Pacific Northwest Gardening: Taming the wild garden, 1 by PhilsFlowers

PhilsFlowers wrote:
Tilly, I am so sorry, I can not tell you the name of this iris because they were planted by the previous owner of my home. She didn't remember what any of the names of the plants I was not familiar with were because she neither saved the tags nor wrote them down. She loved irises in every shade of purple. I have a pale mauve one I love, also left by her so I don't know its name either. Among the places this one is planted is next to the Princess Victoria Louise oriental poppy which is pink with pale mauve veining. I will attach a picture of the pale mauve iris with this note if I can find it. I will also send you a poor picture of the pink oriental poppy too in another post as I think you can only send one picture to a post. Every year I plan to get out and get a much better picture of this poppy. You know what they say about good intentions. My friend Gail has promised to paint a picture of this poppy for me if I send her a good picture so she can see what it really looks like. She lives in Tasmania and doesn't grow poppies in her tiny garden for the obvious reason.

I love the color combination of the two clematis plants. They look perfect together. Now I have twice the plant envy than I had when I thought there was but one plant 8>). I should explain the reason for my "plant envy", my friend Rita, several years ago, brought me a clematis with bright blue flowers and placed it at the foot of my Japanese Maple tree on its north side. She said it was problem free, never needed to be trimmed, told me that it needs cool roots and its vines in the sun. Every year it begins to grow for me but it grows along the ground. I have tried to drape it over every plant it can reach so it will get the idea that it is supposed to climb. No luck, with the wind's help it manages to get back down onto the ground again.

I actually live in Zone 6b in Surrey which is in British Columbia, Canada. I had always used the Sunset Garden Book zone guide, then the government issued a new zone guide and using the one for the U.S. didn't seem quite accurate. Finally I found a zone guide for Canada and now I know I definitely have a Zone 6b garden. However (life seems so full of howevers), I don't think they have taken into account the fact that we do, when conditions are right in the winter, get Arctic air streaming down the Fraser River Valley at us which can bring -15°F weather with it. With that lasting for a week or more, most Zone 6 plants would be mush so I try to stick with plants that are hardy to Zone 4. They seem to survive.

I'm sorry to say I don't know where Poulsbo is as I rarely need to venture far off I-5 when I am in Washington. I would love to see your garden sometime and have that refreshing drink under the clematis and get to see more of the state than I-5 offers.