February garden pictures

Hey guys. Can't remember where I was talking about yellow and blue, but when searching for the butter and sugar iris siberica that Katye had, I found this. Looks like a good deal. A splurge to get so many, but a good deal, nonetheless. Thought I'd share. I'm trying to decide if/when I can justify this.

http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/83253-product.html

Hey, Carol
How bout we divided them I'll give you some yellow and you give me some purple. I was hoping I would have gotten other colors from a mix bag. but all I got was white and yellow, that would tie in with Purple Haze better than it does now, but then again they bloom before anything else does, so you really would never know.
Hugs

Katie - happy days - I've just ordered Butter and Sugar! Minds thinking alike. Very nice.

This is my favorite color in my garden when the delphs start. Yellow and blue.

OOOh, Laurie. I wanna see what you do with it. Do you have a plan for it specifically, yet?

I love yellow and blue! Or even.. Chartreuse and blue...Very nice, sofer! Laurie, I bought Butter and Sugar this week as well!

Oh, too funny! I've been looking around for the butter & sugar, too, but haven't bought it yet...Katye, looks like you got the lot of us with one picture! Well done! ;)

Katie - near the new brick patio there is a very flat bed - then the entrance path, and another bed. I have ordered Astrantia Shaggy, and the Iris siberica Butter and Sugar (amazing we have all ordered the same plant at the same time!), and I am going to interplant the two in a large arc from one bed to the other - I am thinking of interplanting a couple of astrantia roma at the leading edge. (The bed is part sun, part shade - and all of these will tolerate this combination) In the autumn I will underplant the astrant/iris with crocus, snowdrops, and bluebells - they will blossom before the astr/iris combo gets really going.

at the edge of the astrantia, I am planting up a low growing heuchera called heuchera cylindrica brown finch - low silver patterned dark leaves with tall wands (okay, racemes) rusty brown blossom which last from late spring right through mid summer (I have these already, and have been making cuttings all winter). I also have a stand of Allium Purple sensation which I may move in amongst the astrantia, as well as one of David Austen's roses - Cadfael - and some papaver patti's plum - these will just be 'sprinkled' in at the leading edge to soften the effect of the mass planting.

So, what do you think? Open to suggestion - all ideas warmly and gratefully accepted.

Oh, my - sounds glorious! You can design a garden for me anytime!

Here's a stunning picture of naturalized bluebells:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Bluebell

Laura - what a fabulous profusion of texture and color you'll have all season. You have some white, blue, yellow that moves to pinks and purples . . . and each of these will pull the colors from the brick patio nicely. How big is this area going to be?

I'll be interested to see how the rose looks in amongst these. Fabulous imagination, Laurie!!

I think the rose is going to be tricky, Katie - until the astrantias mature and come bubbling up around the base it is going to look a bit prickly - but if I can just hold onto the idea, and not rip it out in impatience I think the contrast will be quite good.

The bluebell is absolutely right - I was down in the woodland on Saturday - we have been having a lot of the scrub cleared in one area to make space for planting out the Pear Trees (which is where I started my relationship with PNW!) - and it looks as though it is going to be a brillant year for bluebells - we have them as thick as the wiki photo - I'll have to take a before blossoming and during blossom photo - it is beautiful down there, but we have had a lot of trees down this year. There is going to be a barn full of fire wood! But getting them up out of the stream is hard going - must get a pair of hip waders! (And then I could look like Beth Chatto in that beautiful portrait of her!)

And Murmur, I don't think I could possibly design something as nice as your beds with the children (although I probably wouldn't lose them in the plants - mine are lower!)

Looks like this weekend is going to be a happy snappy weekend - but, hey, I'm on a new schedule from Weds, AND I have next week off. Please give me better weather than the last week - we are in the middle of a real storm right now.

time to go finish up some work, and then off to bed! TTFN. L

This message was edited Mar 10, 2008 8:59 PM

Laurie - what kind of pears have you planted. Will they get much sun in the woodland? I have a couple that were gifted to me - one is ornamental, I think, the other produced some little Asian pears last year.

Those bluebells are beautiful. I'm looking forward to seeing the. That reminds me that it's time to start looking for the hidden trillium patch in the 5-acres that borders me. I happened upon it one year while following the dog and must see if I can find it again.

I couldn't have been much more than 15 feet from my yard as the woods are pretty much impenetrable to yoomans with the fallen timber and berry vines.

Laurie- The mixed bed sounds lovely. Is that a new heuchera? I can't find it anywhere! Help! I love heuchera and that one sounds very unique.

I love heuchera, too, Rachel - and have a lot of them . . . happily, most of them divide quite easily! Unhappily, Bambi and Thumper love 'em. As do the slugs.

Those bluebells are gorgeous - I had no idea they could grow that thick . . . forget tiptoeing through the tulips . . . I want to do so in the bluebells!

Oh, it does sound lovely! I am curious about the heuchera. I am familiar with one called 'green finch', found it in one of Beth Chatto's books. The woodland garden one, I think. But I cannot find 'brown finch'.

What will you do for evergreen interest during the boring parts of the year? I have to go back and look at your photos. Is this a full sun position?

As far as I can tell, the brown finch is a sport of green finch - I think it is one of Graham Gough of Marchants Hardy Plants here in East sussex. It is semi-evergreen, and does strike easily from cuttings. The papaver also is semi-evergreen and remains in leaf all year, although much reduced in size and keep quite spring green for the winter. If I stage the bulbs right, I should be able to cover most of january/feb/march with their growth and blossom, and the astrantia is in leaf from mid-late march through frost (blossom from late June to Sept).

the pear trees (pyrus pyraster) are my wild pears that I have grown from seed - I collect the fruit from a tree in the hedge across the lane, and grow them on. I now have 1 at 6 years, and 5 at 4 years that need planting out - there are 11 more from 1-3 year olds. (Had two dreadful years - I had 60 seedlings coming up in winter 2007, and a d+#ned thrushed nipped off all but 2! and then the mice ate last years seeds!) I am hoping to repopulate England, well, at least the Dudwell valley with the trees. The exsisting ones are listed now, with less than 300 in the country (they were largely used up by the Georgian and Regency furniture makers). My gift to the country. They are woodland trees so they should be fine growing in semi-open space and along the wood edge. Also going to plant them along the hedge line.

Funny, This year I decided to work in my own yard some which I haven't in years and I noticed all these little apple trees sprouting. I eat an apple on the porch walk down the path and pitch it in the flower bed in about the same spot and they sprouted. Pretty cool.

Be interesting to see what the fruit is like, heidi.

I pitch all of my scattered fruit to my neighbors. They gobble it down and seed it with fertilizer as they go about their day.

Soferdig-pretty nice neighbors you got there.Any of them end up in your freezer?

Ned@!#$#$%%

Is that picture taken from your property, Steve?

Yes we have over 200 Elk on two sides of our property. It is a wonderful neighbor to have. They are quite friendly and love attention (with apples). During the rut the bulls have a hard time with me flirting with their harem. During the end of summer all through the fall we have the bugeling to add a magical music to our lives day and night. Most wonderful. This is through my fence.

LOL Katie.... I don't mind hunting if you eat the meat and keep the hides, I just do not like killing for sport! Must be my heritage!

Are these farmed or wild elk?Are your fences tall & stout enough to keep them out of your gardens?
I have friends that live outside of Fairbanks,and they have a hard time keeping mooses out of their garden.Those moose just run right through fences.Here it's deer.They love fruit trees & all berry plants-strawberry,raspberry,boysenberry.

No freezer time for these. They are caught in a catch 22 where they can't be shot and can't be kept. Our state has eliminated the captive elk and require them all to be exterminated. My neighbor is a stubborn one who will never do that to his friends.
Yes we have "Elk Fence" around our house. Heavy guage wire 10' high supported by steel posts anchored in concrete over 3 ' under ground. The elk are on both sides of the fence. When the bulls start to sing their love songs the native elk come down off the mountains around to make whoopie with them. Before my fence was put up we had several cows (elk) in my yard all through Elk season.

This message was edited Mar 11, 2008 12:51 PM

Well if it weren't for your neighbor, there would be no awesome picture to share, so good for him.

I do know, though, that they are big creatures and can be very dangerous during mating season or when they feel threatened.

Ned, years ago I was running along a trail up off of Farmers Loop Road in Fairbanks, next to the Musk Oxen Research Center. One thinks of Musk Oxen as docile - especially since their defense is to form a circle around the young when threatened. And, as you know, that nearly made them extinct against the rifles of our overzealous ancestors. Anyway, it was spring and I came out of the woods along a chain link fence looking into the eyes of one of these fascinating beasts. He started to posture and make noises to defend his position and was following me along the fence line where the trail went. After about 25 feet I turned around and headed back into the woods where I had come from. I just wasn't so sure I wanted to see whether the fence would hold. It was an extra long run for me that day, but I was happy to do it. :-)

This is one of my Bambi visitors - I give them my fruit that has gone bad . . . and go through lots of Liquid Fence!

Do you think she was giving me some kind of message?

LOL a deer that does raspberries...Thanks for the laugh Murmur

OMG. I love that picture.

I can just hear her saying, "And that's what I think of your Liquid Fence, Ms. stingy Yooman. Can't you just share a little?"

Don't tell anybody about this photo, but thought you might get a kick out of "my herd." (I about got railroaded out of DG for being so fond of my deer visitors when I first joined.) There are at least nine who are often roaming the property in back of me (20 acres that were almost completely clear cut four years ago). They sometimes talk me into giving them some bird seed.

Here are some of them running through the "meadow."

And one enjoying an old apple (looks almost like a donkey braying!).

How awesome. If anyone starts braying about deer, then I'll start braying just as loud about our carbon feetprints and deer hunting (taking only the strong, which weakens the herd). I've got your back.

Do you have a SLR digital camera or just a great telephoto on your point and shoot? Or do they really let you get that close? How heartening to be able to see them so close.

I'm seeing more and more of what I think is the mange that's affecting the herds in Oregon so. Are you seeing much of that?

I have an SLR digital - and a 300mm telephoto . . . I can, however, get within 10 feet or so of them (I choose not to "tame" them further any more than I do as it's not safe for them . . . and maybe not for me??!!) This time of the year, they look really mangy, but I'm not sure if it's true mange or not - later in the summer they look really good again (or at least have in past years).

Bang bang bang.... boom boom. There were no white tail deer much out of Virginia when Europeans first arrived. Now they have taken over the world. They are much worse than Mankind. Bang bang. Ahhhhhhhhh now they are gone. From the perspective of a gardener. Sorry MM

Great pics,Murmur.Good that you don't try to tame them as other people still hunt them.
I like that doe giving you the raspberry.

Katie-bet you're glad there was a fence there.

This message was edited Mar 11, 2008 3:51 PM

Soferdig-I think they're the native Blacktail deer indigenous to Western Washington up through Southeast Alaska.The Whitetail are East of the Cascades.

As of today they are east of the Cascades. Look out for an aspen draw to attract them over the mountains through some pass some summer. They will be there soon also. You are right though that the blacktail is indigineous.

Yes, Ned. So happy for the fence!!!