Learning to know each other

Stewartia pseudocamellia buds, like little peas waiting for June and July to come to show off their pure white contents.
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No, this time I won't be rushing to move and replant and dig up. I promise. I will take it slowly (which, according to my husband, does not come naturally to me...), get to know my garden better and see, what I really needs to be done. And then, in a well-planned way, go to action during the autumn and early next spring. This is the plan, at least. And so far, being busy with other things, I've been really good at adhering to it. I dug in the Anemone nemorosa 'Vestal' plants that I had in pots. And I have been dead-heading numerous Rhododendrons, just out of pure stress. I like the popping sound of the spent flowerheads when I nip them off just above the juicy, new shoots. And it makes a big difference to the look of the garden, when the old flowers are not hanging around like used handkerchiefs.

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A flowering white Dogwood, Cornus florida, above some old Rhodos. They grow actually over a meter below the stone terrace with Spanish lavender in the front...

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Buzzing activity in the lavender hedges; there are at least twenty meters (60 feet) of them...
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I took some shots of some plants in the garden that I like. There is (luckily) no structural work to be done and I really like the overall plan of my new garden. But there is a circular lawn surrounded by a flowerbed, now filled with Spanish lavender, that I would rather see filled with lovely, flowering perennials in cool tones. And I could move the lavender to the front, where the cold winter took many of the large, established plants... Also, there is a large area in the back that has been left totally unlandscaped. It does not show from the actual garden as it slopes downwards (towards South), but why waste such a large area of land? Maybe this could be a perfect place for a kitchen garden? Or a jungle for the girls, who still love disappearing in the bushes and playing fairies? All these possibilities...

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Azalea 'Everest' is now covered with almost luminescent white flowers; it looks almost bridal while flowering. It has been used throughout the garden, and I love it.

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The "island bed towards the street, with three big Magnolia grandiflora 'DD Blanchard', Euonymus alata 'Compacta', Sedum spectabile 'Autumn Joy', Iris sibirica 'Ceasar's Brother' and Lavandula stoechas 'Otto Quast'. A nice, draught tolerant combination together with several large stone boulders.

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Hello, old friend

Things are definitely moving in the right direction... Just look what I found in one of the boxes; my favourite garden trowel, from my house in Saltsjöbaden. When we moved there, I found this wonderful tool in the garage, with other old gardening tools that nobody had cared about for years. There they laid, in the middle of mouse drippings and spider webs in the unrenovated and dirty crawling space behind the garage.

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Later, I learned and noticed, that an earlier owner of my house had been a passionate gardener, and that the garden had even been voted as the most beautiful garden in Saltsjöbaden in the early 70's. Unfortunately, the next family in the house had no interest for plants or gardening and when we came, only some of the toughest survivors gave me clues about the former glory of my garden; a peony in the edge of a meadow towards the sea, spreading its frilly, shockingly pink petals like an old primadonna amongst its plainer sisters; a double Anemone of an exotic sort, surviving between the cracks of the cliffs towards the sea. And all the Hellebores, only managing to send up a few, thin leaves though the wirelike mat of roots of the ground-elder. After cleaning the beds from this nasty intruder, I re-planted the roots in the middle of June (!) and got my reward already the next spring, when the Hellebores flowered with large bundles of dark Burgundy flowers. And this lovely old trowel was with me through the whole journey, always there, often hidden in the soil so that I had to spend long times looking for it (I understand that the new, bright coloured ones are better in this sense, but I still prefer mine...).

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So you can surely imagine my unease about not knowing if my trowel had made it into the moving boxes; it really felt like an old friend had gone missing. And at the same time, I felt a bit embarrassed (why, I don't know) about asking the people renting our house to look for it and if finding it, sending it to me. And now, here it is, together with me taking on a new adventure on the other side of the Atlantic; surely a sign of more good things to come? And this time I might tie a colourful ribbon on it, just in case...

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(My trowel is taking a well-deserved rest on a bed of Blue star creepers, Pratia pedunculata, in my new garden. More about it soon - it seems that I'm getting over the busiest part of this moving project!).

Stealing time for things you love

In front, Disporum sessile 'Variegata', with Primula Sieboldii ’Alba’ and Fritillaria meleagris 'Alba' behind.

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Somehow I feel that I'm getting less and less effective with things I don't especially love to do. Like moving between houses. Of course, I'm excited about getting into a new home, and my brain is already working on a plan for making the garden more "mine", but I still would already like to be at the stage when all those boxes were not staring at me demanding attention. I've always been a pretty effective person while moving, sorting out things and getting 90% done within the first two weeks, eager of creating an illusion of normality around me. But now that energy seems to be eluding me; I start my days with good intentions, but loose myself to daydreams about plants and writing that I would love to be doing instead of unpacking things.

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Last Thursday, while I should have been packing the last things for the movers to take with them on Friday, I visited Marian's garden. And some time later, came back home, happy and refreshed and with over 140 pictures in my camera, many of plants that I've so far only seen in foreign gardening books and magazines... I still can't quite get over the huge possibilities for growing things here in the Pacific Northwest. Marian's garden is such a wonderful place, an acre of winding paths and a stream of water running besides it. The plants just seem to enjoy themselves so much, they mingle with each other and behind every nook there is somethings special and rare to see. I was laughing on myself when I saw thousands of Anemone nemorosa 'Vestal' flowering here; this rarity has actually become a bit of a thug in Marian's garden. We were wondering about the claimed sterility of these white ladies; here they seem to be much more promiscuous than their namesake virgins... And there are so many other Anemones; the yellow A. ranunculoides that I remember from my childhood gardens in Southern Finland, A. n. 'Monstrosa' (above) with frilly green sepals, A. n. 'Robinsoniana' with lovely pinkish-purple flowers.

Polygonatums, Solomon's seals, have for a long time been one of my favourite woodland plants, but Marian had some close relatives with name Disporum sessile 'Sunray', now called 'Kinga', that very really lovely too, with their greenish-white flowers hanging from the "joints" of the stems. Other beautiful Disporums in her garden were D. sessile 'Variegata' (first picture of this post) and D. cantonense, my photos of which unfortunately did not turn out well.

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Trilliums, the handsome woodland plants many of which are native to this region, didn’t seem to like getting their photos done, especially the dark velvety red T. chloropetalums just seem to sulk in them, but all of them looked lovely in the garden. The yellow ones with beautifully freckled leaves are called T. luteum. There was even a double variety, T. grandiflorum 'Flore pleno', shining in the shade with its clean, white flowers.

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The Arisaema's were flowering too; greenish white ones, and ones with dark maroon, striped blooms. I have to learn more about them, as they are not hardy in Stockholm, I haven't been paying them too much attention so far, but they really make an exotic looking addition to a woodland garden. Above Arisaema sikokianum.

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Two very interesting new acquaintances were Cardiocrinum giganteum, the Giant Himalayan lily (first picture above), several of which were showing off their lush, shining heart-shaped leaves shooting up from the bulbs, and Podophyllum pleianthum, the Asian Mayapple (second picture above), which was hiding it's rounded flowers under the umbrella-shaped leaves, both of which I had never seen before. I can't wait to see the large trumpet-shaped flowers of the Giant Himalayan lily to show up later in the season, and it will be so interesting to get to smell them for the first time!

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Fritillaria pontica, the Balkan fritillary (first picture above), had spred itself freely around, with it's nodding yellow and greenish flowers. Fritillaria acmopetala had alread flowered, so I took no pictures, but as all Fritillaries, they are a wonderful springtime addition in a garden. I had tens, if not hundreds of the common Fritillaria meleagris, both purples and whites in my garden in Sweden, and the combination of them coming up from a sea of Forget-me-nots was one of my true spring time favourites there. A yellow flowering Magnolia, 'Elizabeth', was still in flower in the shade of the bigger trees, spreading its branches above a sea of Anemones.

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Some of the paeonies were already flowering or even past flowering, but more of them later... I just decided to show one more interesting small plant friend, namely a small, delicate Bergenia omeiensis, that I also hadn't seen before. Marian told that the flowers start as little bells, and open up to resemble pinkish white geraniums. As Bergenias are one of the few hardy and evergreen perennials in Scandinavia, this might be an interesting choice to grow there.

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It is just amazing to see all these plants in their woodland surroundings in the middle of the suburban Eastside of Seattle... And I can't help thinking of and admiring the amount of work that has gone to get everything in place and keep them thriving; years and years of interest and dedication; composting, mulching, weeding, and then planting, re-planting and dividing them to keep them growing. Marian's garden is a real pearl, a document of a true gardening life.

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Read about my first visit to Marian's garden, the magic carpets of spring here.

New beginnings

Flowering Pacific native dogwood, Cornus nuttallii

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I am too excited to concentrate on writing; I just "got" a garden and we are moving in already in the end of next week. For the moment, it is all happiness; the spring is here, everything is blooming and I am walking with my feet barely touching the ground. The new garden (it feels odd to say "my" quite yet) is far too well-manicured for a person like me, which gives me something to work on. I like my gardens a bit wild and not too proper; I prefer admiring formality somewhere else than in my backyard (for it truly can be beautiful, too). I am already making a list of "must-have's" (oh, here we go again...) and plants of nostalgia to be included in this garden. After having made two gardens, I hope I know how to edit my plans and not to overdo things, however enthusiastic I might sound. But my main project will be planting a kitchen garden, the girls are just in the right age to enjoy growing their own veggies and flowers. And since we are not travelling anywhere this summer, there is a chance we get to enjoy the results too. So, being mentally too busy for anything else than family-centered thoughts, I just wanted to give a short update with some pictures from gardens around me, full of blooming beauties.
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The excitement, the true excitement, is always in starting again. Nothing's worse than an accomplished task, a realized dream.

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- Marilyn Harris -
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Thriving forget-me-nots, Myosotis sylvatica

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Species Rhododendron, with nodding, pink bell-formed flowersK

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Blooming white lilac, Syringa vulgaris 'Alba'
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Blooming lilac, Syringa vulgaris

Unexpected fellows

Anemone nemorosa 'Vestal'

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I know very well that it is torture to go to a good nursery without having a garden to plant anything into, but I still can't keep myself off. I try to tell myself that this is an exercise in self-discipline, something that has never has been my strongest feature. A couple of days ago, I came home with three pots (tiny ones don't count...?) of ordinary wood anemones, which fill the forests of Southern Sweden and Finland this time of the year. Just look at the beautiful pictures by Slottsträdgårdsmästaren, showing what I am so desperately longing for just now...

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After the tiny flowers opened, they were are not at all the single, wild wood anemones I thought I had bought. Instead, they are Anemone nemorosa 'Vestal', a double-white wood anemone with a frill of white larger petals around a pompom-like centre. As these anemones lack their anthers, their flowers are sterile, which makes them quite long-lasting in the garden, unlike their wild sisters. And as 'Vestal' tends to nod its face downward for the first few days, hiding its frilly center, the nursery had incorrectly marked them as ordinary wood anemones. So now I'm wondering if I should go back and tell them, offering to pay more as these rare and refined ladies are more expensive... or just keep the secret and enjoy them without any guilt?

Confetti time

Prunus 'Accolade'

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The first, early varieties of cherries have almost finished their blooming. In the evening sun, some flowers were still clinging to the branches, like tired ballerinas after a beautiful performance, not willing to take off their pretty dresses... But soon they have to give up and join their fellows on the ground, already covered with pink confetti.

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People often shun once-blooming roses, but who would ever come upon complaining about cherries, that flower just as many times?

Weeds or vegetables?

"Taraxacum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. They are native to Europe, North America and Asia and two species, T. officinale and T. eruthrospermum, are found as weeds worldwide".

(copied from Wikipedia)

Somewhere I snapped up the term plant racism; and wouldn't this be an excellent example of it? Poor dandelions, they probably are just trying to regain their territory... And it definitely is not their fault that they are so well-adapted to the "disturbed habitats" of the modern world, such as lawns and other sunny, open places.

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On Saturday, I had a walk at the Discovery Park in North Seattle, and found this wonderfully blooming field of dandelions and daisies. I thought it was so much prettier than a short-cropped lawn, but of course, many gardeners might argue with that. Then I learned that dandelion leaves are more nutritious than almost anything in the grocery store; higher in beta-carotene than carrots and the iron and calcium content is greater than in spinach. They also contain vitamins B-1, B-2, B-5, B-6, B-12, C, E, P, and D, biotin, inositol, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and zinc...

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So there we have this free, amazingly healthy vegetable growing on virtually every lawn, ready to be harvested. I remember how I once cooked dandelion buds and tried to eat them with butter, but I was totally disappointed, as the bitter taste was not at all asparagus-like as promised. Maybe it is time to search for some new recipes and get into action?

Spotting ladybugs

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Euphorbias are now in full bloom, showing off their large trusses of chartreuse flowers inside the similarly coloured bracts, containing glistening drops of honey. Yesterday, I found this little guy having a sweet drink in the evening sun. The British and Australians call these kids traditional favourites for ladybirds, the Americans call them ladybugs, which is kind of cute too. Ladybird sounds a bit more romantic to me; I can't imagine that Lady Bird Johnson, a First Lady of the US in the 1960's would have called herself Lady Bug Johnson either...

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Sadly, many foreign species of ladybirds, like the seven dotted ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) so common in Europe, and the Asian lady beetle above (Harmonia axyridies) have either been introduced in North-America or arrived by hitch-hiking with ships. For a long time, they've been considered as useful insects as they feed of aphids and other scale insects; the first alien lady beetle species was introduced already in the 1880s to try to combat the Cottony cushion scale in California. To this date, more than 170 lady beetle species have been introduced to North America. But in reality, these foreign invaders are now outcompeting native beetles, and altering the fauna in North America, just like introduced species tend to do. So in fact, in the picture above, instead of musing over a sweet little ladybird or ladybug, we are looking at a biological control agent wreacking havoc in the ecosystem...

To help the native nine spotted ladybug and other native ladybugs scientists need to have detailed information on which species are still out there and how many individuals are around. To do this, the entomologists at Cornell University launched the Lost Ladybug Project, where everybody can join in spotting these little creatures. So if you feel like making a difference in an easy way, look for ladybugs and send Cornell pictures of them on email. This is a great summer science project for children and adults, just check out the pages above for loads of information and fun things - in addition to getting to help ladybugs, all "spotters" get their photos and names published on the project pages.

Happy, with tired feet

The view over Times Square from our hotel room...

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We had a quick but intensive long weekend in New York during the Easter break; everyone was exhausted by the end of each day. My youngest daughter (she's six) was not so sure she fully approved of NY city (too much smog, too much traffic and too many people) whereas the older one (now eight) thought it was cool (“Hey we can go to Broadway every night …”). I'm somewhere in between; I love the amazing energy of it all, but at the same time, I feel a bit claustrophobic without seeing any "real" soil and nature around me... NYC really is such an inspiring but demanding environment for a human being, both physically and mentally. I don't think I would be able to live there full time though; I would miss the bird song far too much.

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The Bethesda Fountain by the richly-ornamented Bethesda Terrace in front of the Lake in Central Park. It's sculpture, Angel of Waters, was designed by Emma Stebbins in 1873. The Boat House in the background.

Anyhow, we were very lucky with the weather and had some great play times in Central Park. The girls patted just about every dog that walked by, and they were many. I missed one of my objectives, to photograph the MoMA Sculpture Garden (the mother of all modern sculpture gardens, as John Walsh said), as I forgot my camera (!) that day and had to be content with just sitting there enjoying the sculptures in the sunshine. It really is such an amazing "garden"; with it's straight lines and rectangular forms, it visually connects so perfectly with the environment surrounding it. Anything else (like meandering lines and curving paths) would have felt like a joke in this extreme landscape of skyscrapers, stone and steel - you need the scale and size of Central Park to make a contrast to this huge city successfully. And happily, I got to see the MET exhibition with Pierre Bonnard's late interiors; his vibrant colours put me into a trance every time, I've never seen one single book or picture that can reproduce them correctly...

Closed between bird cherries and lilacs...

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I'm heading off for a little spring holiday with my family. Really, I would be as happy staying here, lying under a tree looking at it's newly unfolded leaves and musing over the wonder of spring.

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There is an old Swedish story about a shoemaker, who always hanged a sign on his door this time of the year, saying: "Stängt mellan hägg och syren"; "Closed between (the blooming of) bird cherries and lilacs".

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Hänryckningens tid, as they sometimes call spring in Sweden... a time of being filled with wonder and enchantment. The old shoemaker understood this so well, sitting in his garden and enjoying life waking up around him after a long and cold winter. Now, I don't have any bird cherries or lilacs, but the horse chestnuts look lusciously green and azaleas are coming out so I'll be content with that, even if they don't have any scent...

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