Plant Talk

Inspired Potting

I was stopped in my tracks at University Village the other day by the orange dahlias displayed outside Ravenna Gardens. Then I couldn't help but check out all the fabulous pots filled with succulents, grasses, shrubs and flowers. The textures, colors and combinations are an inspiration in late summer when most containers are looking a little tired....stop by Ravenna Gardens and get some great ideas to refresh your pots, as well as plants to carry your garden well into autumn. 

Striped phormium, show-stopper dahlias, my favorite color of container, and a little blue-toned conifer with variegated hebe...

With blood grass, pansies, and succulents added into the mix...

 

Gorgeous bronze pots perfectly paired with foliage plants that'll look this good until first frost.

 

The early fall plant palette at Ravenna Gardens is pretty exciting, including aeonium, ornamental grasses, hebes, dahlias and sedums.

Plant Now for Fall Food

It seems like summer just got here, but it's already time to plant fall crops. To harvest before first frost, mid-August (yes, a little late already!) is the ideal time to plant chard, kale, broccoli, spinach, lettuces and arugula....more advice on this in an upcoming Plant Life column in Pacific Northwest magazine.

I spent an afternoon with Colin McCrate of Seattle Urban Farm Company on the roof of Bastille restaurant in Ballard last week, talking winter crops. Up on the roof, surrounded by buzzing bees (they have four beehives up there), ripening tomatoes and raised beds stuffed with herbs and greens, on a day that reached 85 degrees, we talked winter crops. More of Colin's expert advice to follow in the Seattle Times column, but for now, rip out pea vines or whatever else is mildewed or languishing, and get your fall crops into the ground while the soil is still warm....check out/download Log House Plant's  handy and freshly updated fall and winter planting chart.

Ruby chard and broccoli in the beautiful, productive garden of my Langley neighbor Linda Morris...

 

Clematis Planting Time

The big wholesaler T&L tells me they've begun shipping clematis to local nurseries for fall planting. Sally Isaiou of T&L says "We have clematis that are budded and blooming; if planted now, the vines will get a head start on those planted in spring."

True, but take that with a note of caution after the last two hard winters we've had. Such cold can kill off new plants that have had little chance to develop their root systems; if you plant perennials and vines this fall, get them off to a good start by watering well and help them weather the winter cold with a good blanket of mulch applied before freezing weather hits.

Here's a tempting list of the clematis T&L is producing this autumn:

'Arabella'- integrifolia type, smaller plant with light blue flowers.

'Piilu' - short growing plants that seem to bloom all summer (little photo above)

'The President' (below) a dependable older variety with large blue/purple flowers  - one of my favorites for its intense color. I've never had it wilt down like so many large-flowered varieties can be prone to do.

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'Temptation' – red and purple flowers with a full center, low growing plant.

'Princess Diana' (below) viticella group, with pretty, rosy- pink flowers

Clematis tangutica – a vigorous vine with yellow little bell-shaped flowers followed by silky seed heads. This is a great clematis to grow up a sturdy tree or to festoon a fence.

 

Everyday Bouquets - Sneezeweed & Honeysuckle

Small, simple and quick bouquets are a gift in summer when we're busy and the garden is overblown.  They play counterpoint to summer's bounty and business with their restful humbleness, their intimacy and sweetness. Just be sure and pick early in the morning on hot days, and carry a pitcher of cool water to plunge the stems in as soon as you cut them. This encourages the flowers to drink deeply and stay fresh longer despite the warm days.

This bouquet is sweetly fragrant, with purple sweetpeas and honeysuckle filling in around the spikes of crocosmia and the sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) anchoring the bouquet. While it's a hazard to cut even a few sneezeweed blooms because of all the busy honeybees, I love the fat brown centers that remind me of a dog's soft nose. The colors are richly ripe, redolent of summer at its peak. The vase is clear orange glass, small and slim, so as not to distract from the perfection of the most simple summer flowers.

 

Re-Purposed Stuff

Why is it that household objects look so good re-purposed as garden art? No matter if sculpture is made of metal, stone or jello molds, static pieces play beautifully off the flowers and foliage changing all around them. Plants burgeon up, leaf out, bud, bloom, fruit, and die down while art pretty much stays the same except for a little weathering around the edges. Langley has been beautified in recent years by the work of sculptor John Alsip, who winters in Santa Fe and summers on Whidbey Island.

Here's how John, who has turned an abandoned house into his studio, describes his work: "I practice the art of re-assemblage in which a three dimensional artistic composition is created by putting recycled and natural materials together.  A form of abstract expressionism.  I work in experimental sculptural concepts.  The process is evolutionary and the inspiration is 'material driven'."

His bits-and-pieces work is popping up all over town in alleys, public and private gardens, in front of the local realtor in Langley Village....it's colorful, textural, fun, made of found materials, and draws us all in to admire the gardens more closely.

Old lamps amidst the shrubbery

An inspired mix of throw-aways turned into a garden focal point along 2nd Ave. in downtown Langley

 

Wall art along a shady pathway is reminiscent of a dressed-up hubcap

Langley City Hall, a brick building so plain and simple in shape it always reminds me of a child's crayon drawing of a building, is enlivened by Alsip's imagination and artistry.

Everyday Bouquets - Last of the Lilies

I cut a few late lilies and brought them inside to prolong their beauty and perfume as long as possible....I just can't believe another lily season is past. I'd resolved not to plant any more this fall, as my little garden is overwhelmed with lily blossom and scent in late July and early August - yet I'm already plotting where just a few more bulbs can be squeezed into the ground come November....

Keep the vase simple when dealing with such extravagant flowers. This glossy cylinder is plain enough in shape yet strong enough in color to work beautifully with lilies (it's amber color also compliments blue and purple mophead hydrangeas).

It's difficult to mix lilies with other flowers, for smaller blossoms are diminished by the blatant boldness of lilies. Large or showy flowers merely compete in a way that doesn't do justice to either - I tried tucking a few snowy heads of 'Annabelle' hydrangeas in here and it looked like a couple of prima donnas ready to duke it out. Yet one single kind of lily seemed less than exciting....so I stuck in several kinds of different sizes, with some purple clematis tumbling down the side of the vase for a contrast in texture and shape. The deep velvety color of the clematis shows off the lily's luminescent silkiness, and the vine's lax drapiness balances out the stiff uprightness of the lily stems.

Can't you just smell this bouquet? How I wish you had a scratch-and-sniff screen so the sweetness of the lilies would waft off your computer as you read...

 

The bi-colored stunner in front is 'American West', a long-blooming, supremely fragrant Orienpet.

Vegetable Art & Pigs - County Fair Time

The County Fair in Langley continues through Sunday, August 22nd, with music, food, flowers, proud children showing off their pet animals, horse shows, alpaca obstacle courses and inexplicable vegetable art. Education, rural traditions and character and hucksterism come together to create a lovely, leisurely atmosphere of childhood summers...and the smell...a unique brew of cotton candy and animals.The fairgrounds themselves, with old log cabins, barns, stables and sawdust display rings is like stepping back in time - what would summer be without strawberry shortcake from the fair?

Take a look at a few of my favorite scenes, then come to Langley and pet a few pigs....

Notice these two vegetable constructions are prize-winners...this I just can't figure out...

 

A proud bird..

Chicken experts are on hand to answer questions, and kids are there to tell you all about their own birds

Patient sheep - only the pigs were stirring up trouble...

And an entire barn full of prized flowers, all carefully labeled....

Rainbarrel? Nope, Watering Can

I spotted these ingenious pieces of artwork that function as water catchment while visiting the Anacortes Arts and Crafts Fair weekend before last. Believe me, we could see that they work beautifully, for it was raining like crazy all afternoon. It's a surprise to come on huge, crayon-colored watering cans attached to the sides of a warehouse on Commercial Avenue near the water...they dribble water down into freshly planted rain gardens all around the building...

Chickens, Multiplied

Yesterday, after heavy lobbying by chicken advocates, the Seattle City Council approved increasing the number of chickens allowed in the city from three to eight birds per lot. I'd say that's a flock! It's bad for the boys, though - no new roosters allowed, although existing roosters are grandfathered in. 

For urban farms and community gardens, which also won a victory as part of our city's Year of Urban Agriculture, additional chickens may be possible. Already existing chicken coops can stay put; new coops need to be located ten feet away from houses.

The Seattle Times reports that the new amendments to the city land use code, allowing the growth and sale of food crops throughout the city, are some of the most progressive in the country. The ordinance is designed to spur the growth of farmers markets around the city, and it also allows food to be grown in rooftop greenhouses. I love the thought of living in the city where parking strips (as long as the plants are kept below a couple of feet in height), rooftops and gardens are filled with vegetables, herbs and fruit, but my favorite part of the debate was a comment by council member Tom Rasmussen. The SLOG reports that Rasmussen reminded everyone that existing roosters had been grandfathered in so that they could "live out their lives in dignity and peace." Now veggies in parking strips is one thing, but it's a truly progressive city where the dignity of roosters is considered important.

August Attractions

A piercingly simple line in local author Stephanie Kallos's book "Broken for You" sent me out in the garden with my camera this morning. "Stay true to what attracts you," becomes a touchstone for a mosaic artist in the novel, but could any mantra be more useful and heartfelt for a gardener? How better to both appreciate and edit our gardens than to remain true to what attracts us most...

If the sun hadn't broken through the fog, I would have photographed the tiny champagne scented alpine strawberries, multi-colored lettuces, raspberries, basil and tomatoes (finally!!); as it was, I just had time to capture a few of the flowers stirring my heart and keeping me gardening during the dog days of summer...

'Blue Billow' lacecap hydrangea growing in a tall, amber-colored pot

You'd expect the brilliant yellow of ligularia flowers, held high above the leaves, to look garish against the burnished near-black of the foliage (what the slugs and snails have left of it)....but in fact the dark stems and foliage set off the yellow in a cheerful way...

I love the old-fashioned look of sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) and how long the flowers last in a vase....they're covered with eager honeybees

It takes a clematis as vigorous as this deep purple Polish type to hold its own climbing a golden smoke bush (Cotinus x coggygria 'Golden Spirit')

 

Dragon lilies growing up through the burgundy leaves of Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy'

 

And a close up of these exquisitely fragrant, long-lasting drama queen lilies....