Plant Talk

A Pair of Sequim Lavender Festivals Means Summer Has Really Arrived

For all things fragrant, purple and lavender, Sequim is the place, and July 15-17 are the dates .A jaunt over to Sequim in mid-July is a chance to steep in summer - something we're all craving this year. But this annual festival has become a little confusing - now there are two tours and events going on the same weekend, both in Sequim, and both featuring lavender in all its glories.

Here's what's changed for 2011:

"For the past 14 years, the tour of destination lavender farms was affiliated with the Sequim Lavender Festival. Starting this year, it will be a part of the new Lavender Farm Faire, with tour bus access from a new location. The Sequim Lavender Festival will now feature a self-guided driving tour of some of Sequim’s small lavender farms. The two events are unaffiliated, but both will take place on the same weekend. The Lavender Farmers Association is working to mitigate visitor confusion by getting a clear message out about the change. Sequim Lavender Farmers have moved their show to Carrie Blake Park. It'll still feature the Lavender Farm Tour, including 60 acres of lavender on six farms, more than 80,000 lavender plants and 200,000 lavender plants for sale. Activities in the park will include lavender-themed food, crafts, music, workshops, and demonstrations."

Got that? I'm not sure I do, but here's a list of farms participating in the tour: Cedarbrook Lavender & Herb Farm, Olympic Lavender Farm, Port Williams Lavender, Sunshine Herb & Lavender Farm, Purple Haze Lavender Farm and Sunshine Lavender Farm. A sixth farm, Washington Lavender, will make its tour debut this year.

Sequim’s Carrie Blake Park will be transformed into Lavender in the Park, a central hub for the weekend, with live music performances, rolling lawns, gardens, plenty of parking and easy access off Hwy. 101. The venue will also serve as the Farm Tour Bus Depot, connecting visitors with the farms.

Yellow Lavender - A Captivating Contradiction

Have you seen the new yellow rabbit ears lavender that smells like summer and shimmers in the sunshine?  Lemon Leigh Spanish Lavender (Lavandula stoechas 'Lemon Leigh') has the most intensely fragrant foliage I've ever encountered in a lavender. The flowers vary from soft butter yellow to nearly chartreuse set against silvery gray foliage....and it's supposed to flower prolifically all summer long.

For all of us that lost our rabbit ears lavender the last couple of cold, wet winters, this cultivar is supposed to be hardy to zone 7....so theoretically if you plant it in well-drained soil, 'Lemon Leigh' will make it through the winter. It'll grow into a dense mound two feet tall and as wide, topped with pale little blossoms ideal for cutting for arrangements and garnishing plates. Inhaling the spicy, Mediterranean fragrance will clear your sinuses and cheer your mood....I potted my 'Lemon Leigh' up in a dark green pot and put it by the front door to enjoy; in autumn I'll plant it in a bright, sheltered spot in the garden and see if it really will survive a Northwest winter....if not, this beauty is worth growing as an annual for its fragrance and unusual colorations.

 

 

Diggin' It

A "To Do" list is a gardener's constant companion, particularly in early spring when chores are as numerous as slugs on a hosta. It's always fun, and sometimes inspiring, to hear what other gardeners are up to.. so please chime in with what's top of your list these days.

Here's what I'm working on this weekend:

 I'm finally planting the bulbs I bought from B&D Lilies at the F&G Show which were sprouting in their bags and desperate to get in the ground. I popped the double Oriental 'Lodewijk' (left) into pots on the deck to be seen and smelled close up; the half dozen Asiatic, June-blooming 'Kentucky' (below) went in along a new little evergreen hedge where I hope their melon color will shine.

 

I seeded a bunch of Dianna's purple poppy (P. somniferum 'Paeoniflorum') along the sides of my gravel driveway where the plan is it'll be happy enough in the sun and drought to re-seed itself. Yes, this is the opium poppy that put Dorothy and friends to sleep in "The Wizard of Oz',  a dark, ruffled beauty with gray-green foliage. I also tossed out seed given to me by friends for a giant pod poppy that is supposed to be great in flower arrangements....

More time consuming is pruning back my lavender hedges by nearly 2/3 to keep them from splaying and becoming woody. The bonus to this job is the intense, summer-redolent scent of the foliage as you clip it. I'm also pruning hydrangeas, cutting out about a third of the old canes on the mop heads (H. macrophylla), while cutting back the entire 'Annabelle' plant, since it blooms on new wood and tends to get leggy.

Most fun is planting baby lettuce starts,  sweet peas, purple-podded peas, 'Cascadia' snow peas, and herbs like lemon verbena, Greek oregano, cilantro and mint, safely secured in a pot to keep it from taking over the garden. 

All the promise of spring in a dozen sweet peas just starting to climb their cage, and plenty of colored little lettuces, arugula and spinach. The lettuce will be ready to start snipping in just a few weeks, and the sweet peas, with a little encouragement from the weather, should bloom by mid-June.

 

Really and Truly Dead

I'm still discovering, and being surprised by, which plants didn't survive the December deep freeze. Still in the wait-and-see category is Viburnum tinus 'Spring Bouquet' - sure, part of the shrub is alive and blooming, but most is so brown and wilted I'm afraid I'm going to have to chop it down to a nubbins. And how about all those brown carexes and pheasant grasses (Anemanthele lessoniana)? I don't remember them looking quite so sorry most springs....but I'm hopeful I'll see signs of life any day now. I'm holding off on yanking them....and I've cut out a good part of my prostrate rosemary, but the remaining skeleton seems to be holding on to its leaves and even blooming anemically.  

But I can't ignore the sad fact that my little hedges of Spanish, or rabbit's ear lavender (Lavender stoechas) are truly dead and have to go. These bi-color, early-blooming lavenders with their appealing rabbit-eared blossoms are my favorites, and I'll replace them, one more time anyway....

On a happier note, if you're in Langley or up for a jaunt to Whidbey Island tomorrow morning, I'm giving a talk about how to be an artist in your own garden, and answering questions about gardening, at Museo Gallery on First Street at 11:30 a.m. Join us to see the gallery's garden art show, meander across the street to the charming Chocolate Flower Farm shop (The Garden Shed), visit a couple of the island's great nurseries (Bayview Farm and Garden and Cultus Bay) and join in the celebration to welcome the whales to Langley, which includes a parade down First Street.

Here's a photo of Bridget in the garden, looking a little sad herself about the dead little lavender hedges edging the raised beds behind her - by this afternoon they'll be history...

 

Vashon Island gardens...

It was snowing when I left Queen Anne hill on Friday morning, but the sun beamed through before I'd reached Vashon Island. I was scouting a story about the Vashon garden tour (June 27 & 28). Organizers have recruited some very special gardens this year - stay tuned for a story and photos in Pacific Northwest mag in early June.

Vashon Island is gorgeous this time of year - pastures full of pygmy goats, horses, and llamas, sweeps of fruit trees in hazy white and pink bloom. Here are a few of the spring sights, and a teaser for the garden tour....

If you think you're behind on pruning back your lavender, imagine the task ahead of this Vashon gardener with an entire front landscape of lavender....

A labyrinth in tour chair Anita Halstead's front garden - what a great way to cover the ground

I wonder if gardeners on Vashon realize how lucky they are to have such a stylish and well-stocked nursery as DIG Floral and Garden, which is one of my favorite nurseries anywhere....Proprietors Sylvia Matlock and Ross Johnson have created a destination full of cool plants and clever ideas...here are a couple of DIG scenes: a water feature made of sewer pipes, and a little outdoor seating area on gravel - shows that  a great outdoor rug can create a comfy scene just about anywhere...
 

Narcissus in full bloom, and one of many pebble mosaics in one of the tour gardens.