Muck About

Whether the Weather

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not.
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot.
We'll weather the weather
Whether we like it or not.

That old poem is a reminder we are subject to the winds of change. I wouldn’t mind a little wind to change the weather. However, I reserve the right to complain when we reach these extremes.

With record temperatures over 100°F degree and no end in sight, I am wilting along with my plants. I wish today’s theme song was Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head by Burt Bacharach; instead, our theme song is more like Martha and the Vandella’s, Heat Wave. We were hotter than most of the rest of the country; now there is a switch!

Today Scott Sistek, our weather person over at Komo 4 news, tells us we have more 3-digit heat ahead of us.  I long to be complaining again over the cooler 80° F heat waves we normally experience this time of year.  Hey Scott, will you please appease the weather gods and get us some relief?

A sad note for today, Wallace Wylie Hansen of Salem, Oregon died yesterday after a long illness. After his retirement in 1988, Hansen began Wally Hansen's Native Plant Nursery, at a time when few realized the beauty of growing native plants in the garden. Our hearts and minds expanded when he showed us how to appreciate our Pacific Northwest indigenous plants. Many of us in the garden community will miss him.

On the organic trail, Portland, Oregon’s  Zenger Farm has an organic workshop open to both novice and experienced gardeners, starting August 15, 2009. Learn how to manage your soil, care for vegetables and fruit trees, how to save your seeds and winter planning.  Advanced registration required so check out their web site for more information and which classes you want to participate.

Remember the rain?

WSU/Native Plant Salvage and  rain garden project sponsors invite you to attend the King County Library rain garden installation workshop at Covington on Saturday and Sunday, August 1 & 2.   The site preparation is just about, done and they need your volunteer support to complete the project.  Please RSVP to Stewardship Partners, ba@stewardshippartners.org, (206) 292-9875. 

Wishing you cooler days ahead!

Water Drum Gardens

The Cedar River Watershed Education Center in North Bend has a wonderful native garden filled with drums that are played by drips of water. When the weather is dry a computer times the dripping to play the drums, and when its pouring down moisture, the rain plays the rhythms.

 Click on images below  to view larger.

The garden was covered with native plantings with the drums nestled in.

The next image show one of many sides of the garden, each offering a different view of the tranquil setting.

You can see the drops coming down and splashing across the drum heads.

This was my favorite drum with its intricate designs.

Closer in on the same photo you can see the water splashing after the drops hit.

The covered walkways around the Education Center were planted. This one that went under the roof of one of the buildings were full of shade tolerant natives.

Hardhack (Spiraea douglasii ssp. douglasii) was in bloom during our visit.



This photo captured two separate lines of drips that hit both drums. The melodious rhythms saturated the air around the garden.

The pipes that brought the water above the drums were almost invisible amongst the native vine maples (Acer circinatum).

Oh noes, there are bugs on the campus! Nuke 'em!

Today I went to Olympic College Poulsbo Campus to take care of some business.  As I was walking into the building, I spotted a sign taped to the door, warning everyone that there was going to be pesticide spraying the next day. The reason? They are spraying for general insects.

Shoot, if you are going to spray the generals, why not use an all-purpose spray for the colonels, lieutenants, and privates?  

A pesticide company will be doing the dirty work to keep us all safe from the insects. The bugs just might crawl on the students when they sit outside on a bench, causing mass hysteria, nobody showing up for class, because someone had an ant crawl on their sack lunch.  They must spray the whole campus down, and kill everything in sight.

I thought at least a college would be enlightened enough to realize there is no need to do a general spray down for insects.  The building is made of concrete and bricks, so there is no danger of bug damage to the buildings.  

I can only shake my head at the idiotic  hysteria over the bug world that makes some humans want to nuke them all.

Variegated Buildup on Aisle Ten

I was cruising through a catalog this morning, enjoying all the flowers images inside its  covers.  Stunning photos of remarkable blossoms help nurseries sell their wares; however, what I want to see is foliage.  I love foliage.  It’s the reason I am keen on banana plants, cannas, and variegated foliage.  Almost any leaf that is bumpy or lumpy, brightly hued or unusual receives my attention.  Some leaves look like an impressionist painter created the artistic patterns and textures; other leaves such as the porcupine tomato (Solanum pyracanthum), look like Picasso had a bit of fun with it.

Foliage is the mainstay in the garden and without it, my little oasis would seem like a desert.  Don’t get me wrong; I love flowers just as much as the next woman does.  While blossoms take center stage, the leaves set the stage. Too many flowers in the garden is too syrupy for these eyes, I need a place to rest them in between the eye candy.  That’s where beautiful foliage creates balance and harmony, and a place to relax the eyes.

Too Much of a Good Thing

I’ve toured a few gardens where variegation has taken over. Ouch, my eyes!  Too many plants with variegated foliage, leaves me feeling slightly nauseous, like just before a huge migraine headache strikes.  I remember one home where acuba plants grew everywhere. They were foundation plants for the home as well as used as hedging for one side of their yard.  Whoever planted them; either received an excellent deal on them from a nursery, or really liked these plants to the point of obsession. Their bright gold and green foliage screamed at me whenever I walked down their long driveway.  Even now, I dislike this shrub even though I’ve seen single specimens used as understory plants in a shaded garden with toned down splashes of yellow on its leaves.  It immediately reminds me of the gaudiness of my first encounter with the plant.

Good Garden Design Includes Foliage

Foliage is an integral part of garden design. Gardeners, who design garden masterpieces, use foliage extensively in their artistry.  With all the diversity of size, color, and form in leaves, a creative gardener can give rise to combinations of plants that make any onlooker appreciate the garden canvas in front of them.

One of my favorite books, Consider the Leaf by Judy Glattstein, goes into much detail about using foliage in garden design.  Her fabulous foliage combinations are enough to make any flower gardener turn strictly to leaf gardening.

Click on images to view larger.
Top photo: Ilex 'Golden Milkboy' photographed in Wendy Tweten's garden.
Middle: Solanum pyracanthum photographed in Debbie Teashon's garden.
Bottom: Hosta 'War Paint' photographed in David Fishman's garden.

EWWW, The Broom is in Full Bloom

I was  on Facebook commenting about broom after reading Tamara Sellman's comment about it. So I poked around and found this interesting article in the Oregonian about what could be done with the  noxious plant, Cytisus scoparius. If you haven't seen it in full bloom around here, you would have to be certifiably blind.

Last year I blogged about it after reading our local feed and nursery store's humorous sign. Someone complained about the message, but I howled with laughter. Hey, it beats crying over weeds.

They Call it Noxious Yellow

Anyway, this amazing young man from Tillamook, Oregon came up with making biofuel out of scotch broom:

"Sixteen-year-old Hayden Bush arrived in Houston last month feeling pretty darned good about his odds for doing well in the International Sustainable World Science Fair.

Then he got a look at the competition: more than 800 students from 51 countries and 38 states, most from elite math and science academies, backed by government and university sponsors and armed with professionally bound books defining their projects to the letter.

And there was Bush, a third-generation farmer, with a simple journal on his efforts to convert Scotch broom, a noxious weed found throughout Oregon, into an alternative fuel. He had a partial scholarship from the Oregon Fairs Association and the company of his agricultural sciences and technology teacher, Max Sherman.

"It was like, 'Wow,'" Bush says. "Overwhelming would be a good word. I was definitely feeling outclassed."

Read the rest of this amazing young man's accomplishment: Oregon teen scores with possible biofuel from Scotch broom.

Hell Strip Veggies Need Permits in Seattle

Permits are needed to grow edible food on your hell strip. The cost isn't cheap either, according to Marty Wingate in her column in the Seattle Globe.

"Civic responsibility usually doesn’t put food on your table, but here’s a chance for you to make something out of nothing by growing vegetables in the parking strip in front of your home. The only hitches: You’re planting on borrowed land, you’ll need a permit and it could cost as much as $225 if you install any hardscape in this new garden strip."

It seems a lot of the problem may be due to height requirements along the street.

"Guidelines include restrictions on plants that overflow the parking strip and take up sidewalk space, and height limits (3 feet unless within 30 feet of a corner, then 2 feet) so that visibility isn’t impaired. That means that corn as high as an elephant’s eye is prohibited."

My first thought was ewww on the streetside vegetable growing. I'm thinking exhaust, but Marty also mentions a lot of other variables that make growing in a hell strip, well... hellish. I think if it can be done and there are no health issues, why not?

Although I wouldn't grow edibles there, I certainly love to see trees and other plants instead of desert lawns that need to be mowed. Street trees are beautiful, and who doesn't love to walk by a cornucopia of flowering plants and green textures?

What do you think?

Frosty Tonight Chilly Tomorrow

Gardeners beware; it is going to be a frosty one, tonight and tomorrow night, so be sure to protect your recently planted vegetables and annuals. In reality, it is still too early to plant tender annuals outside. If you haven’t planted them, place them in a garage or in a cool room indoors overnight. For the tender plants already planted outside, throw blankets, sheets, newspapers, or anything light enough not to break the small plants underneath your chosen material.

Some other ways to protect your young plants is by inverting pots over them, or use empty cottage cheese containers. Even milk cartons will work by cutting their tops off and sliding them over the taller plants. Anything that keeps the frost off the vegetation will work. Look in your recycle bin for plastics, glass or cardboard boxes you can use. If you use anything glass or clear, be sure to take them off the plants before the sun hits it or you will end up with fried green plants.

From the National Weather Service:
THE COLD WEATHER IN MARCH HAS EXTENDED INTO THE FIRST FEW DAYS OF APRIL FOR WESTERN WASHINGTON. AN UPPER LEVEL RIDGE WILL BEGIN BUILDING OVER THE AREA LATER TODAY AND TONIGHT. WITH THE RIDGE BUILDING SKIES WILL CLEAR OUT ACROSS WESTERN WASHINGTON OVERNIGHT INTO SATURDAY MORNING. A VERY COOL AIR MASS WILL STILL BE IN PLACE OVER THE AREA AND WITH THE CLEARING SKIES LOW TEMPERATURES SATURDAY MORNING COULD DROP TO BELOW FREEZING IN SOME LOCATIONS WITH SOME RECORD BREAKING LOWS POSSIBLE. THE RECORD LOW FOR SEATTLE IS 31 DEGREES SET IN 1948. THE RECORD FOR OLYMPIA IS 26 DEGREES SET IN 2001. THE BEST CHANCES FOR BELOW FREEZING TEMPERATURES WILL BE IN THE SOUTHWEST INTERIOR.

One of my favorite places to get weather updates is from Cliff Mass Weather Blog. Cliff Mass is a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington and is an unsurpassed authority on our Northwest weather. Besides his work at the UW, he is a featured weekly guest on KUOW; and he publishes articles about Northwest weather and leads the regional development of advanced weather prediction tools. I turn to his blog often for what is coming up weather wise.

For gardeners, his lecture, “Into to Northwest Weather”, is coming up on April 16, at 6:45pm at the Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle and hosted by Dunn Gardens. The cost is ten dollars and well worth it, for understanding our weather as it pertains to our gardens. For more information and reserve a seat, visit Dunn Gardens.

A Little Spring Cheer

 This morning the sun is shining, but only for a short-lived moment.  I can see clouds progressing in from the southwest that will swirl around my little town and eventually envelope us in a gray murk.  For that reason, I am looking for sunshine everywhere I can uncover it and at this moment it is in this appealing little daffodil—Narcissus ‘Elizabeth Ann’. Not yet in bloom in the garden; however, the buds are plump with a promise of bursting into color at any instant.  I peered into the plant gallery at Rainyside.com and found it blossoming profusely on the web.

Arizona's Stark Contrast to Home

I recently returned from a five-day whirlwind trip to Arizona to visit my daughter, Kela and enjoy a slice of her world. The warm sunshine and stark splendor of Arizona boosted my spirits, much needed after a long winter I would just as soon forget.  While the Pacific Northwest took a bath in snow, I took walks in the daily sunshine. There was no need for me to take my vitamin D tablets with all the splendid light saturating my body.

It is strange to be in an unfamiliar place where the plants are alien and the bird song is in another dialect, unlike the familiar melodies of the chickadee, towhee or robin back home. I photographed the fruit of the cholla (Opuntia), which I mistook for flowers, silly me.  Kela and I enjoyed a day trip to Sedona where we photographed the beautiful red rock and plant life.  I took a walk down memory lane remembering our last visit to the red rock country, when she was two years old.  Now at age 27, she endures the endless stories about her precocious antics in Sedona her grandmother, auntie and I dredge up.

 Late winter to early spring is a beautiful time to be in Arizona, especially when our Pacific Northwest dreary and cold springs drag on until early July.  Although I miss being close to my daughter, it is good to be home in Washington again romping around the neighborhood with Kono dog and enjoying the antics of my four egg laying wonder girls. Even though it is cold, the signs of spring are everywhere, especially the early flowering, let’s-cut-to-the-chaise-it’s-spring plants.  Other less enjoyable signs crop up, such as the annoying weeds growing in leaps and bounds, the containers in the greenhouse need constant watering and I am behind in starting seed for the vegetable garden.  Nevertheless, I feel like Dorothy at the end of her trip to Oz, when she returned to the black and white world of Kansas and said, “There’s no place like home!” The clattering sounds of heavy rainfall falling on the skylight above me, reminds me why there is no place as splendid as our green Pacific Northwest.

Top photo: Opuntia fruit
Middle photo: Sedona
Bottom photo: Fragrant orange blossom

Crappy Decisions

Here’s another good reason to get off the herbicide-go-round. At the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, unacceptable levels of clopyralid was found in the compost that is made up of animal manure, straw bedding, wood chips, leaves and grass.

Dan Corum announced that the Zoo Doo will not be sold for garden use as the herbicide residue can kill some plants. Instead they will use it around the zoo this spring. Hopefully, this autumn Zoo Doo will once again be available in time for fall garden applications.

Go ahead and say it, you know you wanna!