people with disappointing results.... Just an idea...

...And here's a close-up of the plants in the corner.

Close-up of the front garden.

This (below) is the site of the most recent editing.  I moved the grass (Pennisetum "Hameln") to the front of the bed and transplanted some Lobelia siphilitica into the new space at the back.  I plan to add Perilla frutescens (purple shiso), an annual, to the back to mix with the lobelia.  I am still looking for ways to weave a darker, somber color throughout the border. And I need to get some more height back there, too.  One of the dark penstemons would be ideal for the look I have in mind, but I think they wouldn't survive the winter wet...or, Lobelia cardinalis save for the scarlet/red flowers.  Scarlet flowers are a no-go for me.  Let me know if you have any plant suggestions for this situation--all suggestions will be considered!  

Site of the most recent transplanting...

I am realizing, though, how the dark foliage blends in to the color of the fence, behind.  The cimicifuga, for example, is almost invisible.  Maybe the back-most layer of foliage needs to be green?  There's a lack of bulk, too.  The space is small, so I have to keep size in mind but I don't want the planting to look like it belongs in a dollhouse.  Maybe I should think about swapping out the cimicifuga for a bulkier shrub?  Maybe I should just let it stay in the ground for a year to see if it is capable of bulking up and doing the job?  I do realize that all of these plantings are immature and, increasingly, I realize just how beautiful mature plantings and well-grown specimens can be.  Maybe these planting just need more time.  I don't know.  More angsting and twisting... Moving on...

This year, I added a couple of new hydrangeas to the garden--Hydrangea paniculata "Quick Fire" (below) and several H. paniculata "Bombshell".  I've been really happy with both varieties.  

Fall color on the "Quick Fire" hydrangea.

During the growing season, the foliage on Quick Fire was a lovely, rich, green suffused with purple.  Now it's turning a medley of hot pinks and oranges.  I'm not sure that it is the most attractive color at this exact stage--if you step back a bit, the overall impression is mid-brown--but it certainly is interesting. Bombshell is coloring up nicely as well.  It's a bit of a mystery, though.  I have three plants and all three look different.  This is the one in the front border where I removed the Annabelles.  It is a lovely coral red.

Hydrangea "Bombshell" color.

Two more Bombshells are planted behind the house.  I failed to capture the lovely color of this one--soft yellow blushed with coral--but I liked the juxtaposition of the hydrangea foliage with the big leaves of the Brunnera.

"Bombshell" hydrangea in the back yard.

The third Bombshell is located in what is, perhaps, the best location of the three.  Its fall color is clear, bright yellow.  All three plants are in slightly different environments.  In addition, the two in the back were planted last year while the one in the front yard was just planted this summer.  I wonder what that means for the color in future years?  If the happiest plant is yellow and the (possibly) most stressed plant is beautiful coral/red...darn, I bet the "true" fall color will prove to be yellow.  I've got my fingers crossed for red, though.

Finishing-up with a few pretty flower photos... In the raised planter behind the house, the Rosa "Mutabilis" is still pushing out blossoms.  Between the occasional raindrops and gusty winds, I was lucky to get a photo!

Rosa "Mutabilis". 

And the Japanese anemones continue to look fresh wherever they are planted... 

Japanese Anemone "Whirlwind"