Plant Talk

Now In Bloom - Native Flowering Currant

March is the month when our native flowering currant bursts into hot pink, pale pink or frosty white bloom. These big gangley shrubs are drenched in delicate blossoms with a slightly musky odor. Their summer leaves are maple-like, in winter they're not much more than bundles of bare sticks. But plant these shrubs for early spring color, uniquely pretty flowers, and for the fact that they're an early and vital source of nectar for our native Anna's hummingbirds. There are few more stirring early spring scenes than grateful hummingbirds swarming a flowering currant in your back garden.

Plant Ribes sanguineum 'White Icicle' in a little grove of at least three plants to give its ethereal, pure white blooms a real presence in the garden. I once saw a thick band of 'White Icicle' planted along an entry walkway, and the pale, shimmery haze of the blossoms was spectacular. The more vivid watermelon pink kinds like 'King Edward VII' are stand alone plants that show up all the way across the garden. R. sanguineum glutinosum 'Claremont' (below) has soft pink and white blossoms that are particularly pretty.

These Northwest natives prefer full sun but will take partial shade, need well-drained soil, and are drought tolerant after a few years. When first planted, water them during droughty periods; flowering currants do best with little or no fertilizer and they don't need pruning unless you want to control their size.

 

Land Bridge - natives & art....

Next time you're traveling south on I-5, it's worth getting off the freeway at Fort Vancouver (just before the Oregon border) to walk across the new land bridge that's one of seven sites in Maya Lin's Convergence Project. Designed by JohnPaul Jones, it's a feat of engineering, an historic restoration project, an art installation, and a showcase for Northwest native plants. It's so delightful to walk across the bridge's packed earth and basket-weave patterned surface, that it's easy to forget the bridge serves the vital purpose of re-connecting the old fort to the Columbia River waterfront.

The land bridge is forty feet wide and so organically curvaceous that as the plants grow up you'll feel submerged in nature and forget how disturbed this beautiful, historic site has been for so long.....The bridge was completed in August, 2008 and cost $12.25 million dollars. Thanks to Maya Lin's vision, the connection between fort and river, interrupted for a hundred years by the railroad and highway, has been quite literally bridged.

Basketry-patterned paving

Interpretive panels explaining the history, landscape and plants of the surrounding prairies

 Welcome gate designed by Native American artist Lillian Pitt 

Art and Plants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Tis the Season

A swell of plants sales bulges our calendars over the next few weeks. And they're such fun, with a party atmosphere, vendors to chat with about the plants they're selling, and tempting offerings you might well not find anywhere else. Most of these sales contribute to a good cause and/or worthy organization.

It's possible, as many of us probably know all too well, to spend more than we ever intended, buying more plants than we have time or room to plant. So go armed with a list, don't drink too much coffee beforehand, and limit yourself to a special favorite few sales a year. Here are a few highlights, and a link to the Miller Library  complete list of plants sales, kept updated by the staff.

The season kicks off with the Washington Park Arboretum's Early Bloomers Sale tomorrow, Saturday April 11, from 10 to 2. This is a sweet, reasonably sized sale filled with early blooming perennials like trilliums, pulmonaria and epimediums, as well as trees and shrubs. Early Bloomers gives you an excuse to go to the Arboretum (it's held outside the Visitors Center) and see the cherry trees in bloom.

 The granddaddy of all plant sales is the Arboretum extravaganza known as FlorAbundance, a three-ring circus of a plant sale filled with a nearly overwhelming profusion of plants. This year will feature edibles, phormiums, salvias, and native plants...and just about any other plant you've ever heard of, and many you probably haven't. Get a good sleep the night before, arrive early, and expect to be sorely tempted. FlorAbundance is held at Building 30 at Warren G. Magnuson Park on Saturday April 25 & Sunday April 26. There's a preview party for members the night before (worth joining the Arboretum Foundation to attend). Call 325-4510 for tickets or see the Arboretum web page for details. 

Two fabulous edible plant sales, filled with varieties selected for our climate, heirlooms, organic starts, and more different kinds of tomatoes than you ever knew existed, are held the first weekend in May. The  Master Gardener sale and Tilth's Edible Plant Sale are the sales to stock up for your P-Patch, containers, kitchen garden, or urban farm.

The best selection of native plants anywhere, grown by the people who can tell you all about them, happens at the Bellevue Botanical Garden on May 9, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Find the plant list on the Washington Native Plant Society web page, bring your own trays or boxes, and be prepared to be more thrilled by native plants than you ever thought possible.

Spring at the Sculpture Park

In that brief burst of lovely Sunday sunshine, I headed for the Olympic Sculpture Park to see how this very exposed site had weathered winter. Maybe the gardeners have already done lots of clean up, but it looks as if the native plants came through a very tough season unscathed.

No matter your opinion of the meadows and mostly native plant palette (and there have been more disparaging voices than I can understand) I think you'll be impressed at how the plants are doing, from the blaze of flowering currants (Ribes sanguineum) now in full bloom, to the 'Eddie's White Wonder' dogwoods that will be the glory of the park in a month or so. As the layers and grids of plants grow up and fill in you can really begin to understand landscape architect Charles Anderson's design.

Most of all, on a sunny spring afternoon, the sculpture park is one of the most successful public spaces in Seattle.  People were playing cribbage and chess at outside tables, chairs were filled with people basking in the sun, couples, kids and dogs promenaded the paths. I have to admit I spun in place to watch a stylish young couple with a brace of Standard apricot poodles strut past. It was such genius to make the park free, open, and so welcoming, especially when the sun comes out after weeks of rain. Enjoy the scene, and I'm sorry I didn't whip my camera out fast enough to capture those poodles...

The grove of alders

People enjoying the view and sun at the Olympic Sculpture Park on Sunday afternoon

Ribes sanguineum in full flower; one of the earliest bloomers to feed our native hummingbirds