Bloomtown

Dwarf conifers: assessing rate of growth

Dwarf conifers can vary greatly in their eventual size and consequently can be tricky to site properly in gardens.

As I'm getting acquainted with a conifer that is new to me, one of the ways I try to assess how large it might get in the garden is to examine how much new growth it pushes each season.

This is easiest to see early in the season, like now, just after it has put on it's spring growth but before it has hardened off and the color has faded.

Pictured here is Picea sitchensis 'Papoose'. As the name implies and the photo supports, this is going to be pretty small. This plant can be used in the smallest of gardens without fear of it outgrowing is welcome.

Photos from Bloomtown

OK, so I've been busy and haven't been able to post in awhile. It is spring fer chrissakes! But I know what you're thinking ... the least I could do is post a few photos, right?

Along the path in the back garden. That's Heuchera 'Georgia Peach' in the mid-ground.

A tapestry of foliage and flowers; figuring prominently here is: Saxifraga x geum 'Dentata', Heuchera 'Plum Pudding' and Geranium c. 'Lawrence Flatman'.

That's Clematis 'John Warren' traipsing through a red, cut-leaf maple with Rhododendron 'Anah Kruschke' in the background.

 

This is taken in the front, parking strip garden. Cordyline australis 'Paradise', Sambucus 'Sutherland's Gold', Allium 'Globemaster' and Allium 'Mt Everest' are key players.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - April 2009

Garden is starting to get rolling, finally! I hope you enjoy this collection of photos showing some of today's highlights.

Pulmonaria - an unknown variety that was a gift from a friend

Heuchera 'Georgia Peach' - loving the color, the leaves are quite large

Primula 'April Rose' - this has been happy in my garden for several years

Libertia peregrinans - strongly upright, wonderful foliage color

Beesia deltophylla - a wonderful foliage plant for shady spots, delicate white blooms are a bonus

Tulips - these hybrid tulips have been reliably returning for me for more years than I would expect; keep expecting them to fizzle out

Thalictrum aquilegifolium 'Thundercloud' - frothy purple blooms of this meadow rue are just getting going

Paeonia suffruticosa foliage - buds are just now forming on this tree peony; the real show is yet to come but I find the foliage very attractive

Polygala dalmaisiana - growing this Zone 9 shrub in a container so that I can protect it during coldest days of the year

Tiarella - this unknown variety of the foam flower is growing along a shady path on the north side of my house

Mustard greens - too beautiful to eat (almost)

Baby Bok Choy

Note to self: plant more of this beauty this fall so I can have plenty in my garden this time next year. These are almost too beautiful to eat!

Listen to Darcy Daniels on In the Garden with Mike Darcy this Saturday

I'll be on the radio with Mike Darcy tomorrow talking about vegetable gardening. His program, In the Garden with Mike Darcy, is aired on KXL at 750AM in the Portland area. I'm told that I'll be on at about 11 am. For those out of the listening area, the segment will be available as a podcast soon after airing. Hope you'll get a chance to tune in and/or check out the podcast!

Talking paths with Kay Balmer from the Oregonian's Homes & Gardens

I talked with Kay Balmer from the Oregonian a couple weeks ago about designing garden paths. She shares the results of our conversation in this post on the Oregonian's Home and Garden blog. Thanks Kay!

Urban farmer? Yup, I'm working three plots.

I've been doing more doing than blogging lately so I'd like to attempt to share a bit of what I've been working on.

Spring is a busy time in so many ways and this year is shaping up to be one of the busiest yet ... veg-garden-wise, that is. In this post, I want to set the stage a little bit for what I hope will be many posts chronicling my progress with growing more of our food. I've got several different gardens that I'm tending and want to give you an overview of the different sites so that there will be some additional context as I post through the season. I've set up photo albums for each garden and will be posting lots of photos as the season progresses.

My Kitchen Garden at Home: 2009 will be my fourth growing season in this garden which occupies our re-commissioned driveway, a narrow space less than 9 feet wide on the south side of my house. My goal was to create a beautiful, productive, and space-efficient kitchen garden. The fence was designed to be beautiful and functional. I grow "up" as much as possible, using the fence to support vining and trailing plants; maximizing vertical growing space in small gardens is essential. New this year: growing "down." I've added containers hanging from the eaves. Anything a cook would appreciate having right out the back door is a contender for including in this space. We're growing salad greens, peas, beans, a few tomatoes, berries and herbs for cooking such as basil, cilantro, mint, parsley and more.

The (Urban) Farm: I am co-farming with a friend on her property. We're doing production-oriented growing with an eye toward really making a dent in providing a fair amount of the food for our two households; both during the growing season but also with enough left over that we can preserve some of the harvest as well. This is not huge garden by some peoples standards, but it is by no means a small garden either; we have ten 4'  x 8' raised beds and we're adding about 60 feet of 2' wide in-ground rows this year. We started this venture last year, so 2009 will be our second growing season at this site. A photo album of this garden is here. Past post about this gardens development can be found here.

The Back 400: After being on the waiting list for a couple of years for a community garden plot, this year my name came up and I'm thrilled. Our garden is a 20 foot x 20 foot plot (20 x 20 = 400; the "back 400" ... get it?!) at the Cully Community Garden site in NE Portland. I'll be doing more production-oriented growing over there as well. 

Edibles ... the new Ornamental?: In addition to the "traditional" sites mentioned above, I'm going to be looking for ways to integrate ornamental edibles in creative and beautiful ways within the garden proper at home; anywhere and everywhere is fair game.

So why all this effort to grow our own? Most importantly, you can't beat homegrown for quality, freshness and flavor. But I'm also a strong believer in the environmental value of local food production and you can't get more local than growing your own. Plus, there's great satisfaction in knowing exactly what went into the food that we bring to our table especially with all the recent issues surrounding food safety. In my mind, it's definitely worth it and I'm having a blast doing it.

So, I hope you'll check back often to follow our progress. If you're also trying to grow more of your own food in your garden, leave a comment and let us all know what you're up to.

Narcissus 'Minnow'

Season to season there can be quite a bit of variance in terms of when plants bloom. Since I take a lot of photos, I was able to look through some past years and find this example which confirmed my suspicions that some plants are indeed blooming later this year.

Narcissus 'Minnow' on March 16, 2005; in its full glory.

The same bulb this year. Photo taken today March 10, 2009; buds are barely beginning to show. There's no way it'll make it to the stage of the upper photo in the next six days.

Chorus of the Goddess Flora Performing at KXL Plant Nerd Night this Friday, March 6th

Spring must be on the way. It's that time of year again and Mike Darcy is set to host the 9th annual KXL Plant Nerd Night this Friday night and, bless his heart, he's asked the Chorus of the Goddess Flora to perform again. (He probably knows we'd just show up anyway, so he might as well invite us!)

For the uninitiated, the Chorus of the Goddess Flora is a rowdy group of plant nuts that break into horticulturally humorous lyrics semi-periodically at horticultural events here in the Portland area. If you have no idea what I'm talking about and can't imagine how this would take shape, you can get up to speed here. I've posted some of the YouTube links of past performances on Bloomtown's Facebook page.

People seem to enjoy what we do and I can say for sure that we sure do.

Oh yeah, there will be plants there too. Here's the dirt on the event details:

When:    Friday, March 6, 2009. Doors open 6pm, presentations begin at 7pm
Where:    Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, 2000 Country Club Road/Lake Oswego (across from Lake Oswego High School)

This year's presenters are:

• Dancing Oaks Nursery
• Terra Nova Nursery
• One Green World
• Thompson’s Nursery
• Xera Plants
• Hydrangeas Plus

The event is sponsored in part by KXL, Al's Garden Center, Black Gold Soil, & Meta.

It's a free event. But be warned, if it's anything like past years, it'll be a packed house, so make sure you get there in plenty of time.

Hope to see you there!

Plants that earn their keep: The Goodness Ratio

I have a small garden and most of the client gardens that I work in are quite small as well. Because space is limited, we aren't able to grow every plant that catches our eye, so we have to be ultra-choosy about what we include in our gardens. So I've come up with this way of thinking about it that; for lack of a better description, I call it "the goodness ratio."

It boils down to this: the larger the plant, the more rigorous the selection process.

In our small plots we can only grow a few large shrubs and/or small trees. And what I'm looking for in these larger plants is something that will really deliver through the seasons. More than likely we're going to require that it deliver more than one of these type of attributes: spring or summer bloom, fragrance, wonderful foliage, fall color, interesting bark and/or branching structure for winter interest, and so on.

Small plants that are especially lovely and or plants that share space well might be given a bit of a reprieve, the standard relaxed somewhat. Naturalizing spring bulbs such as crocus, anemone, species tulip, and allium are a good examples of this. Or plants that peak in winter or early spring that are then a good host for a summer blooming vine.

Small trees and shrubs that earn their keep

Here is a very small, very partial list of some plants that I turn to time and time again. I encourage you to think more about the "why" they made the list so that you can then add to it, creating your own list of hard-working plants to consider using in your garden. All are recommended because they deliver through the seasons, displaying at least three of these attributes: summer bloom, attractive foliage, fall color, fabulous bark, provide a strong contribution toward structure, and they're suitably sized for city gardens.

• Stewartia psuedocamellia - Japanese Stewartia
• Stewartia monadelpha - tall Stewartia
• Lagerstroemia cultivars - crape myrtles
• Acer griseum - paperbark maple
• Acer palmatum - Japanese maples. Lots of great ones to choose from; I'm fond of Acer p. 'Sango Kaku', A. p. 'Seiryu', A. p. 'Ukigumo', A. p. 'Fireglow'
• Acer japonicum 'Acontifolium' - fern leaf full moon maple
• Viburnum plicatum tomentosum 'Maresii' - doublefile viburnum
• Hamamelis x 'Jelena' - witch hazel
• Cedrus deodara 'Silver Mist' - just one of many wonderful dwarf conifers to consider
• Choisya ternata 'Aztec Pearl' - Mexican orange, finely cut green foliage
• Choisya ternata 'Sundance' - another Mexican orange, with yellow foliage
• Ilex crenata 'Sky Pencil' - a columnar Japanese holly
• Cryptomeria japonica 'Little Diamond' - dwarf Japanese cedar

And the list could could go on and on ...but why don't you do this, check out Great Plant Picks for lots and lots of really great plants specifically recommended for their suitability to northwest gardens. But don't forget, be choosy.

Register now for the Spring 2009 Get Growing Class Series

Great news, I will be teaching the Get Growing! series again this spring. This multi-session gardening series that I offer in collaboration with the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon (HPSO) is scheduled for Tuesdays, March 31, April 7, 14, and 21 from 6 pm to 8:30 pm, and Sunday, April 26 from 11 am to 4 pm.

I hope you'll consider joining us; follow the link for MORE INFO.

Darcy Daniels speaking at Yard, Garden and Patio Show

Garden show season continues with the Yard, Garden and Patio Show that takes place this weekend at the Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. The show will run Friday, February 27th through Sunday, March 1st. Show hours on Friday and Saturday run 10 am to 9 pm and Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm. Show admission is $11 for adults, but print this coupon for a $2 discount.

I'll be speaking Friday afternoon at 3:30 pm. I've entitled my talk, Ensemble Performances ...and the Crowd Goes Wild! I'll be sharing tips and ideas for using plants that make the cut to create show-stopping ensemble performances in your garden.

I'm thrilled to be on the docket with so many great garden communicators, all experts in their field. There are over 45 seminars and demonstrations slated for the three day show. So study the list, check it twice, and strategize which seminars you'll be attending. For the full listing of all the seminar offerings, go here.

Garden inspiration abounds. In addition to the extensive seminars, you'll find display gardens, vendors with plants and other garden goodies and, a personal favorite, the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon (HPSO) will again have its Winter-in-Bloom botanical display where plants that bring beauty to our winter gardens are featured. 

Hope to see you at the show, and if you come to my talk on Friday please be sure to say hello!