In the Cottage Garden

Snow? Are You Kidding Me?

2009-02-11T00:32:11Z

This is what I woke up to this morning. Snow. I know what you're thinking. It's February. Snow + February = Normal, right? But not here, friends, not here! This is the Pacific Northwest for goodness sake. It just doesn't snow here that often. I mean, sure, it does, but not like this! Or this? Insanity.

Honestly I don't have all that much to complain about. It was just a dusting and it's all gone now. It's just the principle of the thing. I'm supposed to be extending the veg garden, starting seeds, and admiring my emerging daffodils! Of course, last week when it was 55 degrees and sunny I was too sick to go outside. Sigh. I know, I'm whining. I'll suck it up, I promise. But for now, can I just say: "Waaaaahhhhh!" I guess I'm just really really really really really really ready for spring. What about you?

Saturday Survey: Week 6

2009-02-09T00:17:17Z

This year, inspired by a series of photos from my old house, I'm keeping a weekly series of photos in my garden, and I'm calling it Saturday Survey. I take pictures every Saturday, and I post the most recent one on the first Saturday of each month. As you can see, compared to January's post, not much has changed. I cleaned up the beds a little but that's about it.

Except, wait, wait a minute.... those daffodils have definitely gotten bigger. Very exciting. I can't wait to show this bed bursting forth with flowers and birds and butterflies all season. I also can't wait to see if my planting scheme is going to work out the way it worked in my head.

The other thing that caught my eye was this little patch of rock cress in the half-barrel at the base of the bamboo. It seems so fresh and alive.
The big thing that keeps bugging me is the open back (to the far left in the top photo). Since I chose not to have a lot of structure across the back of this bed, the dog keeps wandering across it (and worse). So I'm considering some kind of barrier across the back. Espaliered something. Or open fence something. It has to be skinny because I planted all the way to the back. Hmmmm.....

Rose Garden, Plan

2009-01-19T21:49:00Z

I am so proud of myself. I actually drew a to-scale plan for the future rose garden. I am usually a garden-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of person, but lately I've been craving a bit more organization. I'm tired of having a plant ghetto, for one thing. But also I'd like this garden to have some underlying structure and symmetry, and for that I felt that a drawing was the best option.

At the bottom of the garden is the shed, which I hope to make into a summer house / planting shed / getaway of some time. But it cuts the corner out of the space, so I filled in next to it with a large grape arbor, which both provides a great feature (both for the grapes and the arbor), and also then creates a boundary forming a nearly square area in the center of the space.

And in the center, a parterre of raised beds with an weeping willow-leaf pear as a center focal point (Pyrus salicifolia 'Pendula'). I already have this tree and I'm excited to give it a good home. Poor thing has been moved about a dozen times. I've got peaches in the corners, and the rest will be roses, herbs and perennials. I've got room for 12 roses and 8 climbers. I'm so happy! Of course, I can't afford to put this all in at once. But I can chip away at it. First step is to get the pear tree settled asap, before it leafs out. Oh yes, and figure how to organize the roses. I have a list of roses started, thanks to all of you (thank you!). I'm going with all pinks (both light and dark) and yellows/apricots for colors. But do I mix them all up? Do blocks of a color family together? I've got the corners and the climbers and I want something that's harmonious and soothing. Hmmmm.... P.S. For those of you wondering about my Saturday Survey, yes, I'm still doing it. And I am taking pictures every Saturday. But there's not a whole lot different in a week, so I'll post an update on the first Saturday of each month. Feel free to join in! :-)

Rose Garden, Before

2009-01-08T06:03:19Z

One of the things I've promised myself at my new house is a rose garden. And by that, I don't mean neat rows of hybrid teas. I mean a romantic, lush, dripping-with-blooms-of-all-kinds garden. You know: roses, perennials, the whole smash. This is the place I want to put it, and what it looked like when we bought the house. It looks about the same now, just darker because it's winter.

This part of the yard has great southern exposure, so I think the roses will do well.

On the whole, it's a pretty blank slate.

The house came with this shed, which I'm hoping to convert to some kind of fair-weather getaway, since all my garden tools are in the vegetable garden anyway.

And of course there must be arbors and secret pathways and all of that.
I've been working on a plan, so I'll share that soon. But meanwhile, I'm daydreaming about roses! Climbing ones, English ones, fragrant ones... I'm looking for romantic colors and an unfussy nature. Any favorites?

Saturday Survey: Week 1

2009-01-04T02:04:27Z

I got such a kick out of looking through the series of monthly photos from my old garden, that I decided to keep a series at my new garden. I'm calling it "Saturday Survey" and I'm going to take a photo every Saturday from the same spot, so I can see how the garden progresses over the year, what blooms when, and hopefully learn something. I decided to focus on my newly installed Bird & Butterfly garden because there's enough going on to have something to look at, but is new enough to still need work/evaluation. Then I found a place in the garden to take a picture that I can repeat every week by kneeling at the entrance to the veggie garden.

You can see that I took my lesson from the old series, and in this border I've chosen a golden bamboo in a half-barrel instead of the maiden grass I used before. We'll see if it's a better choice.

Clearly the garden is a mess, and there's still some construction going on, but for today I was mostly interested in seeing what survived our unusual snowfall. And not only did I find new growth on several perennials, but I also found these: the tips of daffodils! Spring is coming! I'm so happy.

I'll post another photo in this series next Saturday. And feel free to join in if you want to! Best, Plants: Golden Bamboo - Phyllostachys aurea Daffodils - Narcissus

Back Border Time Series Photos

2009-01-03T05:20:25Z

At my last house, I had this great idea to take a series of photos of my garden from the same vantage point for an entire year. The year I chose to do this (2007) we ended up moving, but even though I only got seven photos, they turned out to be quite interesting. I'd expected to be interested in the documentation of the plantings, but I was happily surprised how educational they were for me. Here they are (click on any photo to enlarge):

January Right off I notice that while there's nice forms from the dried maiden grass and sedum, they're totally carrying the border. As soon as they're gone, the border is going to be overly flat. And look at how cluttered it looks with the many garden art items, which are all too small. I was trying to solve the structure problem, I think, but it came out cluttered.

February Clearly I knew instinctively that the grass and sedum were carrying the border, because during my early Spring clean-up, I didn't cut either of them back all the way, despite it clashing with the emerging bulbs. Wow, that does not look good to me now.

March: Ah, Spring! The daffodils are in bloom. At this point, though, it would have been better to cut my losses and remove the dried grass and sedum and found some other way to provide height and structure to that middle section before the grass fills out.

April Finally, the dead stuff is gone! Goodness, I've learned that lesson! :-) Though flat, I do still like this border. I like how the bright tulips are calling attention, so you don't notice the fading daff foliage while the other perennials fill in. And I like the contrast of the daff foliage to the other plants there. I always worry so much about the daffs leaving gaps, but this is working. I'll have to remember that.

May Okay, now we've got irises, some Dalmation and some Siberian. Love irises. Still have that big ol' gappy look, in the middle there, though.

June Finally! We have height! :-) It's hard to tell from the picture, but through the middle of summer this border had quite a few daylilies, orange and purple. This is where I discovered that I love purple and orange together. Who knew? I would have never known if I hadn't chucked the passalong ditch lilies in the back there for additional height.

August Oh, that blasted grass! It's completely swamped the sedum. Which I love. I love the grass, too, but I don't think it was the best choice here. Looking back, I would have chosen something else, maybe one of my half-barrels of golden bamboo or a variegated elderberry. Either would have given the height while still maintaining some winter structure. And not swamping the sedum. I do love the echinacea everywhere, though it's kind of hanging out there by itself. Now I would try to include another late-season plant to create more interest. Wow, that was fun and educational (for me, anyway). I enjoyed that so much that I've decided to do a series this year, but this time I'm going to shoot the photos every week, starting tomorrow. In the morning I'll shoot my first photo of the year and post it. I think this is going to be fun! Plants: Variegated Maidengrass - Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' Showy Stonecrop - Sedum 'Matrona' Daffodils - Narcissus 'King Alfred' and 'Salome' Dalmation Iris - Iris pallida 'Aurea Variegata' Sibirian Iris - Iris sibirica Ditch Lilies - Hemerocallis fulva Little Grapette Daylilies - Hemerocallis 'Little Grapette' Golden Bamboo - Phyllostachys aurea Variegated Elderberry - Sambucus nigra 'Marginata' Purple Coneflower - Echinacea purpurea

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T08:00:00Z

Happy New Year!!! I think this photo captures perfectly how I'm feeling about 2009: exuberant, colorful and full of life. May your upcoming year be as bright as you can imagine! My Very Best, I love this garden. Unfortunately it's not mine--I wish! I took this photo while on my local garden tour last summer. Equally as unfortunately, I forgot the name of the rose there in the middle. If anyone has a guess, let me know!

Top Ten Garden Photos From 2008

2008-12-30T04:26:29Z

In the spirit of "end of the year" posts, I thought it would be nice to post my top ten favorite photos from this year. These aren't necessarily my best photos, but they're definitely my favorites for one reason or another. Here they are chronologically:

In March I posted Signs of Spring that featured these peach and yellow primroses. Every time I run across this shot it makes me smile. It was one of the very first spots of color I was able to add to the blank slate of my new yard.

In April I got all gooey over the Kwanzan Cherry (Prunus serrulata "Kwanzan") blossoms, after delightfully discovering a fairly sizable one in my neighbors yard. One of my favorite flowering trees, I was thrilled to see it.

In May I discovered that the only other tree in my new yard besides the pear was this flowering pink dogwood, which I included in my May "What's Blooming" post.

In June I started to see blooms from the plants I had brought to the new garden, including this beautiful Sarah Bernhardt Peony (Paeonia 'Sarah Bernhardt'). Love those.

July brought another fantastic discovery. I inherited this spectacular monster of a clematis in my new garden. I just love clematis, and the color on this one was lovely. Don't know which one it is, but I love how it engulfs the back fence.

In my September "What's Blooming" post I showed off some spires of "Tutti Frutti" Hummingbird Mint (Agastache x 'Tutti Frutti'). It was my first time growing it and so rewarding! It just bloomed and bloomed for months, and attracted so many hummingbirds. If we sat quietly enough they would hover right next to us.

The weather this year was odd from one end to the other. We had such a late start on everything that we had our major harvest of tomatoes in October. October! So I included them in my October "What's Blooming" post.

November's "What's Blooming" post featured the gorgeous foliage on my newest favorite tree, the "Green Vase" Japanese Zelkova tree (Zelkova serrata 'Green Vase'). I planted three along the sidewalk in front of my house, and having never had them before was a little unsure, but they're very graceful and this fall foliage really convinced me I chose well. I can't wait to see how well they fill out in 2009.

My final "What's Blooming" post of the year was December, and included this shot of one of my favorite evergreens, Parney cotoneaster (Cotoneaster lacteus). It gets overlooked but it can be trained into a wall without additional support and such a profusion of berries. I have three that I still haven't settled on a final spot for. But I loved this photo.

Of course, no 2008 retrospective from the Pacific Northwest would be complete without photos of our bizarre snow. Not that we never have snow. We do. Occasionally. But this year we had snow and snow and snow and more snow. For days! With temperatures in the teens! I know for many of you that's very ho-hum, but for us, completely baffling.
I think those are my favorites for the year. I didn't spend nearly as much time gardening as I had hoped to, and I realized that wasn't healthy for me. So I'm refocusing on it for the year upcoming. Thanks to all of you for sticking with me this year, though I didn't post as much as I would have liked to. I'm rarin' to go for 2009--this is going to be a great year!! What about you? Do you have favorites from 2008? Hopes for 2009?

What's Blooming: December 2008

2008-12-29T04:35:39Z

Just a quick note, my gardening posts have moved here, In the Cottage Garden, so that I can focus on gardening. You can find me here from now on! :-) Can you believe these roses blooming in the middle of December? The neighbor told me she's had roses from the garden on her table for Christmas, and I wasn't sure I believed her. Now I do. If it hadn't been for the freak snowstorm we had, these would have been on my table Christmas day. This mystery rose has been blooming non-stop since June, if you can believe that.

Several other roses are also blooming, and there's stragglers on the hydrangeas. This hebe is also throwing off a few blooms, too (Hebe 'Ritt'). But as remarkable as the flowers are, this time of year I'm most excited about all of the foliage and berry color...

...like the leaves of this coral bell (Heuchera 'Can Can')....

...or this purple ornamental kale.

I also love the bright splashes of color in this variegated mourning widow geranium (Geranium phaeum 'Variegatum'). I've been propogating it all over the shady parts of my garden.

I was really surprised by the color in this azalea. It was a freebie from a friend who was digging it out. I don't even know what color it blooms yet. But the winter color is lovely.

Of course, one of my favorite winter interest plants is cotoneaster, and I brought several with me from the other house. This one, Parney cotoneaster (Cotoneaster lacteus) is great for training onto (or into) a wall, with big leathery leaves and a stunning amount of berries when mature.

My PeeGee hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata 'Grandiflora') has lovely brown mopheads, dried on the plant. I left them on for interest, so I'll have to be careful when I prune this Spring so I don't lop off the new buds.

But speaking of buds, here's my most favorite thing to see this time of year. Buds on the trees. This is a plum tree from my veg garden, and it just makes me so happy! Spring is coming! I know, not for months. But it's coming!
What about you? What's your favorite thing to see in your winter garden? This post is a part of the DecemberGarden Bloggers Bloom Day, sponsored each month by May Dreams Gardens.

Yet More Snow!!!

2008-12-22T19:04:15Z

I know that for all of you in snow country, we PNWers seem like big babies with the snow we're having. But while this is business as usual for a lot of you, it's completely, totally and utterly bizarre for us. I mean, sure, we get snow every year or so, for a day or so. But we're on, what, our 9th straight day of snow? And it's still snowing! It's a couple of feet deep now. My driveway is buried. That's an SUV bumper, there.

My backyard dining area is buried.

My shed is buried.

My veg garden is buried. Take note, there are foot high raised beds in there. Under there.
Madness, shear madness! My last set of photos of the snow were pretty, and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but honestly, I'm kinda ready for it to be gone. Maybe more than kinda. Where's my garden!??? Happy Holidays!

Snow!

2008-12-20T20:13:58Z

You've probably heard that we're having unusual amounts of cold and snowy weather here in the Pacific Northwest. It's been snowstorm after snowstorm for, what, 8 days now? I know for a lot of you out there, this is business as usual. But for us, it's completely and utterly astounding.

When I woke up yesterday morning, the snow had fallen so heavy and thick it covered everything and flocked all the trees. I've never seen anything like it.

Usually if we get a bad storm, (which we only do every few years), we get ice. Not this. It's beautiful.

I got up early because I wanted to get pictures before anyone else came out. Lucky for me, this time of year the sun rises late and doesn't peek over the neighboring trees until 9:00 a.m. or so.

Sunshine this time of year is also unusual. Normally it's just grey and rainy for months on end. So to see both is such a treat.

Honestly, unless I move to some other part of the country, I may never see scenes like this again. And also, honestly, as beautiful as it is, this morning I was ready to have it melt and go back to my year-round gardening.

Except guess what it's doing today? Again? That's right. Unbelievable!
Supposedly it'll all be gone by Christmas. Which is a little ironic. But in the meantime, my son and I invented some new lyrics for a familiar winter-time song: The weather outside is frightful, but the cookies so delightful As long as we've got some dough, Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Well the cookies are nice and warm, Fresh and gooey and hot, I could go outside and play but then again, maybe not! And so on... The sugar kicks in at this point, and we get a little random with the lyrics, but you get the idea. Happy Holidays!

What's Blooming: November 2008

2008-11-20T02:37:01Z

Sunny days are a rarity here in the Pacific Northwest, so I appreciate each precious one. The bright blue sky looks so beautiful behind the fall colors on this "Green Vase" Japanese Zelkova tree (Zelkova serrata 'Green Vase') I planted last fall. I planted three of these across the front of my property as street trees, and I can't wait for them to grow.

I also planted this teeny tiny unnamed japanese maple. Isn't it adorable? It's not one of the weeping types, it's a tall, vase-shaped tree that I planted outside my living room window. I can just imagine how pretty it will be when it's big.

The one pre-existing tree is the namesake of my home, Pear Tree Cottage. I love these gnarled old trunks and how the tree is centered on our family room window for a year-round view.

The rest of the garden continues to amaze me with late season blooms. Especially the roses, I'm astounded by the roses. My neighbor has told me that she has had bouquets of home-grown roses on her Christmas table, and I'm starting to believe her. Some of things still going are: 1. Mystery rose 2. Brazilian sage (Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue') 3. "Tutti Frutti" Hummingbird Mint (Agastache x 'Tutti Frutti') 4. Hebe 'Patty's Purple' 5. Mystery hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla) 6. Mystery, volunteer sunflower (Helianthus annuus) 7. Bacopa (Sutera cordata, not sure of the variety) 8. Pincushion flower (Scabiosa caucasica) 9. Black stem hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla 'Nigra') What about you? Do you have a favorite tree? Have you planted any or were they already there? This post is a part of the November Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, sponsored each month by May Dreams Gardens.

Foxglove Seedlings

2008-11-09T01:54:16Z

I love, love, love foxgloves. They are one of the classic, top ten cottage flowers, in my book. I've had them in all of my gardens, including the entry garden at Valentine Cottage. Naturally I brought some with me to Pear Tree Cottage. They didn't bloom well, probably the transplanting, and I didn't think about them again until the other day when I was outside and noticed a green haze around each plant.

Guess what I found? Seedlings! Hundreds upon hundreds of foxglove seedlings.
I am SO happy! I'm sure I won't have room for them all, but I certainly won't be lacking in foxgloves. I've never had such good luck with anything self-sowing before. I'm so excited! I hope some of them come up purple like the ones I had before. What about you? What are your best self-sowers?

What's Blooming: October 2008

2008-10-16T03:30:05Z

Fall is well and truly here in the Pacific Northwest. How can I tell? Not the position of the sun, the turning leaves, or the crisp cool air. I can tell because ornamental Kale looks absolutely beautiful to me. I have some in my containers out front, and the crinkly leaves have such lovely color, I was mesmerized.

As I think I've said before (repeatedly), this has been an odd year. The garden has been odd, too. Case in point: this basket of tomatoes. We just harvested these last week--our plants were loaded with them. Our tomatoes only started turning in mid September, and the plants were still loaded with green fruit when the frost hit.

I've also been surprised at the roses continuing to bloom. I found this floribunda, "Guy de Maupassant" (Rosa 'Guy de Maupassant'), on clearance at a big box store a few months ago, and it smelled fantastic. I picked up four of them for $2 each. I love plant clearance.

The hydrangeas have managed to put out a last few blooms, like this new one I found, "Sun Goddess" (Hydrangea macrophylla 'Yellowleaf'), which has chartreuse leaves and seems to handle the sun better than most.

Then there's the classic Nikko Blue (Hydrangea macrophylla 'Nikko Blue'). It looks so pretty, glowing blue in the shade by the shed.

This Brazilian sage (Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue'), is something I've not grown before. I saw the gorgeous deep blue color in a friend's garden last year and snagged a cutting. Now I've got two and they're going strong.

I left the Bacopa (Sutera cordata, not sure of the variety) in the containers--it's so healthy and I can't believe how many blooms are on it this time of year.

This ephemeral thing is actually a weed. I found it growing in the garden over the summer, and finally identified it online as a field weed called Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria). But I think it's pretty, and it's exactly like the cultivated verbascum I bought this year except yellow instead of purple. So I found a spot for it. We'll see how my experiment works out.
How about you? Do you have things blooming that you weren't expecting to in October? This post is a part of the October Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, sponsored each month by May Dreams Gardens.

What's Blooming: September 2008

2008-09-16T04:43:59Z

This month, I'm once again reminded of how maligned peonies are as a multi-season plant. Everyone loves peonies, but many dismiss them as a one-hit wonder. I couldn't disagree more. Their green foliage provides a lovely counterpoint to other flowers through the summer, and their fall colors are drop-dead gorgeous. Case in point, the peony foliage in the photo above. Isn't that pretty?

Blooming in September were several hydrangeas, including this beautiful blue mystery that was here when I bought the house. It's huge and multi-crowned, so I'm going to divide it this fall and spread the hydrangea love.

My treasured Pee Gee standard (Hydrangea paniculata 'Grandiflora') also bloomed. I have it on the covered patio with all the other white flowers.

The achillea (Achillea millefolium 'Cerise Queen') that was blooming in July is still going. Maybe not "strong" -- but still flowering, which I think is impressive.

The agastache impressed me too. This is the first year I've grown it and it just bloomed and bloomed and bloomed. I believe this one is a variety called "Tutti Frutti" (Agastache x 'Tutti Frutti' ).

These sunflowers (Helianthus annuus), one of many all over the garden, were a special treat because I didn't plant them! They just popped up everywhere. I mean everywhere! But they're fun and the color is great this time of year.
How about you? Did anything impress you in your garden in September? This post is a part of the September Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, sponsored each month by May Dreams Gardens.