I cut this rhubarb at the base. I later learned through GardenFork that no cutting is required. Snap.
It would have been ideal to have posted this before Thanksgiving, which is when this happened. This is the last round-up of veggies and seasonal annuals harvested from a garden before I began my grocery shopping for the Thanksgiving holiday. And before the cold snap. Peppers: jalapenos, green Bell, banana, green tomatoes galore, lemon cucumbers shape-shifting into pumpkins, those citrusy smelling marigolds, trombetta squash, and rhubarb. I forget the variety. I am hoping it’s not too late to dig up the scented geraniums, pot them, and bring them inside for winter.
The last harvest is a ritual I welcome. It’s a time to sort and assess, make notes for the garden to come. Nothing urgent is happening. We “lean” into the gifts of winter: cinnamon-colored bark of my newly planted oak-leaf maple, the fire-red stems of dogwood – some, I have rooted first in water or simply stuck in the damp earth. It’s time for new forms. I just picked up some Euonymous ‘Greenspire” to use as a solid evergreen centerpiece for some holiday containers across town. I think I will plant one in my front yard this week. Our front garden bed, as I look out our dining room window looks sparse. The rich green color and upright habit of the Euonymous ( I love saying this word. Spelling – not so much) will give me something to work with throughout the year. However, I think winter is it’s season to shine.
I have other tasks: move the compost bin, untangle some Christmas lights so I can be-dazzle our two Monterey cypresses, contribute to the leaf mulch pile, start forcing narcissus. I am confident there is more…
Welcome sweet winter and your offerings. Remind us to sit tight and relish the warmth that comes from the heart and home.
Birch, "Bob," and little boy.
Green Lake is a feast for the eyes right now. No, I’m not talking about all those power-walking “Bob-Mom’s.” I’m talking about the trees. Have you seen them lately? Living in the PNW, it’s easy to take trees for granted. We’re surrounded. I mean, our city gives us trees to plant for heaven’s sakes. I love it.
My favorite part of my run or walk around Green Lake is the north end – that is, if you are heading counter clock-wise, before you hit the wading pool. There’s a grove of river birch that make me pine and conveniently stop to catch my breath and linger.
I’ve noticed, that at the lake wherever there are river birch trees there is a bench. You can see why. The lovely textured bark, the long lean limbs, and delicate shelter these trees offer really invite you to observe them and receive their embrace.
You have all heard of a tree-hugger. Well, trees also do some hugging by creating form and dimension to your landscape or garden. Fall is the time to plant them too. As the weather above ground becomes mild, the ground below becomes full of activity, fostering hearty root growth. Come spring, your plants will be stronger and ready to put out (or leaf out) what you have been putting in (Mother Nature’s rainfall, compost, leaf mulch…)
So plant those trees and shrubs now. Perennials too.
On another note, there’s a saying that knowing the name of every plant doesn’t make you a good gardener but knowing where to find the answers to your plant questions, does. I have a feeling that that adage applies to any career, but I’m not afraid to play the good gardener card here. To confirm my birch identification I came across Arthur Lee Jacobson’s website which lists the names of all the tree species at the lake. Fun stuff. He seems to be an interesting guy too.
Seattle Parks and Recreations also have some interesting documents for you peruse online if you get a kick out of reading up on Green Lake’s vegetative history. Go Parks!
Now, go plant those trees.
The goods.
The garden is, in a sense, a cosmos in miniature, a condensation of the world that is open to your senses. It doesn’t end at the limits of your own parcel of land, or your own state, or your own nation. Every cultivated plot of ground is symbolic of the surprises and ramifications of life in all its varied of forms, including the human. Is the cycle any easier to accept in the garden than in a human life? - Stanley Kunitz
I had been rummaging and rifling through all sorts of books and poems in preparation for the women’s retreat that I was asked to present at last weekend and was quite glad to have found this nugget by poet and avid gardener, Stanley Kunitz. This one is a keeper. I love it.
The garden is quite the teacher. It offers us a language to talk about our experience. Abundance, lush, drought, thirsty, fallow, compost. These words can describe our own interior landscape, sometimes mirroring the one outside. Or not.
The retreat was an invitation to reflect on landscape, how it sculpts and shapes the interior and exterior self, and how we can create a sense of home, of safety, wherever we are. Sure, we may not all be able to live in Tahiti (is that really a destination for people?) or own a home, but there are some things we can do to create a space that nourishes, that feeds our spirits.
I did a container garden presentation to illustrate one way we can create sacred space. I lugged a good-sized pot, a bucket of soil, a wooden crate full of delicious plant material, along with some passion to North Bend and we all created a fabulous time, I think!
Thank you ladies for your engagement and questions, as well as welcoming me into the rich conversation. I left inspired!
Here is a list of the plant material I promised to post:
Carex testacea (Orange sedge)
Anemanthele lessoniana (Who can pronounce that? I say Pheasant tail grass)
Euphorbia ‘Ascot Rainbow’
Comprosma ‘Roy’s Red’
Heuchera ‘Georgia Peach’
I also threw in some winter pansies, variegated ivy, and golden creeping jenny.
Happy Planting!
What makes a space “sacred”? This is a question we will pondering at a women’s retreat next weekend. I have been reflecting on the question today and I came to this simple conclusion: sacred is whatever gives you life. Gardens and gardening give me life. My task as a garden designer is to listen to clients and help them discern what gives them life and to translate these needs into the landscape. For some this is the sound of water, for others, it is incorporating plants in a design that memorialize a phase of life or a tender memory from childhood. Trees always come to the forefront here. For someone small, trees provide shelter, a refuge, safety. We never outgrow this need, do we?
Thus, we create gardens that nurture our spirits and souls.
Form follows function, the saying goes. But many of us don’t have the liberty to create our own forms. We may rent, live in an apartment, have just a windowsill for outdoor space. In this case, function follows form. We work with what we have. This is what I hope to address in the retreat. What can we create given our limitations?
Limitations are an invitation to be creative. To think outside of the box. Come join the conversation!
My new treasures framed around some viburnum davidii, hakonechloa aureola, and blue star creeper.
I’ve never really defined my blog. Plants and gardens are the obvious primary threads. Yet, I think it just so happens to be a place for me to share about things I love. Nothing unique there (what blog doesn’t do that these days?), just felt like I needed to preface this post because what in the world do paint-by-numbers have to do with outdoor spaces? Nothing, except that I can’t seem to live without either of them. I lucked out and found these at a garage sale one neighborhood over. I had to fight for them and I won. But I also won a new friend! And you know what’s horrible? I was so excited about my paint-by-numbers, my new tank tops, and a few other discretionary items,(not to mention how friendly and fun the garage sale hosts were) that I forgot my bestie’s name! You told me, I know. I feel terrible.
Call me, my new friend, you.
This isn't desert but most of the flora on San Diego's coastline is drought and salt tolerant. I love how the drifts of stipa tennuisima (AKA Mexican Feather Grass) make waves of their own.
“What still amazed me about the desert was all the life it had in it. I had come to Arizona expecting an endless sea of sand dunes. I’d learned of deserts from old Westerns and Quickdraw McGraw cartoons. But this desert was nothing like that. There were bushes and trees and weeds here, exactly as anywhere else, except that the colors were different, and everything alive had thorns.” – The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
It was almost fourteen years ago that I packed up my Honda Civic Del Sol leaving friends (with the exception of my best friend in the passenger seat), family, and the 365 days of sunshine behind for the Pacific Northwest. Seattle was my destination. I tend to lean towards extremes.
From the outside it was for college. On the inside it was for my spirit. The damp earth, the evergreens (a-hem - conifers), even the heavy grey sky offered a vibrancy that the San Diego sunshine never could possess. I needed to leave to go home. And having just returned from a trip from San Diego, I find myself saying it again but in reverse. After all these years there are still bits of sand under my nails.
Not all of San Diego is a desert I am learning. Regardless, the desert is alive. There are parts of us that to our mind’s eye look dead but only lay dormant. It’s amazing what a little bit of sun can do. I was able to see some color in those blue skies and softness in the thorns.
I hope these peeps are part of the Bainbridge in Bloom Tour. Oops probably not. Look at the hose.
This ain’t my grandmother’s mobile home. But why COULDN’T it be?
Look at the romantic clematis armandii clinging, the corrugated metal adding a modern urban twist, the retro colors. Oh, and the foxglove – a cottage favorite. Leave it to Bainbridge Islanders to redeem this traditional American classic. I mean *some* of these Islanders’ can go a bit overboard like telling us that it’s a shame Milo’s hat doesn’t match his red white and blue romper. (I am only telling half of the story. It ended well with a foot in her mouth: mine). Which is why if I were to move to Bainbridge Island I want to live here in this trailer park. Just enough garden. Just enough house to clean. I think I might also be a kinder wife. I’d only be next door.
We stopped to chat with a few owners out tending their veggies growing inches away from the asphalt drive and soaking up the 4th of July summer sun. Both have lived in their trailers for a long while. Can’t remember the number but I think over 10 years. Both also took great pride in their gardens, one neighbor playfully adding that she took up trowel so that her neighbor across the street wouldn’t succeed in making her yard look bad. Gardens beget gardens. A little friendly competition never hurts.
I can see it now. A trailer park garden tour. Let’s manifest it. Why not? I think both my grandparents would be proud.
Pretty pretty. The structure to the left is the garage. I won't tell you what car was resting in there but I will give you the initials. B.M.W. Awesome.
P.S. This post is dedicated to my besties Ben and Deb who make island life beautiful and enticing and who savored their very first home grown poached egg yesterday.
See I used some fuschia. Just not ALL fuschia.
Do I like them? My friend Amanda asked me the other day. Well…not particularly. But I kinda like these. Just sayin’.
Sure. I got a fuschia hanging basket for free last summer at Fred Meyer for my hefty plant purchases. I hung it. But when anybody commented on it I made it clear it was free. What does that tell you? I think it’s the all-geranium or all-fuschia bit I don’t like. The plain wooden boxes or nasty textured decomposable grey material that they are often planted in also don’t entice.
Ok, this drawing looks like a box of Trix but in person it's real pretty. Especially when they got hung next to a shimmery turquoise pool down in Gig Harbor.
These baskets I had some control over (both the vessel and plantings) and I think they ended up looking pretty hot. So much so I sketched out the ingredients for me to remember and for you if it inspires.
Small but sweet.
First it was Tiny Gardeners (last blog entry) now it’s tiny plants. A.K.A. small. What is there not to like about small? Well, I guess there are some exceptions (you have your own), but when it comes to some things, small is just so much darn cuter than large. Take babies for instance. And puppies. Need I say more?
Small seduces, confronts us with the wish stop time.
Even today I found myself resisting the image of Milo as a musky teenager. Sorry teenagers. I’ll be your bestie any day but babies are way cuter and smell better and wear white onesies. Now if you wore onesies and smelled like fresh cotton you may convince me otherwise….
Small plants are pretty darn cute too. Like snowdrops (galanthus if you want to be Latin and all). I love these little early spring-time bulbs. I would be tempted to get out my scythe and secure the closest bud vase if these were in my parking strip. But I kept walking on as a good neighbor should.
Small plants do not necessarily make me wish to stop time but invite me to relish what it bears in terms of delicacy. Sometimes all you have to do is look underfoot and there lays the detail you’ve been needing all along. How quaint.
Author Jon Kabat-Zinn has coined the phrase “the little things…aren’t so little.” Isn’t that the truth. And I’m not just talkin’ about flowers here.
I opted to paint my own nails for our table for two garden party.
It seems that I have taken a sabbatical from blogging. Once I potted up those amaryllis bulbs (which just bloomed thank you very much) it was sayonara. But I am back.
I have done my share of putzing in the garden though and as I reflect back on January’s fallow-time, my favorite moment was this: getting our son’s tiny hands and face all filthy with soil. I tried to keep him clean but it was nearly impossible when you got a baby strapped to your front and you are trying to weed. I don’t think he minded so much. By the way, I can also see why the ladies get manicures.
Some other to-do’s I got going are this:
1. Finish planting the sweet peas and place them on a bright windowsill. I also plan on starting some cerinthe. It self-seeds like crazy but I love it.
2. Sort through my seed inventory and toss any that are expired. Then make a new shopping list to replenish my stock of earthy productive goodness. And to think – all from a itsy bitsy tiny seed. Miracles in the palm of your hand and I am not just talking about Milo here, though that is really all I talk about now-a-days. That and my love of donuts (right, Lis’?)
3. Paint trellises. I have all these nasty wooden ones which bore me to tears. Why not paint them something vibrant? Good thinkin’ G!
4. Pick-up compost. This was my birthday present. Thanks, hon.
5. Practice setting up the pack n’ play for Milo. This will keep him cleaner I think. But he is always welcome to dig in the dirt alongside me. Always.