Today, as I was carting loads of firewood from the woodshed to the house through the yellow-stained gum of half-melted snow, I was reminded how good and profoundly circular life can be.

While bemoaning the recent climatic assaults on our garden, and belligerently filling my wheelbarrow, I heard a most curious noise. Fearing I had disturbed a winter home of our native Douglas’s Squirrel or even a mouse attempting to survive our lead-weighted temperatures, I paused to find its source. [Read more…]

Once again, I recognize my timidity through the discovery of an unexpected survivor within the expanse of safe and boring plants growing in my garden at Windcliff, pondering why I do not more often engage in attempted murder for the sake of luminosity. It is generally through these premeditated crimes and misdemeanors that I have been rewarded by the most amazing new plants. This year, I attempted a serial murder of a genus of terrestrial bromeliads called Dyckia and found myself mesmerized instead.

The genus Dyckia, a conglomerate of 120 or so species, are found primarily in South America. Though perhaps not the most euphonious of generic names, consider the choices available to the botanist who named it in honor of this Prussian botanist; Josef Maria Franz Anton Hubert Ignatz, Prince and Earl of Salm Reifferscheid-Dyck (1773-1861). Personally, I might have gone with Reifferscheidia. But whatever. [Read more…]

La Niña, that burly girl that refuses to let go her muscular thigh grip on our winter/spring/winter in the PNW, continues her stronghold in our climate. Robert and I, avec chiens, will retreat to the redoubt of eastern Washington this weekend to wait her out, with some botanizing, biking, enological illumination and political conversation (as they say, a good whine needs no bush). Interestingly, however, it is day length, not temperature, that rules the roost here and things push forward unperturbed.

As has Tropaeolum polyphylum. A vine that I have become particularly fond of in our garden over many years, it is a hardy Nasturtium known, in latin, as Tropaeolum polyphyllum. It is one of the tuberous rooted species found in the same genus as the more commonly come upon, aphid-ridden annual known as the Nasturtium (Nasty-Ur-Shum, as Robert is known to call them). [Read more…]

There is one thing I know for certain about Edgeworthia. No one seems to know what species they have and few seem to know if more than one species actually exists. I include myself amongst the taxonomically challenged and amongst those guilty of propelling improper nomenclature through my writing and speaking.

We grew what we called Edgeworthia papyrifera for many years at Heronswood, having received our first plant from J.C. Raulston under this name. It thrived in our woodland, each year setting enormous quantities of silvery buttons in autumn that would open to yellow, fragrant clusters of flowers in late January. We twice dug a single specimen for use in Flower and Garden show displays in Seattle and it sailed through both insults without harm. Life seemed good. [Read more…]

I began a love affair with this genus in 1995 during my first visit to E. Nepal, and the romance has continued each autumn as we would rendezvous across much of Asia; Vietnam, Taiwan, Sikkim, Bhutan, W. China.  Though because it was always in full flower in autumn,  with youthful seed capsules months from ripening, the proposal to come away with me and try living a civilized life in the West never materialized.  For reasons I cannot fully explain, despite its widespread status in the wild, it seems as if no one else has successfully distributed this plant in cultivation to the point it deserves, at least in North America.

A member of the Rubiaceae, which claims such classics as the gardenia and coffee, this rather small genus of  shrubs (4-5 species) would make a splendid container candidate for the cool greenhouse in colder climates though perfectly adapted to benign gardening sites of the Puget Sound southward to the Bay Area where summer temperatures remain cool during the summer.  Because  they blossom in autumn through winter, they too are warranted a look by public conservatories as well as by the ‘pot plant’ industry.  The staff of Quarryhill Botanic Garden in Sonoma, CA, equally perplexed as to its general absence in horticulture,  report it to be fully hardy and a splendid addition to their collection. [Read more…]