PNW Garden Photos of 09

Bea.......Love your yard picture. It will be a couple of weeks before I get that much color. Oh, by the way, are those new tags and pots in the foreground?????LOL

No new tags in foreground. Old tags so I can remember what is what. It gets very confusing around my place... and my memory is not to sharp these days.

I do have some new stuff up on the porch waiting for warmer weather to be transplanted. Those pic's to come later this summer. :)

I just received the Breck's advance sale catalog. For all you that love the blue anemone..they now have a burgandy one available.

It is beautiful...pic from Breck's catalog...

Here is the link to item on there web site
http://brecks.com/product.asp?pn=76534

I will have to order a few of these for next season!

If it was mine, and I do have one, I would divide it into four pieces.

Lovely pictures and yard Bea

Shelly - that's an awesome stand of erythronium - how big is it and how long did it take to get to that size? What's the soil and drainage like. I'm trying to get my own stand going . . .

Bea, as usual, your anemones are to die for.

Patricia, I saw a Corsican Hellebore in exactly that same condition this morning in a public garden. Happily blooming away . . .

Corsicans do this every year unless supported, as the flower stalks are massive & quite heavy. One of those grow-through grids works well, but needs to be positioned above the 'halfway mark' on the stem. I have noticed that they tend to do this more when grown in rich/moist soil. Mine are in full sun, so it's not a stretching situation.

Wow, such gorgeous stuff! If I commented on each one I liked a lot, this would be a full page post! I especially love your yard shot BeaHive! What a beautiful and happy place to spend a spring day!

No tulips blooming here today, but my Rosamundi Rhody is a cheery sight along the driveway now that it's blooms don't look like they are shivering!

I love pruning the roses by my Pieris as the whole area smells so good!

My tree heather is getting ready to show it's stuff.

And this primrose is always my first hint that spring is coming...although it has spent a lot of time blooming under snow this year!

Love all the beautiful pictures!!!! Was in Seattle today and saw so many beautiful flowers blooming everywhere....unfortunately, I was the driver so no pictures....

So nice to see gardens start coming to life!! Beautiful everyone!!

I agree with Sally! Beautiful stuff all!!!

RJ.... your treeline reminds me off mine. Except, you have yours planted like I want mine to look sometime!

Katie, I wish that clump of erythroniums were mine! Sadly not though. :-( However, I do know a little about it. There were just a few of them there in the early 80's as the person who owned the land liked to park their RV right there. When other people bought the land from them in '81 or '82, they they immediately quit bothering the area specificially because of the lilies! Since then, that's what they're grown to. There's more there than what the picture shows. The soil there is decent top soil with horrible clay below. the drainage is ok.

Bea, your place is Finally getting some color??? lol. It looks to me as if you always have something going on there. It's great!

Hi Sharon!

So, the wed. before last, I was talking to the folks for whom I have been doing landscaping/maintanence for for the last year or so. They asked If I would start coming over again to get at the weeds and start planting all of their planters sometime in the next for weeks since there was a chance that they may be moving sometime here in the next few months. I said sure, I'd be there pretty regularly by mid April. Then they called me on Wed. and said that they got the job and have to move soon. The house would be going on the market on Saturday and is there anyway I could fit it in to plant all of their planters with blooming things and have it done before then. I just thought.... this should be interesting........ they have 16 planters. 12 are on the balcony railing and 4 are double hanging planters. I had about 1.5 hours available to pickup plants on Thurs. and I spent 9.5 hours today planting the 60 plants in the planters and another 23 plants of Iberis, daffodils (established clumps that needed to be moved) , and rhodies! that's a new record for me. Thank goodness all of the plants going in the planters were annuals, per their request, so that I didn't need to toil over them as much.

However, I just had to do this combination in a main planter on the deck, i've been wanting to plant one of these here for a long time, full well knowning that they'll outgrow it. i may put two more primroses in there with it. But, it's good for the open house today (sat).

This message was edited Apr 11, 2009 12:46 AM

Too bad the people are moving, I know you love taking pictures there. Maybe they will recommend you to the new owners! Nice container, yep needs more primroses!

Oh yes, I agree, it is definitely too bad. It's such a great spot for taking pictures! They said that they'll recommend me to whomever buys it, if they want someone to help take care of it. Especially since I already know it's trials and tribulations that you'll see here in just a second. Although I didn't take a picture of the slope of it all today, but that can be guessed at pretty easily!

The Stream/pond is currently not on, as you can tell from the picture.... it a dry "creek bed" right now. lol. This was the best pic that I could get of the planters. It's really had to get pictures of them. They requested all pink annuals.

Nice house, the planters will give it that happy look. Horrible time of year to be selling isn't it? Of course they don't have a choice.

Yes, it's a lovely place. They did all of the finish work themselves. The woodworking on the inside is fantastic since he's a woodworker. Yes, they know that they're going to loose a lot for selling now, compared to some other time in the future. But, as you said, they don't have a choice. The good thing for them is that they saved a lot by doing the finishing work themselves, so they wont be out as much as others would have been.


The last view of it for now.

RedChick, that's a lot of work on short notice..you should be very proud of yourself! The end result is very nice too. It is too bad that you got thrown the challenge to do it "right now" at a time of season when your choice of blooming things is very limited. I don't know if you have posted pics of your work there before or not, but I can just imagine how lovely that deck planting could be with draping flowers! It will be a shame to lose such a wonderful canvas to work with garden wise...hopefully the new owners will desire your help as well.

WOW, what a record!! It is beautiful. They have a lovely view. Where are they heading with the new job?

Thanks RJ and Jan.
I agree Rj, and they were hoping for something with a hanging effect, but there just wasn't enough of that sort of stuff in bloom that went with the house and the Rhodies currently in bloom. If whoever takes it over doesn't have at least a little knowledge of gardening.... they're going to be in for a bit of an awakening before too long.
Jan, they're moving up by your son, to Forest Grove. They are not sure if they're going to put in a garden or not as they became much more attached to this one than they had planned and they're hating leaving it as much as the house. At least that's what they said. I sort of think that might be true because initially they didn't take any interest in what went on in the yard, they just said..... plant stuff. Now, they do try to learn the names of things, guess at bloom times, maybe even deadhead and prune on occasion!

Wow! Nice work, Shelly, and that sure is a lovely place! You will miss it if the new owners don't need your help. That is too bad they are moving.

Karen

Thanks Karen. Yep, that's definitely true. I'm glad to see that you found your way here!

Yeah, and I'm thinking of moving to Texas. Maybe I'll rethink that. I do love gardening here, and gardening there will be much more challenging. Very different, anyhow. Would have to plant a lot of drought tolerant plants, as it gets so dry there for long periods of time. We have not decided on whether we will move there anytime soon or at all. We don't want to sell now, as we'll get a lousy price for our place, but then when we sell at a time when the market is up, then we won't get a good price for a place there. Too bad we can't buy a place there now and just sit on this place till the market improves. We are definitely looking into probably getting a home equity line of credit to do major fixing up here, as this place has not really been maintained (the house, not the gardens). Anyhow, a lot to consider.

Karen

I think they appreciate all that you have done for them RC and learned in the process. That's awesome.

Hey, Karen, nice seeing you.

Back at ya, Jan!!!!

Worked on potted plants and seed trays today. I took some seed trays to the porch from the shed and in one of the sections was a little field mouse all curled up in one of the cells. He was so cute..but sadly dead. I shook the tray over the garbage can to dispose of him,but he was stuck. I tried using a plant stake to scoop him out and when that did not work, I pushed from the bottom of the cell (like releasing a plant) STILL STUCK! It was a new tray and really did not want to throw the whole thing away!.
Well to make a long and gross story end, His little tail was raised... grabbed it and pulled.. End of story! Success! R.I.P. little mouse. :(

No pictures of that but this is my favorite shot today. A tulip brushing up to one of my rose bushes

An Easter Bouquet!

I was really excited to see the first blooms of my Greenland tulip..
not so much now!. Something is amiss with this one. I hope they all do not have the same problem.

This message was edited Apr 11, 2009 4:27 PM

These pansies and english daisys have come up everywhere they are not supposed to be. But they are pretty and will stay until I relocate them.

This message was edited Apr 11, 2009 6:07 PM

Jack Frost is just beautiful and huge this year!

Beautiful pictures everyone. Spring comes to you much earlier than it does to me.

Bea, in my opinion you should pull up all those english dasies. They are horrible spreaders and so difficult to pull up. I worked for years on pulling mine and I still get one once in awhile. They were going out in the golf course. UGH!

Ok.. I will get them out as best as possible. They sure are cute little buggers. These and the forget- me- nots are everywhere!!
Thanks for the heads up!!

I don't mind the forget-me-nots because they are easy to pull out when they get messy and always come back the next year, but not so with the daisies. I love the look of them also. I took one from my mom's and let them grow for a few years and other things got grown over and died. So I worked about the same amount of years pulling every one I saw before it went to seed. Sorry

BeaHive, Your pics are wonderful! You are definitely well ahead of my yard as well, but nice to be reminded that color will be here soon!

Willow, I have the Forget-me-not issue too, but they are a big problem for me because I have such a hard time pulling them (CAUSE THEY ARE PRETTY!) and they get tall and cover up some of my expensive plants. I am getting better at weeding them, but still spend way too much time moving them to the edge of the woods rather than just pulling! Have such a hard time killing something that I know is pretty! The English Daisies are a funny thing...when my Mom lived in Federal Way, we had a horrible time with them and couldn't get rid of them. The were pretty, but crowded out everything else and made weeding a bear. I had the perfect place at my yard now to let them run rampant, and I can't get the things to live for anything! I have actually BOUGHT English Daisies at least three times to try to get them started in this yard, and just can't do it. Go figure.

Bea.....are you sure we live in the same state? LOL Your garden is way ahead of mine, tulips are just barely starting to open. I have pansies coming up too from last year, but just leaves so far.

I went to Artistic Gardner Nursery in Eugene this morning for a talk by a young man from Terra Nova Nurseries, the talk was great and I really liked the nursery. It's small, but had a good variety of plants, some very unique that I've never seen before. Of course I had to support the local economy and wish my budget was bigger. He has lots of bamboo and the talk was held inside this stand, really enjoyed it and will go back again. I heard from the owners wife that he is a DG member. Didn't get a chance to talk to him.

Lots of trilliums.

Beautiful Hellebores.

Great Pics beahive! I sort of like that contorted tulip. It has character! I agree with Sally.... are you sure that we're in the same state. I don't have many tulips anyhow, by my gosh, what I do have are at least a month behind yours!!

Nice to see you post pictures Sally! I'm glad that talk went well. What sort of stuff did they have for sell there?