A Northwest Gardening Forum

I'm sure you've had requests for this before, maybe this will tip the scales.

jb

sounds like a good idea, altho technically I am in PNW, my climate is more like Mountain West. DonnaS

Ah yes, being in tonasket you would have colder and warmer temps. It's nice to converse with gardeners that have local knowledge on how plants do.

JuniorBallon,

I sent out mega emails to people who lived in the area advising them there was a request for a MidSouth forum and asked them to post on the thread if they would be interested in posting to such a forum. It sparked the interest, people started posting to the thread and the Forum was created. You might want to follow the same path.

Good Luck

Judy

It sounds like a good idea. I would try to get there when I could, but these days I don't have much time for looking in my watched forums for new threads. I think Judy has a good idea too of contacting people in this area to contribute.

Count me in for a PNW forum!

Donna Sign up for the mountain west or Rocky MT forum. JamesCo, and I are working hard to get more names.

yeah!!! N.W. garden sounds great, hostajim1

I sure like the idea of a PNW forum. Count me in. Dotti

I'm not in the Northwest, but I think those people deserve one!
Al

Thanks, Al!! :-D

DonnaS,
Maybe us Eastern Washington and Eastern Or. folks could have our own forum. Since we don't really have our own geographic area just like ours. Maybe we couldn't get enough folks to join however.

Sagewood Farm.

Sagewoodfarm. There are more and more people from this area. I think Spokane people are in pretty much the same zone and conditons. I guess it is just getting enough interested people together.

DonnaS

Yep, I sure am for a NW forum too!!!!
We ain't wet or dry, we have both type of weather and it can be a struggle, so it would be nice to converse with similars.
Carol

I would love LOVE to see a NW forum. I'm new to WA and learning much by trial, error, and much help from DGers. Gee, a place of our own? Cool! LOL How to get the word out to other NW DG members? I stumbled on this thread totally by accident. I don't "watch" this forum as a rule.

Welcome to the beautiful state of Washington KatyMac,
Yes you can grow just about anything here. Have you become familiar with www.territorial-seed.com
or Growing Vegetables West Of The Cascades http://www.territorial-seed.com/stores/1/Growing_Vegetables_West_Of_The_P4182C321.cfm

If not they should help you allot.
Sagewood Farm

Finally! A NW Gardening forum! Works for me!

Everything grows best in the Pacific Northwest. Come rain or shine, we all do fine. What we grow, we're proud to show. Count me in, where do we begin?

I'll contribute so I can hear how easy it is to grow in a zone 6-8 wet climate that is perfect for any plant on the planet earth. We NW Montana gardeners will drool over the plants we cannot grow in our NW area. LOL I'm interested if we don't get a rocky mountain forum.

frogbuttefly, liked your rhyming post. DonnaS

I would enjoy a spot here at DG for us PNW Gardeners.

I'd certainly like a PNW forum. I asked b4 but didn't get any responses. I have less to do with Canadian gardening than I do with California gardening. What do we need to do to get this going?

I think we just get as many people to post to this thread as possible. Might need to post a link to it in the other threads we are all active on. I didn't know anything about it until someone else posted a link to it.

Count me in as a supporter for a NW forum. It would be great to discuss our region-specific projects, problems, and successes.

Well, if we had a PNW forum (LOL) I would ask what the trick is to grow Iris. This was one of the few dependables I had in the Lake Tahoe area and here they are just pitifull! Not a deep enough cold? I'm about to pull them all out.

KatyMac,
That's strange because I've grown Irises in Tacoma, and Port Townsend. My mother-in-law had a ton of them in Olympia. Maybe you had a very mild winter or something. Take a look at this: http://www.region13-iris.com/

Okay. Then there is something else wrong here. I had about two blooms last year, they were in a couple of existing beds. Maybe I'll dig them up, divide them and find/make a 'sunny' spot not already dedicated to something else. Everything else that was here or I've planted is doing great... I'm spoiled already! LOL

I am surprised to hear that too, Katy. We have some of the top Iris growers in the country right here in the Willamette Valley. I hope they do better for you in their new space.

What kind of Iris is it? The only one I have trouble with is the variegated form.

Hey, I think we might have a northwest forum right here. ;)

jb

The two that bloomed were both the run of the mill dark color. I don't know what the others are... in fact most of the tubers didn't even leaf out!

Hmm, Katy last year lots of people in our area had trouble with their iris. Mine had brown spots all over the leaves from the cold, wet spring we had. I spoke to some folks from the Iris Society at the garden show at Pt. Defiance park last summer. Everyone was complaining about how poorly their iris did.
Aside from the spots, mine did fine, however. I grow lots and lots of iris and many different kinds, but they are all in totally full sun and each year I kind of lift them up a little big to keep the tubers from being underneath the soil at all (on the bearded varieties). Maybe this makes a difference? I just do it to keep them from rotting over the winter, but it may help the blooms, too.

I think we're on our way to a forum! And about time, too. I couldn't believe it when I saw that Texas had its own forum and we didn't! LOL Everyone knows that the Northwest is gardening paradise! (Except for the slugs and vine weevils, which I hate. )

Thanks... I will try to be patient. They're on the 'to do' list to move, etc but I have so many new plants and projects on that list. Vine weevils??? What new devilment is this? Never heard of them. Gotta go google. LOL

You don't want to know about vine weevils! They are surely the worst pest ever. The grubs attack the roots of a plant, and the adults crawl up the stem in the dead of night to munch away on the leaves. Famous for ruining rhododendrons and those in that family, they also attack anything else they can get to.
I was told by an expert at the rhododendron society (I'm big on asking questions of people in 'societies'...) that if I have Salal on my property, which I do, that this is likely my host plant. Check your plants for notched leaves. They munch around the edges of the leaf.
There are 4 ways to beat them in an all out war:
1. hand pick the adults - this is close to impossible actually, if you have any size area at all to control
2. use beneficial nematodes which eat the grubs - this is very effective if used correctly, but has to be repeated each year and is quite expensive if you have a large area such as mine. I would spend a couple hundred dollars every year on weevil control if I used only this method.
3. use Tangle Foot to trap the adults as they walk up the stem of the plant. This is very effective for long term control, cheap, and easy if you have plants with only one or two stems that touch the ground. It is very difficult to accomplish this with azaleas and older rodies that have multiple stems that are low to the ground. Also difficult on things like boxwood and roses.
4. spray with Orthene, a systemic insecticide that will kill the vine weevils and anything else that eats the plant. It won't hurt beneficial insects as long as they are not present when you spray. You must begin spraying at the first sign of emergence (I.E. NOW), and repeat every 4-5 weeks, I believe, during the growing season - which means until about November. Since it doesn't kill the grubs, you are basically killing off the adults and then killing the new adults, etc so that eventually your population dwindles.

I started out totally organically with this beast, full of hubris that I would beat them without using chemicals. They laughed in my face.
Now I use a combination approach. Good luck. May the force be with you.

They aren't very attractive are they pixy? I don't have salal but it is across the street in the watershed lot and behind my property line. I will watch for their evidence and keep my fingers crossed!

Those are what I call root weevils. Others call them grubs. I use the Bayer granule insecticide on them. Just did an application a week ago. I have them all over I have found out.
Went to see why my coral bell looked so sad, picked at a leave and the whole plant came out into my hand. There under it was a nasty white grub. Boy, was I mad. So did the chemical treatment.
Carol

I always wondered what notched salal so thoroughly. Thanks.

While we have our "forum", has anyone tried Four-o-Clocks in the PNW? Mirabilis. I don't see them much, have read about them, seen them in books, mags, etc but never really seen any here. Do they not do well in our climate?

KatyMac, some of the iris I've grown in poor draining soil or too deep in the soil rotted in the past. I always mound it a bit and make sure I see the top of the root for bearded. It might have been dry enough in Tahoe but the constant winter rain turns some of the roots to mush if the drainage isn't sufficient. One Iris I'm having a great time with is Iris confusa, Bamboo Iris. It's supposedly a tropical Iris but it sails through winter without damage and grows even when it's cool. I get tons of complements on the street planting.

I've heard from a lot of gardeners on Vancouver Island that are able to grow things I can't. You guys have an eviable little banana belt going on up there. One fellow said the lowest temp he had was around 28 F this winter. We got down to 14 F.

jb

jb, got a little colder than that here in Dec. 5 degrees above , and for a short time early Feb, was cold too. Now again it is colder than normal for here. The ground is still frozen in shady areas. Lots of years I have planted my sweetpea and garden peas by or on Feb. 22, not this year.

growin, I just planted my soaked 4'oclocks Broken Colors, soaked for a couple of days, and now in Parks Bio Dome the small one, using the square refill sponges. That has worked very well for me for larger seeds. They bloom nicely out in the garden and some volunteer.

DonnaS

Well, juniorballoon, I have more of a climate like yours. I visited Vancouver Island in November and it was amazing the difference. Tree Cordyline indivisa everywhere, a friend had lemons on his lemon tree, pawpaws with fruit, and an avocado. On the mainland we get the occasional deep-freeze, a few years ago going down to -17C. The Iris confusa sailed through that one with minimal damage. I have considered moving to Vancouver Island many times just for the climate.

Growin, Ah, I mistakenly assumed you were on Vanc. Island. Is your Bamboo Iris in a protected area with good drainage? Perhaps I'll give one a try.

Ruth, I bet Tonasket gets colder than Duvall. I have been to Tonasket. Picked apples there when I was 17.

jb

This message was edited Mar 8, 2006 10:46 AM