21 March: reading The Transplanted Gardener

Wednesday, 21 March 2018

Because of getting home early due to weather, I had time after blogging to finish a wonderful book.

Some impressive accolades:

I loved it all, especially the parts about Elliott’s own experiences.  Here are some of my favourite bits:

Because I have been an Anglophile since I first saw The Avengers at about age 12:

I wish there were a word for Anglophilia that included Wales and Scotland and Ireland.

I had thought that English ivy was not considered a noxious weed across the pond as it is here in the Pacific Northwest, but…

I have waffled about whether my alder grove is to be properly called The Bogsy Woods or Wood (a name suggested by my good friend Sheila (Harley Lady).  My question is now answered: Wood, for sure:

My favourite chapter is called Garden Touring.  I was interested to read about the organizers making sure the gardens were “up to snuff” and that a garden must provide forty minutes worth of interest.

I am a fast garden tour-er and it is the rare garden that keeps me for forty minutes on a tour day (when I am always anxious to see every one of the six or so gardens on offer).  Some that can keep me that long, even on a tour day, with ease are The Bayside Garden (which I must visit again soon….as soon as our beach approach job is done!) and the Markham Farm garden and Floramagoria.  I don’t think even my own garden could keep me busy for forty minutes if I were to tour it as a stranger.  By the way, I hear tell that the Markham Farm garden is going to be on the Master Gardeners of Grays Harbor and Pacific County garden tour this July.  I am excited to see it again.

On an ordinary day, even a smaller garden could keep me fascinated for forty minutes as long as it has interesting plants.

Fascinating:

I can’t find that garden online anymore, but another one mentioned, Garnons, is still there.

The Booby Trapped Carrot is a chapter about what I call Finger Blight.

Objects would be easier to trace than plants:

£50,000 in lost plants!:

I always picture my plant thief in Long Beach as being an older woman with a bag and a trowel:

And I always hope that she does not read this blog….

…and of course, thieves and tramplers are why our beach approach garden is now almost all rugosa roses instead of prettier and more delicate and choice plants.

This makes me want to cry:

In modern times with real life bomb scares, even in little Long Beach, we dare not even joke about these methods of deterrence:

I like this quotation by William Cobbett (from a book published in 1821, A Year’s Residence in the United States of America):

Elliot recommends three books by E.A. Bowles (for whom assorted plants are named) which I hope to read: My Garden in Spring, My Garden in Summer, and My Garden in Autumn and Winter.

I did not know this about contorted filbert (hazel):

This finally (sort of) explains to me what a laid hedge is:

If you are lucky enough to have access to the Timberland Regional Library, Elliot’s book is in their collection.  I am going to put all of his books of gardening essays on my reading list.

Two days later: Like the best books, this one kept me thinking about which gardens I have toured that would easily keep me engrossed for forty minutes.  Here are more that stick in my mind (and not all of them were huge; it is not all about distance and some smaller and intricate ones require walking around more than once).  You can click to embiggen the photos in the older posts:

Taming a Hillside in Aberdeen

For the Birds in Aberdeen

Froggy Bottom in Dupont

Fairbrook Garden in Olympia

Deerly Missed in Salem

A garden near Eugene

Danger Garden in Portland

Rhone Street Garden in Portland

I do not think my own garden could take 40 minutes unless I get it together to paint up a lot of signs with good gardening quotations.  I had them in place but the lettering faded off.

Charles Elliot suggests drolly that tea (tea and biscuits) or more elaborate “teas” (with finger sandwiches) keep guest lingering longer.  None of the above gardens had refreshments on offer and did not need them to keep me there.