PNW Garden Photos of 09

Had a chance to get out in the garden for a little bit last night, and am finding that a few more things are opening up. My little scilla are blooming nicely now.

The currant on my overrun terrace is beautiful right now. Have to mark them this weekend so the guy who helps me try to take it back from the blackberries and alder this spring leaves the currants alone!

Well, Judi, I can answer your question easily. It's my first time, so I'm just starting it. So, right now, it has diagrams - period. :) My goal is to do what RJ is doing - keeping catalogs from favorite places. etc... That's a good idea to keep the receipts, too. Most places have a refund policy. I know lots of people do their journaling here on DG. I kinda like to page through things. Photos would be a good thing too.
However, in my case - best laid plans.... :)
Best wishes on the job search.

Rarejem, beautiful color on the currants. Appreciate your advice about a notebook. I have something to strive for.

My newest flowering cherry is finally coming into it's own.

I'm with you, Jan. I have a diagram, and a notebook, and still have lots of stickies with names of plants I like laying around. I like being organized, but I'd rather be out in the garden or with my animals that actually doing the organizing, so the stickies don't get translated into a notebook very often.

Someday . . .

And my fairy glenn is still waiting for it's girls to come back, but is finally looking like it will put on a nice show this spring.

In the little cubbie by the computer, I started writing down names of plants as I read them in the different threads. There must be pages of them, so someday they will get put in the 'book' as well. Probably should put them under categories, too, or I'll still never find anything. :) We are babysitting a 2 yr. old granddaughter for a week. I am exhausted already and it's only been 2 nights so far. Today is a BEAUTIFUL day and I am inside while Clara Jan and mom take naps. LOL. After she wakes up, we'll get outside. So much to do. I took her for lunch. What a little lady! Very neat. Amazing how verbal she is for just turning 2 at the end of March. Wish she was potty-trained. LOL

Jan and Kathy...Don't get me wrong, my stuff is not all so neat and organized. It is all in one spot where I can find it, but the actual putting in order suffers unless it's a dreary yucky day outside. I often spend my lunch hour at work putting lists into excel so I have neat and orderly lists...that get tossed into manilla folders when I get home. I agree Kathy...someday it will all be neat and tidy to the point where I might let someone else see it....someday...

One of us needs to write a database program that can be downloaded from Dave's that tracks plants and features. Then you could keep it on your own machine or upload it to Dave's to share or establish trades.

Great ideas - so little time (or, in this case, only about 1/2 the know-how!)

Jan, isn't it amazing how much energy those little ones have? I used to stop by my SILs when she had her grandkids over. At the end of the day, even her hair would look exhausted. And that's mostly just from being in the same room with them. It was a happy exhaustion, but exhaustion just the same.

Definitely, the energizer bunny she is. She is learning the boundaries of the garden. Wanted to do it her way, but was persuaded not to. Pop-pop took her for a walk, then Mom wanted to come outside, and we got her out on the deck, but no sooner did she sit down than she decided it was too windy for her, so back inside we went. Then I attacked a bed that has some ivy that was overstepping its bounds, so I trimmed that back. I know, I know, I need to be ruthless with it. I can't believe I actually put a couple of vines in. Silly me. That was BDG ( before DG) Now, I know better and have already started to attack it.

Good luck getting rid of it, Jan.

Isn't it funny?

You want kids to question everything, be independent, be ambitious and motivated, think for themselves, be survivors.

And yet, when you tell them what to do, for their own safety or your peace-of-mind, it would be so much easier if they were the opposite: compliant and unquestioning.

Aye, there's the rub.

I definitely need to make a schedule in my notebook fertilizing and that kind of stuff.

Last summer I took care of my son's & his wife's 4 kids in the San Francisco area for 10 days, with the help of his wife's mother. We had fun but OMG we were exhausted after just a few days. The kids are 2, 4, 6 & 8. I stayed at the house with them and since Margie (wife's mother) lives near them she came over every morning and we teamed up to get them to swim practice, soccer practice, play dates, pediatrician appointment, birthday parties, etc. Then the food shopping and laundry. It's a good thing we have kids when we are younger! It was fun getting to know Margie better since we mostly got together for holidays, etc and then there were so many people around. Even her husband pitched in to help us babysit! I slept a lot when I got back to Portland!

I got to see one of our great-granddaughters over Easter. They came up from San Diego. Her name is Ryleigh and I haven't seen her since she was born. Now she is three. A little chatterbox and must have things her way. Her brother Nate is nine and I have seen him more often in the past. My favorite thing to do with them is take them for a ride in the golf cart. They remember that always.

I created an excel workbook for gardening ideas, wants, needs, have's, plans, dids & to-do's, etc., with a separate tab for each category.
I keep it open on my desktop, so that I can record info. So do you think I am so organized? HA! I still grab the paper & pen to write on (I think this is indicative of my age), and the plus to this is that i can take it out with me if i "need to see" it. Can't do that with the computer.
I can shove the pen/paper in a pocket for a walkabout, and make notes as I go. The brain only remembers so much these days, and there's waaaay too much about the garden to file there. I do transfer info back to the excel file, but then I have to make decisions about where to file it if it fits 2+ categories, or where I put it last time. comes in handy, if I can remember!

Shelly, that knotweed sounds like a nightmare! I can just imagine you taking a machete to knotweed jungle and hacking your way through! Glad I don't have it here, and I don't ever, ever want it!

Raregem, your fairy glen looks very pretty.

I have a gardening journal that I don't get to write in much. I spend too much time on DG! LOL! I try to be organized, but it's tough. Just have too much to do. I have been working on a spreadsheet lately of all the seeds I've been wintersowing this year. It's very time-consuming. I have designed it so that when I print it out it fits on a regular letter size paper (many pages, of course!).

Karen

Kathy, I love your idea of an uploadable/downloadable database! Wish I was more techy and I might even give it a try (HA HA in all of my spare time). I know that it is possible as there is a website for daylily lovers that has that capability. Tinker's garden is set up to allow members to mark the plants that they grow, upload pics to the website, and download the whole list in Excell including particulars like size, bloom season, hybridizer...tons of stuff important to us DL junkies. It is possible, just have to have the knowhow and the time!

To all of you with children tales...... Tongue in cheek...I envy anyone who can spend several days with children and stay sane. LOL! Don't get me wrong, I love kids..it was just too big a risk to take genetically on my husbands side, so we have gone without. I do have a neice and nephew who are 11 and 8, and we see them on a fairly regular basis, but have just recently started to spend weekends with them in my Mom's vacation house over in E-WA. I love them dearly, but find myself willing to give almost anything for five minutes of silence after only half a day! If you could bottle all of that energy and enthusiasm, you would make a mint! As they are getting older, the are getting to be a lot more fun as we can start to share our outdoor activities with them.

Katye, I laughed so hard when I read your post as it hit so close to home. Totally organized chaos! My Mom and I have both agreed a long time ago that our internal hard drives are full, and if we don't write stuff down it will just flow through into the recycle bin! I have little scribbles and scratches written everywhere about plants, ideas, etc (nope, never use the copy/paste function, although that would make sense wouldn't it?!?) and then try to put them into a pile and get them all into Excell in some spreadsheet or another. I'm not even familiar with the workbook/tab idea, so I have to remember what I named the stinking file to try to find it. Some day there will be complete order....maybe....

Karen...same deal with the spreadsheets! I do have a running one on my seeds that I start each year, sorted by date to start and then name, so I know when to start each one. Took forever, and then found that Excell automatically assumed a year when I made my initial list with dates, so if I added somthing the next year, it wouldn't sort into the first year's stuff as it's "date to sow" was same month, a year later. Lots of stuff I have learned the hard way! Once you get the bugs worked out, it is an awesome tool!

I bought a notebook......keep stuffing the sticky notes inside. LOL My wish list is on my Palm Pilot, so I can carry it with me, but I'm going to need more memory!

wow, everyone is sooooo organized! (even if you don't think so!!) I hope to get that way someday! I do keep an active "wishlist" on my computer. Other than that that.... well, lets just say that I get really upset when the squirrels and birds take my labels!!!!! I have discovered that taking pictures of various parts of the yard helps me to remember something if I have forgotten where I put it. I am going to make a blueprint of the garden someday. Maybe this year, but quite likely next year.

thanks for the condolenscences Karen! Yes, be glad that you don't have it. I took some pictures of it all today. but, they're not that good because: it was dull and raining all day, and the knot weed is not full grown for about another two months. I think then would be a good time for pictures of it.

Jan, good luck with the Ivy!!! I'm glad that you're getting at it now!!

I second everything that RJ had to say about folks with kids and grandkids. You're all amazing!

Rj, Your fairy glenn is nice now and it's going to look great!!

I can't remember if I posted this pic before or not.

columbine

corydalis

columbine again.

red..very nice blues!

Red such beautiful photos - you must have a system to keep track of those!

Sally when you mentioned your Palm Pilot it made me miss my Blackberry for the first time! I could use it for plants lists like you do! When I retired and left San Francisco I threw it off the Golden Gate bridge, which has become a tradition for people leaving corporate jobs - there is a pile of those gadgets under water in the Bay.

Julie, at the risk of being politically incorrect, I must say that I am not fond of all children. I like and love my own kids and my grandkids. When I was younger I think I liked all kids but now - I like some, but not all! Maybe it's because I spent so many years raising my own. Having kids is not a requirement for happiness!

Amen, Judi, 'having kids is not a requirement for happiness'. Excellently said. Being a former teacher, I also do not like all kids. I love them, but do not like all of them. :)
This morning, Miss Clara 'played' with Maggie who is 16 mos. old. Which means she claimed ALL the toys for herself - even the ones that stay at Grandma's house as her own. We had a several little chats about that. Eventually it worked out cuz Maggie started giving everything to Clara. LOL. She was sharing. We finally did share things appropriately and took turns. Clara is used to 'playing' with her older sister.

I will eventually get the ivy under control. Now, about the bittersweet that I have trailing along the front deck. I brought it home from the farm for winter decorations. I didn't know what this viney thing was that had started to grow by the front deck, but started training it around the posts and railing. During its growing season, it seems to grow a foot a night. LOL. Then, one year, I saw the berries and shrunk back in fear!!!. Bittersweet. Yikes! Anyway, I do kind of like it, but I do need to prune it almost daily. But, that will be tackled too, someday.

My daughter picked this Star of Bethleham out today at Al's.
She will be keeping it in her room and I had the pleasure of taking some colorful pictures.

My sis gave me one of those last year. I put it in the cart shed for the winter, but I don't see any growth yet.

It is a beautiful plant, but I don't know how long I can keep it going.
It will be nice to look at for the next month or so and we will try for rebloom.

Great pics, as usual, Shelly! Love the blue corydalis. I envy you guys in the PNW to be able to grow that type there. Most people I know here who have tried it have failed. Our winters are too harsh, I guess. We have the yellow corydalis and a nice purple one that is blooming now. The yellow blooms all summer and it really nice.

Right, Judi, having kids is definitely not a requirement for happiness. I chose a long time ago not to have any for many reasons. I think I would be a lousy mother. I just don't have the patience.

Wow! Gorgeous Star of Bethlehem, Bea! I have many white ones, but have never seen it in that color. I want it! What zone is that one hardy to?

Karen

Here is a pic of Japanese knotweed I took last year in Plymouth, MA.

Here's another.....

One more......

I could never throw away something as expensive as a blackberry, clear it out…yes. I did that with an old organizer I had before the PP. Just too much of a tight wad. Comes from going through hard times I think. Plus I’m a natural born recycler. LOL

I love kids too, miss having them around. But there are some that I definitely don’t like. Probably their parents fault, but I’d rather not be around them just the same. My boys friends all found out the hard way if they didn’t respect my home they weren’t welcome. Didn’t bother most of them, we always had a house full! And I’m not the least bit shy about complimenting kids on good behavior when I see it. I’ve known people who never should have had any kids, it’s good when they recognize that and don’t have any. Have to say I’m glad I’m not raising mine in these times. Of course, if I were younger I might feel differently. LOL

Bea…that Star of Bethleham is really nice. Beautiful color.

nutsfordaylily…thank you for posting those knotweed pics. Never saw that, it looks like an awful mess. My hats off to anyone having to tackle that!

nutsfordaylily. The information I can find on the orange star of Bethlehem indicates zone 9-10. It will remain a house plant in our areas. Would look nice in the garden, Oh well!

Redchick, Nice pics as usual. Love the corydalis...wish I could grow it, but I have tried several times and it just disapears. Think it's either slugs or garden gnomes.... I forgot to give my condolences on your knotweed war. Ivy AND knotweed? How did you get so lucky? At least you got some help from the county. I don't have to deal with it, but the conservation district in our area has been at war with it along the creek in our town for years. YUCK!

Bea, Love the Star of Bethleham pic! I haven't seen one before..it does have a stunning color! The blooms remind me of my globeflower that is one of my favorite garden beauties.

Nutsfordaylily, Nice pics of the knotweed, but still YUCK!

My livingroom view was interesting this morning. It was just dawn, and my mountain was trying to hide itself, and had a cloud that looked like a stack of pancakes next to it. The cloudy lump on the right is Mount Rainier.

It was really cool because the moon was still shining right above it. I love this view, as it is everchanging. The colors and cloud formations are just fabulous. And then on some days you would never even know that there was a mountain out there!

rarejem. cool picture. Are You sure they are not flying saucers?

Bea, Thanks...not so sure they aren't flying saucers...this is a revised view that I took just a few minutes ago. :)

This is the same mountain picture from my living room window a block away. Odd how a slight change in position can make a dramatically different view. We love watching the everchanging view in our world.

You both were very fortunate to capture those clouds this AM.What a rare treat! Have a great day! Sunny down here but still on 46 deg.
A little warmer and its into the pond for cleaning!