At last, I had an afternoon (not being much of a morning person) and early evening of weeding.
south catio
First, I planted one of the plants that Tony gave me, pretty sure it’s a willow!
I have a couple of others from him in the greenhouse whose identity I have forgotten.
mystery number onemystery number twoa spiny palm, tender in this climate, I forget the name though...
I had a look at the few mail order plants that still need planting. From Annie’s annuals, in the greenhouse, because it is tender:
On the ladies in waiting table, because it is too pitiful to plant yet, being just a leafless stick:
I managed to kill one of those before, from Secret Garden Growers, which arrived looking much better than that one. I forgot to water it, when newly planted, in a heat wave. I up-potted the one above in hopes for some growth.
I question why I bought the plant below when I don’t have anywhere with concrete and heat. Nowhere that a palm would look right, anyway.
I convinced Allan that he wanted to take a dime a dozen sword fern out of an attractive pot and put in my extra special extra fern, that I may have ordered twice by clicking twice, who knows.
Far Reaches Farm says it can be a houseplant, so maybe it would like to have the big, but not too big, pot brought indoors in the winter.
That led me to some always appreciated kibitzing around Allan’s garden, where I pointed out some runners from the horrid wild cherry or plum tree next door, which sends runners into our garden far inboard of the fence, and an aquilegia coming up inside a podophylum…[Allan did weed, and then added the afters to this section of the post.]
There was too much Ranunculus ‘Brazen Hussy’, once quite choice and now rather a pest.
Parts of my garden are a much worse all-fired mess of weeds. I thought I’d just weed under the contorted filbert, a difficult spot to get to, and then have time to start on the worst big weeding spot to the south of the fish totes.
Under the contorted filbert, before:
But before starting that area, I got distracted by the idea of digging up some of the extraneous Hylotelephium (Sedum) ‘Autumn Joy’, thoroughly infested with sweet woodruff, and trimming up some floppy variegated irises I recently transplanted into that area. It’s not that the sedum is a bad plant, far from it. I just have too much of it. It’s not that the sweet woodruff isn’t pretty. It is, and I have been told the flowers are used to make “May wine”, but I did not invite it to move into my garden and I want to keep it to a smallish area, and some of the sedums just don’t look right there, especially swamped with the woodruff, especially since I expanded the beds to the sides, and it’s too short to be a central feature. I also removed three Stipa gigantea that used to be grand there before the woodruff infested them and before the filbert got tall..
The rose is Rosa moyesii ‘Geranium’, fabulous.
When I had two spots, one on each side, cleared of sedum, I took my new Panicum ‘Warrior’ and another Panicum I-forget-what that was so tiny when I mail ordered it that I had potted it up last year, and put one on each side.
Warrior is in there!
Allan, who still had some time at home since a planned sailing excursion to nearby Black Lake was postponed due to no wind, helped me by digging up a large Panicum ‘Northwind’ in the same bed, the center bed which has a run of assorted panicums down the side. That Northwind was swamped with woodruff and an upstart of a sedum had worked its way into the center.
I divided it and got quite a few good pieces, the best of which went back in and the others got potted. Or canned, as Tony would say. Do you say canned or potted? I think “canned’ is the professional term.
After, the former woodruff/sedum area:
The woodruff will come back but will be more manageable. Maybe all the sedums will come out eventually. I am thinking of trying to shift a big patch of Persciaria bistorta ‘Superba’ into that area because it runs too much in the west bed, and I think it could battle most effectively for space with the woodruff and wouldn’t swamp the iris.
When we recently moved the path, it went right through what was a patch of persciaria, which will keep trying to come up in the grass for awhile.
I am mad at myself for stepping on my precious Nicotiana langsdorfii that I grew from seed last year and had overwintered in the greenhouse.
Doesn’t look very promising now
Finally I got back to the south side of the filbert and finished my first weeding area.
Before, again…
And after.
That all took about six hours without ever getting to that terribly weedy bed south of the fish totes.
The sedum went on a tarp and I offered it up on Facebook with an honest description that led a friend to say “You’d make a terrible infomercial!”
“Does anyone want some big clumps of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ that are infested with sweet woodruff? I do not appreciate sweet woodruff but some people love it. It’s used to make May wine, or so I have been told. I thought I’d ask here before engaging in interaction with strangers on the local gardening group. . I don’t want my weeding mission interrupted by social time. I also have that little thin scrimmy horsetail so you have to know how to clean up the plant clumps. This is sounding less and less like a great free plant offer.”
But I do have a taker for at least some of it. [By Saturday evening, I’d gotten takers for all of it.]
One brief moment of garden appreciation before I went indoors:
Some of Allan’s weeding results in his garden:
A tarp full of Autumn Joy and other not so exciting offerings:
My gardening mission today was to get as many of the mail order plants in the ground as possible, after a good start a few days ago. But first, a bit of garden appreciation.
red chaenomeles still bloomingthe deep pathmy shredded umbrella plant
I started by digging out the frustrating slow weeping willow that I got from Forest Farm last year. It has failed to take off. It didn’t have much of a root system to show for a year’s effort.
I replanted it elsewhere, in a not very auspicious spot, and replaced it with a tall golden weeping willow from Tony Tomeo. Perhaps it was not wise to choose the tallest of the three that he brought me. I was impatient to have a tall weeping willow before I die.
I dug up a Lonicera ‘Baggeson’s Gold’ that was right where I could put a conifer from Tony, although I have no idea whatsoever what it is. I don’t worry too much about planting trees that will get too big, since my family average life span only gives me ten to fifteen more years in the garden.
The lonicera (box leaf honeysuckle) went into this bed by the east fence…
….which has some golden barberries and other gold leaved plants, including the golden Choiysia (Mexican orange) that kind of languishes year after year.
Allan helped me plant a heavy pot of osoberry that I had gotten from Ed Bendzick, who is opening a nursery section at Peninsula Landscape Supply. The circle in the photo shows the willow I had just planted on the other side of the deep swale.
Allan did another project for me before starting to mow our neighbour’s lawn: The phormium that I had growing in a galvanised trash can had finally kicked off this winter. Even though I had gone off phormiums several years ago, growing it in the trash can was not an ironic statement. I was inspired by the courtyard of a restaurant near Heronswood Nursery where, in 2003, where, in the company of my old friend Montana Mary, I had the most delicious cold cucumber soup that I have ever tasted. It was called Molly Ward or Molly Ward Gardens and I loved their phormium in a trash can.
It was a very very good day.
Today, the era of the trash can phormium ended.
We knew the trash can’s bottom had rusted out but figured that the sides might still be strong enough to save. Allan pushed and dug the old roots out from the bottom.
A Seaview gardener came over to get a start of pink turtlehead, which she had been seeking. We have met before, but this time a mutual friend connected her and me and the turtleheads of which I have a too-large patch.
Meanwhile, Allan was mowing Alicia’s park-like lawn.
I then planted almost all the plants that I had stashed on Alicia’s patio. Several went into the two new half circle beds.
Morina longifola from Far Reaches Farm: “A favorite from the Himalaya, this thistle mimic is pretty outrageous in the garden. Robust clumps of gently spiny leaves and taller stems bejeweled in rank upon rank of long-tubed, white flowers which turn pink when pollinated. Nice to see we aren’t the only ones who get a sexual flush during pollination.
Full sun, moist, moderate.”
A couple of Echinacea pallida from Digging Dog. I love them but have never had good luck growing them. I will not give up!
I love all heleniums. This one from Digging Dog went behind the bench in the big east bed.
I also love verbascums. Two from Digging Dog, in the east half circle :
Cotswold KingCotswold Queen
Also in the east half circle, a Dierama ‘Tomato Red’.
Cistus Nursery: “We originally got this South African iris relation from Far Reaches Nursery in Port Townsend WA. These our seedlings of said plant have Orangy-red flowers on stems to 2-3 ft. Grass-like foliage is evergreen (don’t cut back) and will slowly form a clump to 2-3 feet across. Full sun and good drainage and occasional summer water were dry. Hardy to below 10F. USDA zone 8a.”
By one of the purple portal posts by the fire circle, Clematis ‘Haku Ookan’ from Digging Dog.
In the west fence bed, I planted my replacement Luma ‘Glanleam Gold’ by the one that I think has died (although it has one tiny leaf).
The Far Reaches tags for the same plant got less fancy since last autumn!
I planted a nicotiana that I’ve grown before in the same semi shady spot where it did well before. (they usually don’t survive the winter here.)
I had taken one plant of my favourite, Nicotiana langsdorfii, into the greenhouse for the winter and planted it out again today.
A tiny plant of a special lily, which I so hope a snail or slug won’t find:
From Far Reaches Farm:
Lilium mackliniae – Robust form “Seed-grown plants of a rare form of a rare lily rarely available from one rare plant grower in the UK. We are eschewing subliminal suggestions and going right to the heavy hammer of repetitive rarity. This form came about in cultivation from seed-raised plants in the UK and when mature is twice as tall as the typical species. Nice soft pink flowers. Part shade, part sun, moist “
I am hoping that being almost retired means I can walk around frequently to check on all these new plants.
I planted a Escallonia ‘Gold Brian’ from Digging Dog in front of my green escallonia hedge (that we cut back hard last year) even though I don’t know if I will like it. I love golden foliage but for some reason I feel this one is not going to look right. But I finally had to try it.
The hedge is growing back pretty quickly.
Also in that bed, I am trying Aralia ‘Sun King’ again, which I have tried and failed to grow before.
Another view of the same area where the podocarpus that I moved from its unhappy spot in the front garden, and then it greened up, looks disappointingly yellowy again.
An Inula magnifica was still quite dormant so I do hope it grows. I had it once before and didn’t like it, found the foliage too coarse, but I think my tastes have changed.
It went into this bed…
…along with a Panicum ‘Warrior’ and Pennisetum ‘Moudry’.
In a box planter in the bogsy wood because I couldn’t think of where else to put something so special:
Coniogramme emeiensis from Far Reaches Farm: “A dramatic species from Sichuan Province in China with most collections coming from Mount Emei, the highest of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains in China. Gorgeous dramatic large leaves with leaflets striped in yellow. A patch of this will temporarily stop conversation. Deciduous, Fern, moist”
For some reason, I got two of them, and am saving the other in its pot till it further breaks dormancy and till I can think of the perfect spot. Maybe in Allan’s fern garden if he can find room!
Another special Far Reaches plant in one of the edge gardens of the bogsy wood, Trautvetteria applanata:
“A seed collection by botanist Aaron Floden from Campbell County Tennessee where a population of this attractive woodland species was found growing along Stinking Creek. Location alone should be reason enough to grow this. Who else is going to have a plant from Stinking Creek? This species is found on the Cumberland Plateau and we listed it briefly for a day as T. caroliniensis until corrected. Moist shade will result in large mapleacious leaves and white flower puffs held well above said leaves.”
My brain is suddenly fried about exactly where I planted it, so I will have to quest for it tomorrow.
I tried a polyganatum, again, still dormant, and I have never had any luck with them but I want to.
I can dream. “Polygonatum huanum (syn. kingianum) This is indeed the king. One of our most coveted plants, this is an especially fine form from our friend Philip MacDougall. This beauty can reach 12′ tall with subtle hooks on the leaf tips to help it hang onto neighboring plants. The best thing is the ORANGE flowers in abundance in the leaf axils. Swoon City.Part shade, part sun, moist.“
My Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’ which was as tall as the house is slowly dying. I got a new one from Annie’s Annuals and Perennials and found a new spot for it outside the table gate. It’s now too dark and gloomy in the spot it was in before.
I planted a Sarcococca ‘Dragon Gate’ from Cistus Nursery by a hardy fuchsia in the back garden, having failed with one in the front garden a couple of years ago. I saw it in a garden down the Oregon Coast and fell in love. It’s tucked into shady nook.
“Discovered in 1980 by Roy Lancaster in Yunnan China, and named Dragon Gate for the temple entrance near which it was found. With this prestigious provenance, a 4 ft, arching shrub with staunchly evergreen leaves, looking much like Danae racemosa. Very late autumn to mid winter flowers of creamy white followed by copious quantities of rich red berries. A wonderfully fragrant and handsome addition to the winter garden. Tolerant of deep shade to nearly full sun in all but the hottest climates. Appreciative of some summer water where dry. Frost hardy to 0F, USDA zone 7.”
I used to plant the most wonderful things and then be too busy at work to monitor them.
In the front garden, I removed a white escallonia cutting and planted a Camellia x ‘Yume’ instead. Paul Bonine posted some beautiful photos of this camellia last month. I MUST keep a close eye on it. Paul’s nursery, Xera Plants, doesn’t have mail order, so I got it from Cistus Nursery.
“Translating as “Dream”, this unique hybrid bears lovely single 3″ flowers of alternating pink and white petals from fall through spring, with a sweet fragrance coming from the C. yuhsienensis parentage. A moderate grower, with a loose, open form to 10′ tall and wide in time. Sets seed freely, so may be useful in hybridization efforts. Prefers part shade inland, with moderate water in well-drained, acid soil. USDA zone 8, possibly lower.” (Cistus)
I planted a erythronium that I’ve had since autumn, which bloomed in its pot, along the edge of the shady east fence bed.
“Erythronium dens-canis ‘Purple’ King’ from Far Reaches Farm. “This really should benefit from the heraldry of trumpets when it bloos since royalty does enjoy the pump of lavish circumstance. But the flowers are such a nice fuchsia purplish pink with a red throat that the trumpets and all the trappings are implied. Good mottled leaves.”
Finally, after misplacing them and then finding the in a wheelbarrow, I planted a couple of primulas from Digging Dog.
A cold wind had come up, kiboshing the idea of having the first campfire of the year, and I was heartily sick of planting although I did my best to think good positive thoughts toward the plants. They must not know how much I do not enjoy planting them.
Last of all, I up-potted up a pineapple guava from Forest Farm that might like to be in the greenhouse till May.
I might have put a couple of still dormant plants, like that one extra of the special fern, on a table to wait for a bit. Other than that, all the mail order plants are in the ground…I think some are still arriving later from Digging Dog, which tends to split their orders depending on what the plant likes.
I am so glad that it is done so that I can get to my favourite garden task, WEEDING. I have much to do. And just maybe for the first time in my gardening life, enough time to do it.
We accomplished the rest of the spring clean up at the local pot shop. The first thing I saw was how few narcissi flowers there were along the curbside bed and the second thing I saw was why.
entire clumps picked by passersby
As always, my first thought was that I wasn’t going to do anymore public gardens after this year. It’s too disheartening to have a beautiful picture spoiled. Then In remembered that the post office and fire station, our two volunteer projects, are also public gardens. At least the fire station doesn’t get decimated like this (so far).
My first mission was to shear back the santolinas and trim an Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ while Allan weeded.
Before:
after:
Note the lack of narcissi flowers!
We both weeded in the entry garden and Allan weeded around the edge of the building.
I stuck some sedum starts in the soil in the front of the broken pots. I have suggested they get some rubber sort of pots and somehow tip the concrete filled pots and slide them into something less brittle, but in the meanwhile, maybe cascading sedums will work.
I set Allan onto a very difficult reach-under santolina weeding which my arthritic right hand would not enjoy.
I just realized, though, that I haven’t trimmed that one back!
All clean and tidy around the edge of the building. which is not gardening, but somehow, we do it:
I planted a lot of California poppies in any sunny open spot (Buttercream, Rose Chiffon, Jelly Beans, Tequila Sunrise).
As usual, we didn’t get a good photo of the entry garden.
Curbside bed, after:
Here is what the libertias in the bed to the east look like, after not being attended to since we quit the whole port job in June 2022.
Here’s what our trimmed ones look like:
Here is what the untended for almost two years santolinas look like in that bed to the east:
And here is one in the Freedom Market bed that I trimmed earlier this month.
I find it so exasperating that no one seems to care about unkemptness, and then remind myself that the untended beds are just as good for birds and insects, even better, actually, than our tidier ones.
Ilwaco Fire Station
While Allan removed three more of the messy red grasses, I walked around the building weeding and deadheading.
pointing out the grasses to go
This time, I didn’t put Panicum ‘Heavy Metal’ in the empty spots. I want to see how it does before I add more. I just put some Tequila Sunrise California poppy seeds in the empty spots for now. I am even thinking that three Euonymus ‘Green Spire’ might do well in those empty spots (but the tiny ones I have propagated need to grow on for another season in pots).
Narcissi on the other side of the building:
A brunnera in one of the north side planters:
All the santolina and ornamental grasses went into compost bin two at home, except for some cuttings that I made from green and gold santolinas.
I’d had one stormy reading day, and hadn’t quite finished the 400 page book I had begun. Good weather was a bit of a disappointment even though Faerie and Zinc enjoyed basking in the sun.
Skooter has still not figured out his doorbell and uses his voice.
By the green gear shed next door, I saw that perhaps a wall of crab pots is being set up.
I had planned to work for Diane and the Red Barn on Monday, till I realized the Basket Case wouldn’t be open then, and violas were on the agenda for her so….off to work we went.
Long Beach
We drove through Long Beach to make a bank deposit and saw a good use of three trellises, with a connector across the top, an idea I may swipe as I have several trellises waiting for a good spot in the garden.
As we drove through Long Beach, I looked side to side and thought everything looked okay except for ugly hesperantha foliage in parks and undeadheaded narcissi in planters. Because I have to feel like we did the best job, I reflected on how I always made sure plants were deadheaded before the weekend.
(Yesterday on some errands, Allan photographed how the broken Fifth Street Park fence had been removed…
…and how some weeding has begun in that park…
…and how it looks like the Melianthus major is no more in the above garden bed…
..and how city hall has finally been repaired.
On his errands yesterday, Allan photographed our friend Joe Chasse’s art at Bold Gallery in Long Beach.
But I digress!)
Today, I saw that Tulip ‘Strong Gold’ is coming on in the city planters.
Garden Shopping
We went to The Planter Box for fertiliser and poultry grit (for plants, not poultry). I got a couple of gorgeous ‘Winter Orchid’ wallflowers for Diane.
We stopped at The Basket Case and got a flat of violas.
Diane’s garden
Holly got her biscuit.
Diane came out to see her new plants.
I admired the horse and Buttercup the pony in the Red Barn field next door.
I had brought three sweet peas for a big planter by the back porch and felt well chuffed about the good root system. I had started them from seed in the autumn and wintered them over in the greenhouse.
I have more for the front garden picket fence which I will plant next time, as the conditions there are tougher.
I am partial to the violas with little whiskery faces.
While I tidied the planters, fertilised everything with a granular all purpose fertiliser (and the hydrangeas with an evergreen fertiliser) and weeded around the outside of the septic vault garden, Allan worked along the roadside. He planted three starts of a catmint, after dividing a big one in the vault garden.
He weeded all along the roadside bed….
…and removed a large and unwanted patch of orange montbretia.
He finished his part of the job by getting up onto the vault and weeding down the middle.
By then a late afternoon light was falling on the pasture next door.
The Red Barn
We weeded the little garden.
If we get the Freedom Market garden done tomorrow, as planned, we can take a whole week off!
A rather dull post. You might want to skip ahead to the gardening part!
I was not best pleased at another sunny day. The forecast had called for three days of rain, 1/2 to 3/4 inches a day, strong winds, and I was looking forward to the reading weather. Feeling that reading weather is drawing to an end for the year, I sent three books back to the library unread.
I had wanted Flannery O’Connor’s journals, not her stories; I am not all that fond of short stories.
We are watching the old version of All Creatures and I realized that a re-read of the books (which I last read decades ago) would be spoilers for the telly show. I got the book because I wanted to see which adaptation was closer to the books. The old one.
I will reorder Not Native American Art for autumn or winter reading. Its text (examples below) is going to take the sort of attention that I can muster in the winter but not during gardening season.
I don’t have the brain power right now.
When I finish the rest of my current stack of library books, I want to reread some books that I own: the journals of Gladys Taber, which I adored in the early 2000s, and the novels of Miss Read, which I adored in the 1990s. I imagine myself doing some reading on a chaise longue this summer in the garden. I’ve had two second hand chaise longues (unfortunately white, so I must paint them) for three years, which I have only read on once, on one of them, when I was too dizzy to garden. I live in hope that almost-retirement will mean days when I feel that the garden is caught up enough to leave alone.
J Crew Cottage
The good weather did give us time to do a weeding across the street at the Js. It needed it, with a crop of tiny weeds and a weedy entrance to the driveway.
Allan did the most boring bit.
I cleaned the dead annuals out of the porch railing boxes.
I meant to pull the two reseeded verbascums, below, but forgot. Later.
At home again…
…I potted up some of the plants Tony gave me and sorted out the greenhouse to make more room.
On the front porch screen door that Skooter has ripped to bit, on a board that covers a former cat door hole that Skooter used to use before we had indoor/catio cats who cannot come and go to the outdoors, Allan attached a door bell for Skooter to ring. We hope he figures it out!
The rain came in the afternoon. Oh joy, I got to go indoors! I took the time to write this and yesterday’s post, and now, at 5, the sun is out again. I am determined to ignore it and read, even though two more hours of daylight will nag at me to get out there and do more weeding.
The library books that I hope to finish:
In upper right corner is a three-in-one set of Orwell books with tiny print. (Why?) And someone else wants the book (oddly!) so I cannot renew it. I will just read the first one, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, a novel about running a bookshop, and send the volume back and try to get individual books of the other two so that I won’t strain my eyes. (Despite such problems, I do not like Kindle.) I’ll mostly avoid library books in summer (so I say now) to avoid the pressure of due dates during gardening season.
We could hardly have asked for better weather instead of the rain and wind that was predicted for today. Clear and not breezy weather made for the best visiting time with arborist and horticulturist Tony Tomeo and his friend Rhody. They arrived in style in Rhody’s Roady.
First, we collected some plants that I was giving to Tony. He dug up an unwanted (by me) patch of Iris ‘Black Gamecock’ (I’ve moved a lot of it to other spots in the garden) to replace ones that he lost in a gardening mystery last year.
With the plants sorted out and set waiting by the driveway…
…the three of us sat around the unlit campfire for awhile catching up.
Rhody sat with us sometimes but mostly ran around and around the garden paths.
Skooter did not join us around the campfire circle as he normally would have.
After awhile we toured the garden. Tony is a gratifying garden guest who really notices things. I’ve had the strange experience of garden guests who just sit and talk and don’t even look at the garden, which makes me feel it is not as interesting as I want it to be. This was not the case with Tony and Rhody, both of whom took an interest.
Tony liked the cerinthe so I gave him some seeds.
He was surprised how long my Fremontodendron californicum has thrived.
A chilly breeze arrived and got us to move from the fire circle to Alicia’s sunny patio in the afternoon, where Tony looked at my mail order collection….
…and we feasted on some snacks and Rhody finally got tired of running around.
Before they left for a drive up north to visit Tony’s father and do some fruit tree pruning, we finished our plant exchange. My acquisitions were a delightful assortment of some hardy and some tender plants, some of which I don’t even know the names of (he told me, but they were too unfamiliar and I will have to send him photos for ID on some of them) that will turn my patio into a paradise this summer.
In the greenhouse:
Another good thing that happened today was that our neighbour, Shelly, three doors down, has a whole lot of river rock she wants rid of, and she sent her grandson with wheelbarrows of it which he dumped for us in the corner of the driveway. I was well chuffed at the size of the rocks, having expected something smaller.
I then sifted some regular potting soil to make it a little bit lighter for seed starting mix. I had good results growing sweet peas over winter in the greenhouse, which I will be planting at Diane’s garden soonish, and wanted to start a few more from a new packet of Jewels of Albion mix. I kind of miss the days when I had so very many clients that I could buy all sorts of different sweet peas. Now, I only need a couple of packets. I don’t seem to have room for them in my garden.
my sifter that fits over a bucket
I then potted up some rooted cuttings, watered thoroughly in the greenhouses, got some small but tall (as in deep) pots ready for sweet pea seeds, put away some buckets and other useful but junky items, and then had half an hour to admire the garden before a 4 P.M. city council workshop.
spring foliage on a Japanese mapleunfurling sword ferns…..and more.
As I walked around before the meeting, I contemplated the amount of red features in my garden.
The red wheelbarrow that is just my size (so small I cannot overload it with soil and make it too heavy)…
…and the red fish totes from when Jessie’s Fish Company changed hands and divested some old gear, which are now my kitchen garden.
The red fire circle chairs that I got from our friend and former client Patti when she moved to Portland….
…and a chair and table in the wayback sit spot, also from Patti.
uh oh, the panel to the right is coming loose!
You might even think the dark red flowering quince was purchased to go with the red theme. It preceded the red objects by years.
I don’t have very many red flowers in the garden other than that quince and my mother’s “red velvet” rose.
The last red acquisition is the metal barrel that I got from Butch Saari’s yard sale (after having acquired all the other red items).
So with all this unintentional red, I know I would have chosen a quieter color, probably blue, for garden furnishings. My garden budget does not run to furniture and there is only one piece that I have purchased rather than been given. I was therefore pleased to recently learn from this article in The Washington Post that red is very in.
“It’s a trend that’s been around for years, but it’s just kind of going through a renaissance right now because of TikTok, I guess,” said designer Mark Eckstrom of Studio Eckström in Omaha. Eckstrom often employs a hint of the heady color in small ways, such as decorative trim (a red tassel on a cabinet key, for example). “My mother was an interior designer as well, and she always espoused that you should always have unexpected red in every single room.”
“Splashes of red really do just make anything mysterious, sexy even,” Colette van den Thillart, a designer in Toronto, said in an email. “Red is so dynamic, dangerous and commanding. It can set an environment alight, which is why this trend makes total sense to me.”
The key to “unexpected red” is exactly that: It should be unexpected. “This leans into my one and only dictum in design — that you have to ‘f— it up,’” Jacob Laws, a designer in Charleston, S.C., said in an email. Doing so gives a room a feeling of needed approachability, he noted. “There’s nothing worse than a homogenous and boring space, one that is ‘too darling,’” Laws said. “To avoid any matchy-matchy hellscape, a feel-good piece of the puzzle is red.” Even in a small dose, the color helps a room feel good emotionally, Laws said.
Washington, D.C., designer Annie Elliott says that “red is timeless” and also “recommends including it in a room with other bold colors; she has placed a cherry red vase in an emerald green foyer, for example, and a red lacquered console in a dining room with a densely patterned rug. “To me, that’s how you bring red in a fresh way: to clash it with other things.”
So now if someone comes over and wonders…or looks like they are wondering…why I seem to like red so much, I will know that I am very much on trend.
Meanwhile, Allan had mowed the lawn and took these photos out by the willow grove and frog bog.
Being a well-informed citizen can be very annoying and trying when one loses a valuable hour and a half of good weather gardening time zooming a workshop, after which I just had time to plant the sweet pea seeds before zooming the evening city council meeting, which proved to be extra infuriating due to the continuing arrogance of a certain council member. I happen, as a citizen, to appreciate it when a council member asks questions, as it clarifies the issues for audience members who don’t have time to read every iota of information available via the city. To have that council member accused of wasting council time had me so mad that I could feel my blood boiling…and of course, the meeting was immediately adjourned before any audience member could comment that we actually want to hear the answers to the questions and that it is no way a waste of our time. I would rather be gardening, I can tell you! It is probably just as well that I didn’t realise till later that I could have stormed over to city hall, ten blocks away, and given the rude council member a piece of my mind in person. Yes, it is a good thing I didn’t think of that.
P.S. In comments, Steveston Gardener insightfully pointed out that the council meeting made me see red, too. And Loree of Danger Garden (author of Fearless Gardening) offered this article about the design value of red.
reading
Our friend Teri gave me a book which has been my bedtime chapter for the last month or so.
It addresses, with elements of memoir, the effects of climate change and the loss of plant diversity, to the health, availability, and even the ingredients of some of the foods we love: bread, wine, coffee, chocolate, beer and seafood.
Coffee would be my favourite of the three beverages, and I found this especially interesting:
“Those first plants not only transformed what was grown in producing countries but also reshaped what people drank throughout Europe, leading Pope Clement VIl to exclaim in 1600, “Why, this Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall fool Satan by baptizing it and making it a truly Christian beverage.”
“Coffee didn’t just launch markets, it sparked political discourse and activism: ‘Traditionally, informed political debate had been the preserve of the social elite. But in the coffeehouse it was anyone’s business-that is, anyone who could afford the measly one-penny entrance fee.'”
Matthew Green’s book is going onto my to-read list.
I did not know this impressive aspect of the Sikh religion: “One of the defining characteristics of any Sikh temple, anywhere in the world, is langar, the free and open community kitchen mandated by the leaders of the faith where all are fed. Anyone who enters a Sikh temple-rich, poor, young, old, Muslim, Christian, man, woman–will be given a meal. This is accomplished only through the efforts of volunteers who spend time preparing food as a manifestation of sewa, selfless service. “By serving food to others,” writes Alice Peck in Bread, Body, Spirit: Finding the Sacred in Food, “we nurture them, to be sure. (But) in so doing, we are simultaneously tending to the Sacred within ourselves and our world.”
I also learned a shocking and upsetting thing, which relates to my ongoing interest in WWII:
“[The famine in India] had its roots in the British occupation of India and the Bengal Famine of 1943, when three million people starved to death, not only because of the loss of rice crops (due to disease, a cyclone and three tidal waves), but as a result of poverty, inequitable distribution of remaining food grains, the hoarding by the wealthy of whatever rice stocks were available, and the crushing governance of British prime minister Winston Churchill. Author and politician Shashi Tharoor documented in his article “The Ugly Briton” that Churchill, “as part of the Western war effort, ordered the diversion of food from starving Indians to already well-supplied British soldiers and stockpiles in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, including Greece and Yugoslavia. … Churchill’s only response to a telegram from the government in Delhi about people perishing in the famine was to ask why Gandhi hadn’t died yet.”
About ethical consumption: “[to} ensure my little joys will endure …I grind those coffee beans and pay more for good chocolate. I won’t singlehandly transform the commodities market, but I will take the opportunities this life provides and use them the best I can. If I am going to spend $6 on a loaf of bread or $12 on a bottle of wine, I want them to be the ones that reflect and support what I value.…..This isn’t to say I don’t occasionally relent and take the plastic cup, eat the Twix or drink the cheap wine. Every choice I’ve made is a response to my life and to the moment in which I find myself.”
The end of the book has some excellent glossy colour charts about how to taste coffee, wine, beer, bread. Very useful, and I am so glad that I own the book so that I can continue to refer them. Thank you, Teri.
I was obsessed with Orwell’s diaries and their focus on gardening and wanted to add his garden notes to mine for each day this year. That soon fell by the wayside. So I am going to try to do it month by month. His diaries are quite wonderful, as I learned from the book Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit. See my post about reading the diaries for how much I loved them.
3.4.39: [He had gone to Morocco for his health.] Many wild flowers now, including some the same or almost the same as in England. Poppies, bacon & eggs, a sort of small marguerite not unlike the English daisy, a very tiny flower of primula or polyanthus type, some small flowers resembling dandelions, & a purple flower with petals not unlike those of a foxglove, but smaller. Also anchusa, bird’s eye. Wild marigolds are much the commonest, growing in thick clumps everywhere.
Other wild flowers here, a kind of small scabious, several vetches, one of them very pretty, with a flower about the size of that of a garden pea, in two colours, pink & magenta. Several new ones in the last few days which I cannot identify. In many places the ground is now actually covered with them, predominantly the wild marigold, a pale yellow flower which is evidently mustard, & a smallish daisy not unlike the English one. Yesterday three greenfinches, a cock & two hens, siting on the telephone wires:
1st. greenfinch: “Little bit of bread.”
2nd. “Little bit of bread.”
1st. “Little bit of bread.”
2nd.”Little bit of bread.”
3rd. (the cock) : “Che-e-e-e-e-e-se!”
3-13-40: [Back at their home in Wallington, England] As a result of the frost all kinds of cabbages, except a few Brussels sprouts, are completely destroyed. The spring cabbages have not only died but entirely disappeared, no doubt eaten off by the birds. The leeks have survived, though rather sorry for themselves. Most of the wallflowers have survived. Some 2-years old ones which I had left in are all dead. The older carnations are also dead, but the young ones are all right. All the rose cuttings have survived except one. Snowdrops are out & some yellow crocuses, a few polyanthi trying to flower, tulips & daffodils showing, rhubarb just sprouting, ditto peonies, black curtanis budding, red currants not, gooseberries budding. The compost I made… has not rotted down very completely. Grass everywhere very brown & sickly-looking. The soil is very fine & friable as a result of the frost.
Did a little digging. Hoed leeks.
14 eggs.
[When he and Eileen lived in the country, he sold eggs and every day recorded how many were laid. During most of World War II, he and his wife lived in London with no garden at all except for brief weekends at their country home.]
118.40: 101 Somewhat drier. A few drops of rain. Forked over the ground for the onion bed & applied superphosphate. A few wallflowers just beginning to bud. But there are very few that are really undamaged by the frost.
15 eggs.
3.19.40: Violent wind, & raining slightly on & off.
Prepared a row for broad beans & another for cauliflowers, but impossible to get the surface soil fine yet.
16 eggs.
3.20.40: Somewhat drier, but a few showers. Dug a little more & prepared place for blackberries.
9 eggs.
3.21.40: It is drying, but very slowly. Again a few showers. Sorted out potatoes, of which at least a third have rotted owing to frost. However if the remaining ones don’t rot there are enough to last several months at present rate of consumption. Dug a little more. A little aubretia beginning to flower. A few scillas also. Perennials all budding pretty strongly.
3.22.40: Somewhat drier but a few drops of rain. Planted 3 blackberries (runners) & 2 roots of rhubarb. Began clearing out the strawberry bed
Blue & white crocuses now out.
13 eggs.
3.23.40; About the first nice spring weather, except for a shower or two in the afternoon. Buds on bullace trees.
13 eggs. Total this week: 98.
3.24.40: Nice spring weather most of the day. Blackthorn just budding. Catkins & female flowers on the hawthorn. Found some frogs mating. In most places they have already spawned & some of the spawn is beginning to develop. Brought a few bits home. A primrose out in the garden (also polyanthi) but could find none in the woods, though Mrs Nichols whom we met, had found a very few, also violets. Anemones not out.
18 eggs.
3.26.40: Raining almost without cease all day, & decidedly cold. Tadpoles I brought home are already more or less formed & working their way out of the spawn.
15 eggs.
3.27.40: Finer. Still impossible to sow seeds. Dug a little more, applied wood-ash to bed for onions. Tadpoles now almost fully formed & beginning to wriggle their tails.
16 eggs. Sold 1 score @ 2/10.
3.28.40: Sharp frost in the night, which does not appear to have done any damage, however. Today fine but rather cold. Cleared out some more of the strawberry bed, prepared the onion bed, which may be fit to sow tomorrow. Some of the tadpoles swimming about. The first daffodil in the field out. None yet in the garden, though some in other people’s gardens. Five of the six briar stocks I planted budding.
20 eggs.
3.29.40: Sowed onions (3 rows Jas. Keeping). 2 oz. seed supposed to do 200 feet but only did about 100, no doubt because I sowed too thick.
Today cold, overcast & windy, with some rain in the afternoon.
17 eggs.
3.30.40: Nice spring weather. Sowed 1 row carrots. Finished weeding strawberries, & applied a little manure. Place for broad beans now about fit to sow.
One or two daffodils opening in garden. Except for Innes’ meadow beyond the Lodge, it is now ploughed up all the way from Wallington to Baldock, thanks to the subsidy.
19 eggs. Total this week: 120 (25 hens – probably our record lay.)
3.31.40: Rather cold, & violent wind all day. A certain number of primroses out, also white & blue violets, & celandine. No other wild flowers.
Saw a sheep with two newborn lambs, the first I have seen this year.
Noticed that the spawn in the pond, from which I took a little a week ago, is still at about the same stage, whereas the bit I brought home has developed & tadpoles swimming about.
3.4.41: At Wallington. Crocuses out every where, a few wallflowers bud ding, snowdrops just at their best. Couples of hares sitting about in the winter wheat and gazing at one another. Now and again in this war, at intervals of months, you get your nose above water for a few moments and notice that the earth is still going round the sun.
I hope to get it together at the end of every month to collect his garden entries together, because some year I would like to plant some of what he planted at the same time, and this is an easy way for me to get the planting entries in order. Just because I loved his diaries so much, I would like to commune with his memory by imitating his planting schedule.Perhaps if you read his wonderful diaries, you’d want to do the same.
I got maybe a third of my new plants planted. I started by moving an aronia from the front yard, where it is not going to get as tall as what I need there, to the back garden. I thought I had a white escallonia (Escallonia ‘Iveyi’) start to put in its place. Couldn’t find it! So I took a cutting from my white escallonia and just stuck it in the ground.
Then it was on to planting new plants from my mail order nursery.
In the new semi circle, two Eryngium pandanifolium, one on each side of the center bed.
Eryngium pandanifolium from Plant Delights Nursery…...and one from Cistus Nursery.
Sisyrinchium ‘Quaint and Queer’ I’ve had before but kept dividing it too much to share with people who’d like its name as much as I do. From Annie’s Annuals.
Eryngium ‘Big Blue’ from Digging Dog.
Two bright ajugas from Plant Delights.
Ajuga tenorei ‘Cordial Canary’Ajuga ‘Parrot Paradise’ from Plant Delights
Two primulas from The Planter Box; the yellow one is fragrant.
“Pteris vittata ‘Benzilan’ is a 2005 Plant Delights/JLBG introduction of an amazing fern selection from our 1996 Yunnan, China trip in the town of Benzilan ….. Growing on a dry rocky cliff, this form of Pteris vittata was spindly and less than 1′ tall, but in our garden it has made a stunning deciduous clump 3′ tall x 8′ wide in 10 years. Each dark green frond boasts stunning, simple leaflets on a magnificent deer-resistant clump.”
Polypodium glycyrrhiza ‘Malahatense’ from Far Reaches Farm:
“A princess in a tall tall tower, unicorn bait, or simply the most elegant of all the P. glycyrrhiza cultivars. Living up to the medieval chivalric ideal of beauty in chastity this is the true sterile ‘Malahatense’, a far superior variety to the cruder fertile form sometimes sold under the name. The usually entire margins of the species are transformed into flaming deeply lacerated plumes, often of an attractive blue green that fades into lightness towards the edges. Airy grace apt to induce fainting spells in the weakly constituted, keep the smelling salts nearby and be prepared to white knight your true ‘Malahatense’ queen against the pauper pretenders out there.” (elegant prose from Far Reaches Farm)
Primula elatior ‘Victorian Silver Lace Black’ from Digging Dog
I planted two Angelica gigas that were quite unnecessary. I wanted to make sure I had them, and when I made my order, mine were dormant and I wasn’t sure they’d come back. They did. That’s ok because they are biennials so the new ones might not bloom this year. Also an extra Cephalaria gigantea, which I wanted to make sure I had. Mine came back, so I now have three.
A white phlomis from Cistus:
Eryngium planum ‘Silver Salentino’ from Digging Dog
Last year, I got a Cotinus ‘Grace’ from Forest Farm and planted it behind the cat bench. It put out some small leaves but just sat there all year and didn’t grow. I dug it up and found it has a decent root system, so I moved it to a different place, because I have a new plant for that spot.
very strangely not growing; yet it is leafing out again!
Instead, from Digging Dog, that area got a Cercidiphyllum japonicum: “When Japanese philosopher Toshitsuna said that trees “bring the magnificence of heaven to the human realm,” he must have been contemplating a Katsura Tree. The graceful foliage is rounded, almost heart-shaped, announcing spring in purple and bronze, then maturing to a sprightly medium green. In fall, it keeps us guessing with its variable autumn colors: pale or brilliant, yellow or orange, red, pink, or mauve, while the leaves mysteriously exude the distinct scent of fresh strawberries”. I have also read that it smells like toffee or cotton candy. I hope I live long enough to smell it and have it show behind the bench.
Finally, from Forest Farm:
Planting is not my favourite garden task. I’d rather weed! And I am still only maybe 1/3 done with my mail order plants. While I may wait till April when there is no chance of frost, I have some more that can be planted on the next nice day.
I then weeded for awhile and cleaned up one of the sarracenia (pitcher plant) containers so that it could go on a bench in the water canoe.
Meanwhile, Allan mowed the pocket lawn at the J Crew Cottage across the street…
..admired a tulip in their garden…
…and a geum…
Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’
…and weeded two difficult garden areas by our front driveway.
I am still awaiting a rainy day so I can read the book I started yesterday. Tomorrow, I have city meetings to zoom in the afternoon, and we are anticipating some good company the next day, so rain or shine, I may not have a full reading day till later in the week.
Speaking of reading, tonight I will have a bonus post from George Orwell’s diaries, a collection of vignettes of his garden in the month of March. I still often think about how much I enjoyed reading the diaries.
I woke up to rain. The rain continued during breakfast, during the reading of the news and social media, and as I settled in with an interlibrary loan.
I had recently enjoyed Sharon Blackie’s book Hagitude, which referred back to this one in a way that makes me think it will be a memoir of her homesteading life. Just as I got settled in to reading pleasure, out came the sunshine and I had to go outdoors. I cannot stay in and read when the rain stops, even though I want to. Strong wind, deep cold, ice, or hot weather (over 75 F!) are also made for reading.
The path by the compost bins showed how much it had just rained.
tulips in the good ship Ann LovejoyCorylopsis pauciflora, one of my favourite shrubs
I noticed that my new pear tree, whose name I forget, is already blooming. It is in the most terribly unweeded bed.
It was supposed to be a pollinator with my Bartlett pear tree but the latter is still not blooming. That won’t work! The Bartlett is well budded; maybe it will catch up. View from the kitchen window, Bartlett has fat buds, center of picture:
My first mission was to finish weeding the worst area of lesser celandine, next to the neighbouring gear shed yard, a weeding project which I started over a week ago and then abandoned to do the path project. Before (with fishing buoys in the background):
Soon after I started weeding, a forklift arrived next door and started moving gear around. I hope we will get a wall of crab pots, with or without a blue tarp. Skooter had joined me…
…and found the next door activity to be quite a show.
I finished the weeding of that area well enough. I no longer quest for every bulbil of the celandine because it makes no difference, it comes back anyway.
Time for some annual praise for the beauty of the Celandine (I am pretty sure it’s by Monty Don):
…..
I weeded along both sides of the center bed. Allan brought me the heavy seat-less metal chairs…
…and installed one as a support for an always floppy blue globe thistle.
Center Loop East:
I started to pull more white phlox out of the east bed. Skooter sat on it like maybe he thought I should save just one area.
If I do my best to eliminate all of it, I will no doubt still have some. It is a tall phlox, probably ‘David’, that has proved to be too pushy and that also tends to get diseased looking stems if conditions are not perfect.
Allan had bought a new solar powered little fountain for the water canoe, for my birthday. He fixed the old one so it works again and installed the new one, which should have a more modern and longer lasting solar charge and has a better nozzle and filter.
He did lower the jet after that so the wind won’t make the pump empty the boat of water (which has happened before). We can turn it up for more drama if we have a garden open day. He said that hummingbirds discovered it right away.
I moved on to some weeding in the front garden. The front path, looking west:
I weeded the center of the east bed, the most difficult spot, between a rather ugly old ornamental cherry with purple bronze leaves and a big apple tree.
Before:
This Pittosporum got burned in the cold weather last month. It will, I think, grow out of it.
Forty-five minutes and two heaping buckets of weeds later, I couldn’t go on any further.
At least that east bed is no longer just a blur. I had hit the wall of tiredness so came indoors and wrote two blog posts, this one, and yesterday’s kvetch about a book.
Meanwhile, Allan had trimmed the tall rushes and grasses in the big pond, the ones I felt would result in my falling in if I tackled them.
I would very much enjoy a day of nothing but rain so that I can read the book that I barely started today.
. I don’t want my weeding mission interrupted by social time. 
I also have that little thin scrimmy horsetail so you have to know how to clean up the plant clumps. This is sounding less and less like a great free plant offer.”
Tangly Cottage Gardening