Dirty Fingers Muddy Knees

Growing In My Greenhouse

by Susan | Jun 9, 2017 | plants, Plants I Dig

Often, I find myself loving a plant that is hard to find. I also really want to put unusual garden worthy plants into the designs I do. I started last year to grow some of the things I love to use in my own greenhouse. While I may not be an experienced grower, I can grow shrubs and trees that come to me as whips or bare root. Dividing my own perennials and seedlings are easy and can be a great addition to my designs.

This year I’ve started growing several trees in the greenhouse. They are small but easily transplanted after they fill out to the edges of the containers they are in.

One of my clients suggested I might make them available to purchase to all clients instead of keeping them for just design work. So, my private venture into growing is now available to anyone.

Here are a few of the lovely things in my greenhouse now…

All things Magnolia are wonderful. This year the one plant I couldn’t find was Magnolia Sunsation. I saw it at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show two years ago at full size and it was truly amazing. A sunny yellow with blush of orange/pink makes is ‘sunsational’. Zone 5 – 9, 20 – 30 feet high with 8 – 10 feet in spread. Grows best in sun or part shade. Perfect for a small garden.

Available in 5 gallon pots and are currently about 2 feet tall for $ 27.00

Cercis canadensis ‘The Rising Sun’ looks like the rising sun. Surprising name huh? I have grown this for 2 years and still love every aspect of it. From the early emerging yellow buds to the amazing fall color it is crazy cool. Soft yellow and peach combine as the leaves come out turning to green at full leaf. The process starts over again as the cool fall weather starts. Zones 6-9 growing in sun or part shade. Tiny pink flowers in early spring it grows into 10-15 feet tall with a spread of 10 -15 feet. Again, perfect for a small garden.

Available in 5 gallon pots and are currently about 3 feet tall for $35.00

Magnolia ‘Fairy Magnolia Cream’. Known sometimes as michelia this magnolia is a small structure evergreen Magnolia. It has an upright tidy habit with highly perfumed cream flowers. I originally purchased one from Cistus Nursery in Oregon. It was like a mini Magnolia grandiflora. The evergreen leaves have brown fuzzy indumentum on the back of the leaves and creamy fragrant flowers, similar to Magnolia grandiflora. This versatile shrubby tree can be used as a specimen or even hedged. Grows in zone 7b – 11 growing to 9 -12 feet in height and 7-9 ft in width. Happy with sun or shade does best with moderate moisture levels in the summer.

Available in 5 gallon pots and are currently about 3 feet tall for $25.00

Magnolia ‘Honey Tulip’ is another amazing magnolia with fabulous honey color on the blooms. It is actually a golden version of ‘Black Tulip’ with the same habits and goblet shaped flowers. Blooming in early spring on bare wood it loves a sunny position with protection from strong winds. Zone 5 -9, 20-30ft high and 8-10 feet in spread. Honey Tulips is a stunning little tree that begins flowering at an early age.

Available in 5 gallon pots and are currently about 2 feet tall for $80

Cornus capitata ‘Mountain Moon’ is, believe it or not, an evergreen Dogwood. Take everything you love about a dogwood and make it beautiful year-round. The creamy flowers cover the tree in mid spring and will take sun or light shade. It is tough enough to handle some wind and will grow to 30 feet tall eventually. Zones 8a or down to 15 degrees or less. This has been reliably hardy is many areas of the Puget sound. Slow growing it likes some water in the summer.

Available in 5 gallon pots and are currently about 2 feet tall for $30

Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck Gold’ is a beautiful golden beech tree. Being a narrow variety of beech it can be used as a specimen or in a hedge. Fagus is a traditional hedge in Europe. While not evergreen, it can be very twiggy so it remains a good hedge even when not in leaf. The Dawyck Gold has a great color that contrasts well with the plain variety. Good in zones 4-9 growing to 50 feet in height while maintaining a 6 – 15 ft width. It likes full sun to light open shade with regular water.

Fagus sylvatica Dawyck Gold in 5 gallon pots $33.00

Fagus sylvatica (larger variety but easy to keep hedged) in 5 gallon pots $12.00

I hope you enjoy looking these lovely plants up and discovering the new varieties that I’m adding to client gardens. I’m happy to share what is growing in the greenhouse now. I can also supply plants that are grown from other local growers if needed.

Happy Gardening!

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My Holy Grail: Paeonia Mlokosewitschii, Molly the Witch Peony

by Susan | May 19, 2017 | Plants I Dig

I often wonder if I’m the only gardener who has a ‘holy grail’ plant. That one plant that is always eluding you, hard to find, hard to grow, and hard to get a grower to part with. Mine became an obsession over 20 years ago while working at Harlow Carr Botanical Garden in North Yorkshire England.

As a part of my final months of school I became an intern. One of the most important things I learned was ‘Head Down, Butt Up”. The old gardener in charge of the interns had one thing to teach us. It didn’t matter what you knew, how much school you had or why you were there, his goal was to teach us to work in the garden. Weeding was his number one focus. Mucking out ponds, streams, and water features was another. Gravel paths and raking under trees was upper level work for us interns.

Once while working along the streamside I came across a plant in jail. It was a lovely peony, deep yellow with a blush of red at the base of the petals. It was surrounded by an iron fence with a padlock. The fence was about 2 feet away from the plant. When I asked about it (timidly I assure you) my boss said ‘Plant thieves’. I wandered away confused until another employee had pity on me.

Apparently, this one Peony was one of the showpieces of the Botanical garden. The amazing yellow blooms were prolific and amazing. The common name ‘Molly the Witch’ was a good name for it. The fence was to keep visitors to the garden from stealing pieces of the plant. Old ladies and young ones, gentlemanly men with dapper hats, and moms with prams, all looking for a way to have this plant for their own. Visitors to the garden would pick the blooms, take the seeds before they were ripe or try to break off pieces to try to root them. The only way to propagate the peony is to wait until the seeds mature. They put a net around the seeds so as they open and fall they are collected. The fence was required to keep all the viable seeds from being stolen and provide new plants to sell.

A long story to be sure but one of the reasons I’ve been hunting Molly. I found the plant at a Nursery once, it died. Several years passed and I ordered one online, it died. Another couple of years passed and I got one labeled Paeonia mlokosewitschii (Molly) from a grower, I grew that one for 4 years until it finally bloomed. It was pink. Two years ago, I found three plants at Wells Medina Nursery in Seattle. I planted them in the same area, amended the soil, and carefully babied them. This year, finally, I have my first bloom. The excitement I felt when I first learned of this beauty came back and it was amazing. Maybe next year I’ll have more than one bloom. The other two plants are alive but not blooming.

Now yellow blooms have been bred into the new itoh peonies so they are more common. The species, however, is still rare, hard to grow, and highly sought after.

Here are my first flowers. I’m excited to see it grow and get larger.

molly the witch peony plantswoman design

What is your ‘Holy Grail’ of flowers, plants, or grasses? What do you still search for?

Garden Progress

by Susan | May 5, 2017 | gardening

It is almost the end of the 3^rd year of Gardening at Beach Road house. It is amazing to look back on the last three years and see how the garden is developing. I do much of the work myself so, even though I know a guy, I don’t have the luxury of paid help except for the occasional clean up and mulching or special project.

plantswoman design before/after of Beach Road Garden koi pond

The view from the side of the house towards the water is now without a large cedar tree in the middle of the lawn. It is also home to the big pond where my koi are happy swimming in 4500 gallons of water. This year so far it is algae free because of the two large UV light filters I installed in the winter. The upgrade in the wattage should keep the volume clean even in the warmer weather. The pond sits in full sun so the struggle to keep the water algae free is real. A new screening fence also will help to hide the filter and the plumbing. Planted on the new fence is Star Showers Virginia Creeper, Lonicera japonica ‘Mint Crisp’, Clematis macropetala ‘Lagoon’, and Trachelospermum jasminoides ‘Star of Toscane’. These should create an evergreen, fragrant, and varied screen of planted loveliness.

plantswoman design before/after of Beach Road Garden waterfront

A place to sit near the water was installed with help from my crew this wet spring. The stone warms up nicely and keeps you warm while sitting by the water. Gone is the impenetrable screen of thorny bushes.

plantswoman design before/after of Beach Road Garden front walk

plantswoman design before/after of Beach Road Garden walk ways

Large overgrown shrubs were removed from the walkway and a more tropical feel added to reflect the location of the house near a beach and the white stucco and tile roof that feels like California. I might think about a lovely honey color on the stucco to help it integrate into the surroundings more. The walk alongside the house has soft planters and good foliage to soften the stark corridor of stucco.

plantswoman design before/after of Beach Road Garden vegetble garden

plantswoman design before/after of Beach Road Garden back garden

Looking into the back of the property the vegetable garden is beautiful in it’s space. The small greenhouse and garden shed help to support growing seeds and overwintering plants that are not hardy here. The Vegetable garden has fruit trees on the northeast side that will not block the sun. Espalier cherry trees and pear trees create fences along with fruit. Black landscape fabric creates a warm spot for pumpkins to ripen.

plantswoman design before/after of Beach Road Garden front drive

The front entry has been cleared back a little with dead alder trees and blackberry bushes removed. A rusty dented fence is gone and two palm trees and large metal containers create an entry of sorts. Still to come are trees along the edges to create a softer entry.

Two gardens on either side of Blue Heron Pond are now where the 12 foot banks of Blackberry and ivy used to be. The left side with the blue bottle tree is the shade garden (trees planted to create this shady spot). The Right side (south side) is a new bed that is yellow and red. Touches of white and orange make it a pretty hot color spot. I love the color punch that makes it visible from the driveway.

I’ve got more things planned for this year including a new tropical garden off the back of the Koi Pond with lush large leaved tropical plants creating a very different space. The side of the Koi pond will be an English garden complete with topiary trees and shaped hedges. The front entry will have more work along with some bamboo planted between the neighbor and I for screening from their garden shed. Berry vines will also be planted with the fruit trees.

I’ve been thinking hard about a name for the property. Traditionally in Scotland and many other areas the houses have names. This house is not a traditional style for the northwest so it’s name would not be about the house itself. I’m leaning towards ‘Rest and be Thankful’, the name of a pass in Scotland that when you reached the top of the hill you did just that. I’ve called it some harsh names while working on it, Thorny corner, Windy Bay, and Bird Poop Land were a few. I does, however, deserve a name worthy of the peaceful, green, windy, sunny space!

I’ll keep thinking! In the meantime take a look as some additional photos of the Beach Road Gardens below.

I’ll keep thinking!

Easter Gift of Plants

by Susan | Apr 14, 2017 | LB Tutorial: Growing Food

It is always a struggle to find something to give to a 16 year old for Easter… Dress? No GMA. Little white gloves, hat, chicks, bunnies, stuffed animals? No GMA. This girl doesn’t even like candy that much. A Starbucks card is good but pretty ordinary. So, this year I just asked her… ‘A Vegetable Garden’ was the answer.

WHAT? A garden? How fun! I can so do that.

Raised beds were necessary so with the help of her Dad they made two raised beds a few weeks ago. They have dogs, cats, goats, and horses so anything edible needs protection! Last Saturday on a rainy (surprise, surprise) morning I brought a little dump truck full of soil and washed manure. Kayla, her mom, and I filled the boxes in about an hour while slipping and sliding in the spilled soil and rain. Lovely thing about soil with the manure is the amazing amount of worms!

Kayla had a huge list of plants that I ordered from Botanical Interest Seeds and Territorial seeds. So many that they will not all fit into the beds. She did her research and picked things that will be the right size for their raised beds. And fun things too like 3 Colored Carrots, Purple Beans, and sunflowers!

Of her huge list only the early season crops – sugar magnolia peas, little snow pea, Bullet Lettuce, pot and patio lettuce blend, Olympia Spinach, and Kaleidoscope carrot collection, could be planted now. We also had some purple broccoli and green broccoli starts to plant.

bean trellis raised beds plantswoman design

We used a left over piece of galvanized fencing to support the peas (they get 24 inches tall). The soil in the beds was so wet and clumpy it was like planting in mud. We may have to replant some of the seeds if they don’t make it because of the wet. We also put some grow cover over the beds to protect the soil from excess compaction and to raise the temperature of the soil for germination. Good thing we did because the temperature two days later was 28 degrees. The average last frost date for Seattle area is March 24^th. Guess this year is anything but average. We have also had 60% of the total average rainfall for the year already.

We will continue to report on the status of the Easter present.

Happy Spring!

kayla's garden plant list plantswoman design

Sunny Day

by Susan | Apr 1, 2017 | gardening, plants

Today we are supposed to have sun. The sky is getting lighter and I saw the moon last night. This may seem silly to many of my readers out there that see the sun and the moon numerous occasions throughout the winter, but here in the Pacific Northwest it has been a long, cold, wet, gray winter. One thing that doesn’t change is spring. It may be later this year. Plants may have a harder time recovering from the brutal winter but nevertheless it comes.

In a garden one of the things that keeps you hoping is the first green shoots, buds then finally blooms. Today I want to celebrate what is blooming in my garden this week. Like the promise of a rainbow, God’s promise to never flood the earth again, the blooms of spring help us to believe that winter can’t last forever.

Snowdrops: Yes Spring Is Coming

by Susan | Mar 24, 2017 | plants, Plants I Dig

Finally we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, or should I say light in the sky for longer periods of time. Many gardeners say that winter is the best season. I tend to agree but this year, I’m so done with it. Left over plants from the garden show are ready to go in the ground. New garden beds have been created and developed… But not yet.

I’ll have to take comfort in one of the best parts of winter, snow drop season. The frosty frozen ground is no match for the hardy, pushy snowdrop. Yearly progress in the formation of clumps is wonderful to see. Some successes and some failures are also common. Bulbs I purchased from H. Lyman’s garden, Temple Nursery, (click the link to read about the unique way to contact Temple Nursery) last year are but one lone leaf. I’m not sure what the problem was but the large amount of money spent on the bulbs feels wasted. Purchasing snowdrops can be a challenge and in my humble, limited experience I would suggest being very careful ordering them as bulbs on the internet. My two trials so far have resulted in no viable bulbs, no matter how exciting it was to receive two packages from Turkey. Not much money spent on these so it was a good learning experience. Two great resources I have found, however, are Carolyn’s Shade Gardens in Pennsylvania and Cornovium Snowdrops in Cheshire England. Carolyn’s sends the bulbs ‘in the green’. Which means the bulb, with flower intact, come wrapped carefully and arrive moist by two-day postal service. I have ordered from them twice and both sets are beautiful and growing well in my garden. My order this year included:

Galanthus cordelia
Galanthus nivalis ‘Blonde Inge’
Galanthus Stratton
Galanthus Diggory (Diggory is beautiful and quite sassy swaying in the breeze)

Cornovium Snowdrop Nursery is staffed with the nicest people. I was a little behind this year in ordering and was having trouble getting what I was looking for. I contacted them and they so graciously let me buy a few that were listed as sold out. These are usually ordered in December or January (I will mark that on my calendar for next year) and are shipped as bulbs, not in the green, because they come from the UK. They dig them after they have gone dormant and I receive them in the fall. However they are caring for the bulbs has resulted in actual growing plants in my garden so I feel confident continuing to by bulbs from them. This year I’ve ordered:

Galanllthus nivalis Sandersii Group
Galanthus ‘Cowhouse Green’
Galanthus plicatus ‘Trym’
Galanthus plicatus ‘ Wandlebury Ring’
Galanthus plicatus ‘Trymlet’

After the garden show I had 4 flats of Galanthus nivalis or common snowdrops. They will go in a space by the upper pond under a large Japanese Maple. I’m hoping to create the look of England in the spring with the bulbs growing in the grass in mass. I’ll post pictures next year of my success (or failure). The beautiful white and green of the snowdrops in the frozen ground is truly a sign that spring is just around the corner. Here are a few pictures of my ever growing collection.

Galanthus nivilis ‘Blewbury tart’

‘Poculiformis’

‘Hippotyta’

Galanthus ‘primrose warberg’

Galanthus plicatus ‘Madaline’

‘Arnott’

Enjoy these additional posts that include these lovely snowdrops…

Gardening Obsession

Years ago I read a book that with a collaboration of several different authors. They shared their love of Gardening and why they do it. All with various reasons striking a cord of familiarity within me. I reflected on my particular obsession as I opened a box from…

Snow Drop Fever: Beguiling Galanthus

I remember seeing my first snowdrop as a child in my Grandmothers garden. She didn’t have much else going on in the garden but the old established clump of snowdrops came up every year. I’ve always planted snowdrops in whichever garden I’ve established. This year…

Lighten Up!

Gone are the days of festive Christmas Decorations. Tree is down and baubles and bits are packed away for another year. There is something about the excess and over stimulation of Christmas that calls for peace in January. Likewise when all the surfaces are…

Under Cover Winter Veg

by Susan | Mar 17, 2017 | gardening

Picking out a clear plastic container out of my fridge that, having gone unnoticed, now contained liquefied salad greens I swore it could not continue… The beds have been cleaned out and waiting for this horrible winter to conclude but still it remains in the 30’s with snow gusting on the wind. Like the plants that don’t read their tags the weather doesn’t read the forecast. It is March. Usually if it hasn’t snowed by Valentine’s Day we can count on having no snow at all. Valentine’s Day has come and gone and still we have cold yucky weather. I checked back in my garden journal and many times I have started early spring crops in the first week of March. This year, however, I will need to try and outsmart the frigid, lingering winter. I know many of you, living in colder areas of the country, have no sympathy for me. With regular precision, your weather is cold into the end of March and sometimes into April.

So, I broke out my handy dandy tool for creating hoop houses out of electrical conduit and started to work. I purchased it from www.buildmyowngreenhouse.com and it works great for creating hoop houses and netting/bird covers. Using my macho looking tool attached to the work bench (inside because it is cold outside) I bend 1/2-inch conduit into three arches for the planting beds.

I planted 2 kinds of spinach, Olympia and Bloomsdale Savoy. 1 row of Lacinato ‘Dinosaur’ – Heirloom Kale. Two types of Lettuce, New Red Fire Loose-leaf and Baby Mesclun, cut and come again, and two rows of Arugula ‘ True Italian’

I placed one layer of 16 mil plastic over the whole bit and anchored the edges securely with boards and rebar. This should hold it in the wind better than garden staples which can pull out. These new hoop houses can protect the new plants from frost and keep the ground warmer by 10 – 15 degrees on a cloudy day.

I did read about an interesting method for discouraging slugs in an organic garden. They cultivate the ground for two weeks to break up eggs from slugs and snails before planting salad crops. Slug eggs take 4 weeks to hatch out and the salad leaves are usually ready to cut by then.

I will keep you posted on how the salad experiment works out! Let me know if anyone out there is already eating non liquefied salad greens.

Indoor Gardening – January Beauty

by Susan | Jan 29, 2017 | plants

Cold is still gripping the outside with frost that doesn’t melt off in the daytime and ice on the ponds, even the Koi pond! Raking the debris from storm damage has broken my bamboo rake while the leaves and branches remain stuck to the ground. Time to turn my attentions inside and put away all the Christmas decorations. Time to start with a clean palate. Inherited with my crazy house is a ‘garden window’ in one of the bathrooms. Quite large and deep (12 X 3) it houses my orchid collection. The only direct sun it gets is late afternoon and the glass on the top has some sun deflective film. Since I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it, the orchids were given a temporary home there. Two years later they still remain and, despite a neglectful orchid grower, they seem to do well.

Orchids are hard to understand. I have wonderful clients who nurture, monitor, feed, change temperature, mist, and coddle orchids. I’m not that person. I buy them on a whim, enchanted by the possibility of something exotic possibly growing. Each year at the garden show I will invest (or throw away) a little bit more on a chance. Not a gambler, I say, but with orchids I wonder if I’m not doing just that. My orchids don’t have an understanding gardener, they have a hit and miss, I wonder if it’s dead, gardener. January is the time when against all odds (the gamble again), they will send out a spike, and then a bloom. Some are easy like Dendrobiums. They are happy to just be undisturbed and watered well after just getting barely dry. These usually sit in a pot with water collecting dish beneath them. I often water the dish and the clay will wick up and moisten the orchid bark. Occasionally I remember to mist the whole lot of them but not that often. Without central heating in the bathroom the heat comes from a radiator near the window. Not exactly the perfect conditions for orchids.

This January a gamble taken 4 years ago paid off. Remember I’m the ‘I wonder if it’s dead’ gardener, and this one did not die. It did nothing else, but it did not die. In December I noticed a spike starting to form. A spike looks different than the air roots around the pot, being fleshy and soft instead of rough and hard. This week it bloomed. Amazingly enough I could still read the tag, turns out it is an Angraecum sesquipedale. It has several common names including Christmas orchid, Darwin’s orchid, and Star of Bethlehem orchid. As usual, since it is not dead, research is required to know what neglect gave it the perfect conditions to bloom. It has an amazing story behind its lovely blooms and the moth that pollinates it in Madagascar, its native home. Darwin predicted that a moth with a 12” proboscis was the pollinator for the orchid. Years later the discovery of Xanthopan morgani praedicta proved him right. Here is a link to a video that shows the pollination of the orchid by the moth.

Moved out into the main room, the Angraecum has a lovely fragrance at night, and the ghostly blooms are so beautiful. It appreciated the bright light, not too much heat, lower temps at night and drying of bark between watering. Perfectly, by accident, what I gave it.

Also traveling to the living room from the garden window is a prolific blooming oncidium spider orchid. This is an easy to grow orchid with repeat blooming throughout the year.

Another oncidum (mendenhall ‘Hildos’) is in spike right now (referring to the flower spike sent out with a bud on it). It has bloomed once already this year and is amazing. I cut off the flower but did not cut the entire spike down and now it has two more spikes coming from the first stem.

Paphiopedilum Maudiae plantswoman design 002

While bringing these beauties out I was thinking of how to display them. The lanterns that were filled with Christmas balls and candles were empty so why not try and use them as mini greenhouses. Two Paphiopedilum Maudiae ‘Napa Valley’ went into one along with a Tillandsia Usneiodes or Spanish moss. These do form good displays although not completely air tight for moisture.

These bright things help to relieve the winter boredom and get me ready for spring.

Cold Weather With A Vengeance

by Susan | Jan 20, 2017 | gardening

Seems strange that winter technically started on December 21^st. It felt like winter before that but now it is really winter. Comparatively mild at 45-50 degrees before the solstice the temperatures have dropped and stayed cold. Very seldom do we get to see temperatures in the teens. It has been as low as 19 degrees in the garden here and the sustained cold has not reached above 35 degrees for several days and even weeks.

Of course, I had prepared for the regular cold here in the pacific northwest where it occasionally gets to 32 degrees. Zone 8 plants usually OK with some frost damage but this year it has been a lot more challenging.

cold weather plantswoman design red banana

Red bananas in the upper greenhouse are not happy because it has been freezing in there for over a week. Usually just a cover and protection from serious frost is enough to keep them alive. This year, in anticipation of a mild winter forecast, I left one in the ground with a bubble wrap cover. It’s not looking too good right now but neither are the ones in the greenhouse.

cold weather plantswoman design tree fern

A Tasmanian tree fern in the garden was covered with a shade cloth. Strangely enough the two in the greenhouse (although its been 30 degrees for several days) look fine with green fronds and good firm trunks. Dan Hinkley lives nearby and has had good luck with just wrapping the trunks in the winter so we will see how the one in the garden does.

cold weather plantswoman design rhodie 1

cold weather plantswoman design rhodie 2

cold weather plantswoman design cold plant

After a very wet October and November it has been dry during the cold. We had couple of days of snow but not a lot of soaking rain. Here are a couple of ways to help your plants survive the cold…

Withholding water in late autumn will help prepare the plants for cold by stressing them into protection mode.
When freezing weather hits a moist soil will help protect plants by keeping them insulated.
Covering the plants that are tender with sheets or ground cover cloth will also help. Mulching with leaf mould, straw, or bark mulch is also good protection. Choose something that is light and open for insulation without being heavy which will retain too much moisture. Don’t use plastic as it will create moisture that will freeze around the plant.
Don’t cut back leaves or branches on damaged plants until the weather gets warmer. Stressed plants need to recover before pruning encourages regrowth.

I’ll keep you posted on the recovery of the plants I tried to protect this winter. What’s going on in your garden? If you have effective tips to share please do!

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