Cultivating My Inner Tree

Yesterday I returned to Seattle from Virginia. I’d spent two weeks visiting family after speaking at the Maymont Garden Show. During that time, I was amazed by the flip-flopping weather. We went from 75 one morning to frozen ground by evening. We went from clear blue skies one morning to wind and rain that made it feel like we were driving under ocean waves. And, I watched spring begin to appear. Bare branches gave way to yellow forsythia, red maple, white pear and pink plum blossoms. Ground broke open as new green shoots appeared, hellebores blossomed and daffodils unfurled. As I watched these daily changes, I knew Seattle would be bursting at the seams with color given the spring awakening I enjoyed in Virginia.

After being awake for nearly 21 hours, sleeping only about 4 before that long stint of wakefulness, I enjoyed walking Shiloh with Bob in the “spring forward” evening last night. Our neighborhood was bursting with color. Everything from white to pink showered over the Pieris shrubs. Candytuft covered rockeries in white spring snow. Pink plums were fluffing in the breeze. And all manner of bulb were popping up. Spring and winter camellias were in full bloom. Hellebores were stunning. My daphne (and others like it) were filling the air with their distinctive fragrance. Manzanita blossom buds were swelling. Flowering winter currant pink clusters are drooping open. Bergenia pink appeared out of nowhere. Rhodie buds are swelling and Azaleas are filled with blossoms. Winter bloomers like witch hazel and garrya are forming fruit as flowers fade. Corylopsis and Corylus are showing off yellow flowering chains. Pussy willows are pollenating fuzz everywhere. Viburnum buds are swelling with a bit of pink that will bring forth even more brilliant fragrance soon. And, all of this appeared in just two short weeks.

Of course the nasties are also starting to rear their ugly heads. Fields of shotweed are in full bloom. Dandelions are arrayed in fresh green growth with brilliant yellow blossoms. Dock seedlings are growing rapidly. And, I’m sure other issues I haven’t quite seen are short behind these.

As I write this, I think of the things that are next up to be done in my own garden. The weeds need to be managed, epimedium and sword fern old growth needs removing before new growth emerges, last ornamental grasses need trimming down, twig dogwoods need a final trimming, and it’s time to do a few perennial divisions.

A gardener’s garden is never done!

February is a busy month for gardeners. We’re out evaluating what we plan to do in the next year. We’re digging up plants to move them. We’re pruning and cleaning. The days become noticeably lighter and lighter as February progresses. And, a few warm days remind us that spring is just around the corner. Winter blooming shrubs like flowering quince, forsythia, winter hazel, camellia, and daphne brighten the longer, end-of-winter days. Tiny bulbs begin to appear – masses of crocus, smatterings of snowdrops, and tight, fragrant towers of hyacinth begin to pop up in otherwise bare beds. The draw to enter the garden, clearing away leaf duff to reveal these harbingers of spring, calls us out of our cozy winter homes, beckoning to our seasonal call to garden.

Adding to the gardening siren’s song are garden shows. Preparing for, attending, and working these garden shows is a regular part of my February schedule. This year, in addition to my regular attendance at the spectacular Northwest Flower and Garden Show, I traveled from coast-to-coast to attend and speak at the Maymont Garden Show, which is held in Richmond, Virginia. Both the Seattle Northwest show and the Richmond Maymont show began the third week of February this year, so it’s been a whirlwind ride over the last week!

It’s hard to believe but just a week prior to the day day I am writing this article, I attended the Northwest Flower & Garden Show Gala event. Here I had the opportunity to get up-close and personal with the gardens and their creators – with a glass of wine and a plate of delicious food in hand. The Gala is a fundraiser for the Seattle Arboretum, and its an annual opportunity for me to connect with my peers in the industry. Plus, I can see the gardens without all the crowds. This year I got close to some great gardens, seeing creative uses of stone and skis as fencing. Too, I became acquainted with unfamiliar plants like Begonia magnificum and a yellow-blooming pitcher plant.

The day following the gala, I returned to the show to work. I took a shift at this year’s WSNLA show garden, passing out locator guides and explaining elements of the garden to members of the public seeing the garden for the first time. WSNLA’s garden took several coveted awards including a gold medal, a Sunset Magazine award and the Founder’s Cup award. After my shift, I wandered through the show, purchasing a few saw replacement blades and a pair of shears for a friend. Then, I rushed home to finish packing for my flight the next day across country.

I arrived in Richmond late Thursday night, changing planes in Detroit where I was nearly sidetracked by ice-storm flight cancellations. Richmond itself was hit with a mild ice storm in the wee hours after my arrival. I awoke to a white, shimmering morning. I enjoyed family on Friday, marveling at the old deciduous forests filled with hawks, vultures, squirrels, yellow finches, red-headed woodpeckers, and my giggling niece and nephew. Friday night I felt a slight dryness in my throat. I went to bed hoping it was just allergies or being tired.

Saturday I woke up to a sore throat. Uh-oh. I caught something on my flight over. But, Saturday I had the honor of meeting Nori, “The Moss Lady”.  Nori has been gardening at her home for over 30 years, and she is well known as “the Moss Lady”. I was very inspired by her successful mission to remove all the grass in her garden, replacing it with rolling “lawns” of moss. She lives in a forest where grass simply does not thrive. After spending years battling the moss, trying to get the lawn to grow, she realized that doing the opposite might be just the ticket. And, really, the garden is stunning. Now, she readily admits that a moss “lawn” isn’t the right thing for someone with children or dogs, but for an ornamental garden in a forest where high traffic isn’t required, moss makes a magnificent groundcover. I can’t wait to encourage some of my clients to adopt this outlook and quit fighting with grass that simply will never work in their spaces the way they want it to! Nori’s garden has been featured for the last 20 years in magazines, books and tv shows illustrating her great skills and beautiful spaces.

Sunday I awoke wondering if my sore throat was going to leave me without a voice. This wouldn’t be a good thing since I was scheduled to speak on garden coaching at the Maymont Show in the afternoon. I swallowed –ouch! My throat was still rough. I spoke, and something crackled out. Well, I’d be able to speak, but I still kept fairly quiet most of the day until lecture time.

We arrived at the Maymont show, which was a combination of garden show and home show, a couple of hours ahead of my talk. We wandered the show gardens, which frankly were disappointing after the spectacle of the Northwest Flower & Garden Show. We did a bit of shopping, but again, this was a disappointment. The gift vendors were outrageously overpriced – a coffee mug for $35! My old chipped favorites never cost that much!  The plant vendors didn’t offer anything spectacular, and the sales people didn’t even know much about many of the common plants they were selling. For goodness sakes if you’re going to see a Chamaecyparis pisifera filifera ‘Aurea’ know what it is! And, mixed in with all of this was a smattering of late night tv-esque sales of knife sets and vitamix machines. At least they had all of 12 green building booths to start building awareness. I suppose I’m spoiled by the spectacle in Seattle each year. Still, I kept my fragile voice to myself and listened to Richmond natives voice their disappointment in this year’s show. According to many old-timers, this was the worst show yet.

I did give my presentation to a very, very small audience. The woman who was in charge of speakers was very nice and very helpful. Still, the curtained-off, dark corner of the convention room floor in which they were presenting seminars was not inviting at all. It was loud and distracting. And, my lav-mic was barely audible. I got good feedback on the presentation from those who attended – including people who weren’t my family or family friends. And, I think I may have helped at least one person who was interested in making a career adjustment to add coaching to her offerings. So, the message made it to a new audience, however small. And, my voice held out! They even gave me a big box of cheese that has become the butt of many jokes and the focus of many meals over the past few days.

Monday I awoke to no sore throat and prematurely thought that my cold was gone. By mid-day it had found its way into my head and chest. Still, I did manage to take a tour through the woods and Rattlesnake creek, lead by my 5 year old niece. I snapped some photos of a gigantic vulture eating some poor rodent by the side of the road. Generally, I took it easy. And, yes, cheddar was on the dinner menu!

Today I visited a family friend’s garden to give her some help understanding her garden and what her gardener is doing wrong. Betty isn’t much of a gardener, but she likes a nice garden. Her gardener has hacked away and sprayed away at much of her forest under story garden. So, we walked and talked about how plants grow and react to the way they are being cut. We discussed that many of the things that bloom every other year are doing so because of when and how she is cutting them. We talked about some new plants she might try and places to move some she has that she dislikes in their current position. It was a nice chat, but after a horrible night of barely sleeping as the snot compounded in my head and chest, I didn’t last long. I begged off on her generous request that I “let her buy me lunch” and headed back home for some chicken soup and my sweat pants.

Now as I write this, snarfling away to avoid blowing my sore, chapped nose one more time, I am looking forward to the other gardening adventures that await me in these last few days of February. My mom toured me through her garden, which is just awakening for spring. I hope we find time to work together, raking up leaves and revealing more crocus and other bulbs she knows are starting to sprout. I know we will be going to the country in a few days to visit my great aunt Bea who will be celebrating every bright color in her garden despite her near blindness. I hope to find a day when we can tour a few of the grand gardens in the area, perhaps visiting Louis Ginter Botanical Gardens and enjoying a leisurely high tea as we gaze over the winter garden. My cousin will soon return from Arkansas. She was the person whose study of horticulture partially inspired my own return to school to enter this profession; needless-to-say, I love spending time with her and visiting her space. As well, later this week, I’ll be meeting new friends who have a spectacularly renovated home along a private pond nearby.  I will be consulting on renovations to their garden – with an eye toward developing a garden that will compliment their award-winning home remodel. And, one spot I can never miss when visiting Virginia, is Woodhaven.

Woodhaven is the home my great-grandparents built in the country and in which one of my cousins still resides. The home and the forest have seen better days. The barn has crumbled to the ground. The forest and grand oaks that lived for hundreds of years before the house was built were decimated by loggers who took advantage of my aging and ailing aunt in the 1980s. So, the chirping tree frogs and the giant trees will no longer be there to greet me, but the swing on the front porch and the train whistle in the distance and the scent of wild onion on the spring air will take me back to a time and a place held dear in my heart.

Soon enough it will be March, and once again I will be flying home to the west coast where my own garden with its own needs and delights await. I’m excited by the prospect of working in the multitude of Seattle gardens that my clients needs provide for me. Still, while I’m on this coast, I’ll drink in and cherish every moment. Perhaps these experiences will prove a healing elixir to my ailing body, sending me home relaxed, refreshed, inspired and renewed – much like Spring itself.

This winter I’m acutely aware of plants that are providing winter interest through berries, blooms, fragrance, colorful foliage and interesting texture. Many clients keep talking about how boring their gardens are when everything is “dead”. I remind them that most isn’t truly dead but instead is growing actively underground. This provides them some relief that they didn’t kill their garden. But, what provides the biggest thrill to them (and to me) is pointing out the opportunities to make sure their garden is interesting even when other gardens appear dead.

Today I woke up to a light blanket of snow in my garden. Before the melt began, I got out and snapped a couple of photos illustrating the beautiful plants that offer spectacular winter visual interest even on a snowy late January day. (Not to mention the great fragrance put out by the Witch Hazel!)

Enjoy!

I found the information sheet on the tomato that I’ve grown indoors this winter and about which I wrote in an earlier post. The cultivar is called ‘Red Robin’, and it is designed to handle low light conditions. I found a bit more information online from another person who grew it indoors. It seems as though you should be able to find seeds from most retailers.

So can we all agree that the tomatoes from the grocery store, especially in winter, just don’t live up to our expectation of what a tomato should be? If you agree, read on.

I’ve always wondered if it were possible to keep annual vegetables going indoors, in the dreary, sunless Seattle winter. This fall I met a gardener at my local farmer’s market who promised me his tomatoes would grow and produce fruit all winter if cared for properly. So, the gardening experimenter in me had to give it a try. I bought one of his sand-mix planted determinant tomato plants for less than $20. When I bought the tomato plant in September, it was already blooming and had small fruit forming on it. Honestly, I figured I’d get a few tomatoes and end up with a leggy mess if my cat didn’t eat the plant. Well, I was wrong.

Twinky the cat left the plant alone. He didn’t even try to taste it. And, the plant produced and ripened fruit nicely all winter. During the shortest, darkest days, the internodes became quite long (read: it got leggy), but it kept blooming and fruiting. Some of the fruit was tiny, smaller than an M&M. But, some was quite robust.

The grower said I needed to use his special worm tea to keep the plant going, but I declined to purchase it. I’m not a fan of bottled compost teas, but that’s another topic for another post sometime. The grower also suggested that after the plant stopped flowering and fruiting that I cut it back hard, down to the last couple of nodes. He expected that would happen by early winter. Well, it hasn’t happened, and it doesn’t look like it will happen.

Truly, this is a spectacular cultivar. All I have given it is water and lots of sunlight and a few trims to clean off dead foliage, which opened the plant up to more air and light circulation. It is receives sunlight from sunrise until sunset in a south facing window. It gets some indirect bottom heat from a nearby furnace vent. I have given it no fertilizer at all.

Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of the cultivar, but I will find out next time I see the grower. As well, I’m thinking of taking cuttings to see if I can root this plant to create starts, which is a novel way for me to get my tomato plants going. Next winter I may purchase several. Although this plant has produced fruit, it doesn’t create a lot of fruit, so more plants would be a good idea. Also, the plant retained its distinctive summery foliage scent for months. Now that scent is waning. However, the fruit tastes just like you’d hope — like a little bit of summer sunshine!

 And yes, the photo above is of my tomato plant with ripening fruit. The photo, as you may be able to tell, was taken on a snowy mid-January day. Now that I have the picture, I may eat the fruit!

WSNLA invited me to write an article for the Kplu.org and WSNLA.org information websites on the subject of gardening in the winter. Read more here if you’re interested in tips for gardening and caring for gardening tools now in order to make your garden lower maintenance for spring and summer.

btw: I have no idea who decided to call this “mowing in the wind” since this piece isn’t really about mowing at all.

As I walked from my driveway into my back door, I received a two-fold reward for my efforts in building winter interest into my garden.

First, I heard the distinctive chirp of a hummingbird. I couldn’t find him with my eyes, but was in my garden. I have lured him with my plantings and my lack of pesticides. You see, he seeks nectar and small insects in his diet.

Second, his lures caught both my eye and my nose. My witchhazel is in full bloom, and he knows it. Even on cold, grey winter days, you can’t miss this plant in the garden. Its yellow blooms brighten the day and its fragrance perfumes the back garden. I wish you could scratch and sniff right now!

When the witchhazel fades, my friend the hummingbird will not be without food in my garden. Warmer days later in winter will bring gnat hatches offering him tiny bits of protein. Small flowered hardy fuchsia still bloom on my front porch. (And yes, I have seen him that close to the front door. Hummingbirds are daredevils!) Flowering winter currants are starting to shed their outer bud cases, getting ready to open in just a few short weeks. After that, the garden becomes a free-for-all of spectacular blooms, promising hummingbirds who didn’t stick around through winter will be jealously trying to take away my chirping winter friend’s hard-earned territory.

Although the temperatures in the greater Seattle area are hovering somewhere above freezing but below 50 degrees, weeds are still quietly establishing themselves in gardens throughout the area. If you can get out there and remove them now, Spring garden care will be much easier as your weed population will be significantly reduced.

• Grass weeds are spreading, weaving their way through shrubs and laying down roots in dormant perennial beds.
• Cool season annual weeds like tenacious shotweed is germinating, flowering and even releasing seed!
• Perennial weeds such as Stinky Bob (aka wild geranium) and feverfew (which I consider worth growing but controlling) are holding on tightly, photosynthesizing to feed their spreading roots underground.
• Fireweed is tight to the ground but feeding its powerful roots beneath the soil
• Taproot-pros like dandelion continue to feed themselves quietly, ready to power up as soon as the days begin to warm

So, what to do about all these (and other unwanted garden plants)?

If the soil is frozen or soggy, take care not to trample your garden beds. You can damage tender, unseen perennials lying dormant, precious plant roots and soil structure.  If you can access the plants try some of these methods to put your winter weeds to rest:

• Get out your hand tools and pull the plants from the roots. (If the soil is frozen, you might wait until it thaws so you don’t just break the top of the plant off, leaving the root intact where it may regenerate…often more powerfully than before.)
• Pour boiling water over the unwanted weeds. Hot water can often shock the life right out of them.
• Crack out the flame weeder and cook the little buggers, but take care not to overdo it, starting a fire or damaging your desirable plants

And when you’re done removing the weeds, be sure to add a thick layer of composted mulch over the area. This will help your remaining plants and soil thrive while starving any remaining seeds from light, which they need for germination.