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They can be spooky, funny, witty, or classical; faces are a popular ornamentation for gardens. Typically, they are dead giveaways about personalities of the gardener who furnishes the garden.
Touring a lot of gardens lately, I find many faces lurking in surprising places. Here are a few I’ve found while touring NW gardens, with a few of my own thrown in.
Click on photos for larger images.
Two lady containers filled with sedums:
For the walls:
Bench Carvings:
I have thought about acquiring chickens for a long time, so that we could have fresh organic eggs. In addition, they are good pooping machines, providing fertilizer for the garden. Moreover, wherever chickens haunt, they clear the land of vegetation, eating weed seeds, bugs and slugs. It became readily apparent they are multi purpose birds.
Originally, I asked for two pullets, was talked into taking three, but wound up with four. I’ve had them for three days now and they are growing and changing each day. One of them is a Barred Plymouth Rock named Roxy, while the other three are Rhode Island Reds, which I haven’t named thus far. The reds look very much alike; I am trying to familiarize myself with their individual features. One is starting to stand out as smaller, with darker red feathers than the other two; only time will tell if she will remain this way.
A friend in Portland raised them from little chicks to pullet size, when I purchased the extra girls. My husband and I built a two-foot by four-foot nesting house, where they are locked up tight at night. We have a chain-link dog kennel that serves as their patio by day. The whole pen is moveable; we plan to position it around the garden wherever we want them to scratch and fertilize. We topped it with black grids and some leftover pieces of plywood to provide some shade by day. We will fine-tune it as time passes.
I now officially feel countrified. Although keeping chickens in the city is feasible, keeping a flock has always felt like something you do when you live in rural areas, as we do. With my office window open, I can hear them peeping outside while I write. Sometimes I hear them in a power struggle, squabbling over their pecking order.
Maintaining a small flock will be worth it, when we savor our first fresh eggs in the next few months. In the meantime, they are scratching and fertilizing a neglected area of the garden, which by fall should be ready to plant.
When Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) is in bloom, you can see with your own eyes how much this weed has taken over the Pacific Northwest. Every empty lot or anywhere that the ground has been disturbed is covered in the butterscotch-yellow flowering shrub. About the only place you don’t see it growing is in deep shade. Not to worry though; ivy is invading there.
It’s a shame we introduce plants which become noxious weeds displacing our native species. The bad news is Scotch broom is a copious seeder, producing over 10,000 seeds per plant; the seeds remain viable for up to 60 years! In addition, its seeds are toxic to humans and livestock. Because they grow so densely, it's impossible to find a way through a stand of them. When the seedpods are dry, they make a crackling sound; unless you know what it is, this creepy noise can be disconcerting.
The good news is... um... err... actually, there is no good news. However, Sacks, a local business in my hometown, is trying to keep us all in good humor while the broom is in bloom.
It is not surprising that native sword ferns (Polystichum munitum), so prevalent in the maritime Northwest, played an important plant in the lives of the indigenous people. It grows in the shade of our conifer forests where few plants dare to venture.
Food and Medicine
As food, the rhizome was baked in pits or boiled. Medicinally, the young, curled leaves were chewed for sore throats and tonsillitis. Chewed leaves also were used for sores, boils, and to help the progress of childbirth. Sores were washed with an infusion from the boiled rhizomes. As a dandruff cure, the hair was washed in the boiled roots, and the spores were scraped off the leaves as a treatment for burns.
Pots and Pans and Furniture
The leaves had many uses from lining baking pits to making mattresses. Berries were dried on leaves spread out on drying racks because the berries would not stick to them.
Childrens' Game
Children played a game with the fronds, seeing who could pull off the largest number of fern leaves while holding their breath saying “pila” with each leaf pulled.
