Roadtrip, north again

Yes, I do love a planty roadtrip. Last weekend I headed back up to the Seattle/Bellevue area to give a talk for the NPA, and as luck would have it the same weekend the Hardy Fern Foundation was having their fall Fern Fest event. How could I miss that? So I left home at the (ridiculous) hour of 6:30 am on Saturday morning and was at the Bellevue Botanic Garden before the sale started at 10 am. Yay!

Turns out I wasn't the only Portlander that made the early morning trip, Craig (of the Farm on Dairy Creek) and Jenn (here's her most excellent garden) must have been right behind me on I-5. By now y'all probably recognize Emily (on the far left), the wonderful nursery manager for the Hardy Fern Foundation.

The Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden was also selling plants at the event, they brought a few of my favorites like Rhododendron williamsianum...

Rhododrndron nakaharai

The spider azalea, R. 'Linearifolium'

And Rhododendron 'Wine & Roses' 

The HFF tables were filled with fantastic ferns like Blechnum penna-marina (Austroblechnum penna-marina).

And Blechnum chilense (Parablechnum cordatum).

Dan Hinkley was also at the event selling Windcliff plants, like this super serrated Schefflera delavayi, which I heard more than one person lusting after, and then withdrawing their hand when they saw the price (upwards of $200).

I spied this gorgeous creature in the holding area, I didn't want to manhandle someone else's plant, so I'm not sure if it's a brassaiopsis or a trevesia.

Hopefully many folks signed up to be Hardy Fern Foundation members during the sale.

After the sale I zipped over to Wells Medina Nursery where I saw the most hilarious plant label that I've seen in a while. 

I give you Amsonia ciliata 'Halfway to Arkansas'...

You'd be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't be?) at how many times I'm drawn to Stokesia laevis when they're budded up like this. I bought one once, it disappeared without ever blooming.

Now it's Sunday and I was back at the Bellevue Botanic Garden for my talk. This was the Northwest Perennial Alliance's annual meeting and it kicked off with a pumpkin demonstration (adding succulents) by Alison Johnson.

The meeting marked their 40th Anniversary, we are so lucky here in the PNW to have such strong horticulture organizations.

Fast forward to Monday (this is the quick highlight/haul reel, there will be more in depth posts of some of my stops in the future) and I'm at University Village to visit Ravenna Gardens. I had to stop to admire this swath of Mahonia eurybracteata 'Soft Caress' which appears to not have been effected at all by last winter's nastiness, unlike most 'Soft Caress' here in Portland.

Such a beautiful mahonia.

Ravenna Gardens! It had been a couple of years since I'd been, thankfully it's just as wonderful as it was back when Gillian Matthews (the founder) was still in charge. Kudos to the new owners for keeping it such a great destination.

The first plant to catch my eye was the dark leaf hydrangea everyone is talking about, Hydrangea macrophylla Eclipse® (not Hydrangea macrophylla 'Eclipse'... the devil is in the [trademark vs. cultivar] details).

Then I went to look at the Windcliff plants, silly since I'd just shopped his plants at Fern Fest and was at Windcliff in July, but hey, you never know what you might find.

Begonias...

Sinopanax formosanus

Hemiboea subequalis var. jiangxiensis (oh so very tempted)

Strobilanthes gossypinus

Pseudopanax 

And look, Arctostaphylos x 'Sunset', for those of you at my talk on Sunday who were wondering where to buy arctostaphylos in the area, here you are...

Inside the shop it was fun to see Dan's book and my book hanging out together...

So, yes, the moment you've been waiting for, the haul photo! It's a good one.

Clockwise from the far right: from Ravenna Gardens, Bergenia ciliata. Look at those hairs!

They're on the stems too.

Blechnum novae-zelandiae from the HFF Fern Fest. It got a little wilted in my car but responded nicely to a drenching.

Eryngium guatemalense from Dan Hinkley. Craig pointed out this came from seed he got from Jimi Blake. Fun provenance, I had to try it.

During my stay up north I visited my friend Scott's garden (2021 visit here) and he gave me this pot of agave pups. They're a form or a cross of Agave scabra (Agave asperrima) and he says they should be hardy, I'll plant them out next spring.

Another HFF Fern Fest fern, Anisocampium cuspidatum.

Evergreen, 24" - 36"... what's not to love?

I grabbed this shaggy oddity at Wells Medina. Artemisia gmelinii, aka SunFern™ Olympia, aka Russian Wormwood.

I know nothing about this plant other than it's supposed to be evergreen and likes full sun. We shall see.

I think this might have been my biggest score of the trip, Rhododendron cardiobasis from the RSBG at Fern Fest. Bought for the big foliage of course.

I think there might have only been one of these at the sale, I turned around and saw it and wasted no time making it mine.

I'm also pretty excited about this one, Rhododendron 'Ever Red'. Hopefully I can keep this one alive, as I quickly killed the one I bought from Roger Gossler.

Speaking of killed, I'm thinking the third time is the charm for Rhododendron forrestii ssp. forrestii. I've killed the two Roger Gossler has given me (well, they died, I don't know if I was to blame or not). We'll see how this one (from the RSBG) does.

Finally, Scott didn't just send me on my way with a pot of agaves, he also gave me a trio of Aspidistra elatior pots (I can always use more aspidistra) and a cool piece of vintage metal.

Hmmm... what will I do with this? Fun times ahead.

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Goodbye Nolina 'La Siberica', hello mossy logs and ferns

I broke the sad news about the demise of my Nolina hibernica 'La Siberica' in late July. I began that post with the smallest sliver of a hope that somehow this long term resident of the garden might survive, but as I wrote I realized I had mentally already shut that door. I loved, I lost, and I was ready to move on.

It was August 6th when I cut back the razor-sharp leaves, preparation for digging it out. I put my foot on the plant for leverage and the whole thing bent over. Turns out I'd made the right choice, that plant was not going to pull through.

Interestingly I visited John Kuzma and Kathleen Halme's garden just a week later and guess what they'd just put in their yard waste bin...

The same thing happened in their garden, an established Nolina 'La Siberica' that had been fine earlier in the summer suddenly took a turn. While I don't wish losing a plant on anyone, this development definitely made me feel better about my own loss. Some had suggested my issue was too much summer water, meaning I could have prevented it. Seeing the same scenario play out across town seemed to suggest otherwise.

So, back to my garden and the newly emptied space. Inspired by the idea of planting pyrrosia with a fallen log or two (like this) my friend Susan had rounded up some nice pieces at Secret Garden Growers (where she works part-time), and lucky me she brought a couple over to my garden—with extra moss!

I played with the logs, plants I'd purchased, and metal—moving them around deciding what I liked.

I knew I wanted to work in a pair of pedestal/elevated dish-planter type structures and hoped to track down a couple of plough discs, but that was not to be.

Instead I went with flat platter-like surfaces and found...

...heavy terracotta dishes to plant up and sit on them. I thought thick terracotta would hold the moisture nicely but drain. Nope. There is no glaze but they held water for a ridiculous length of time, so I drilled holes. Two in the small dish and three in the larger. I might have to pull these if the weather gets bad and I didn't want to compromise their structure.

In went pyrrosia, Pyrrosia lingua 'Hiryu' (in the small dish)...

And Pyrrosia lingua 'Ogon Nishiki' with P. lingua 'Compacta' in the large. I also used a few pieces of black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens') I'd dug up in the area, along with Lonicera crassifolia.

These didn't go into the dish planters but I have to share a couple photos of the cool fronds of Athyrium niponicum 'Aubergine Lady', from Little Prince.

Cool right? These went into the ground, but don't show up in the coming photos, sadly.

Since I knew I'd be returning with more ferns, planting the ground layer was put on hold until I got back from my trip to Far Reaches at the end of August. This Pyrrosia sheareri is from that haul. Between the log and the metal tube is a small Pyrrosia linqua from Little Prince—they'll grow to be normal size eventually.

The tubes are held in place with rebar and are straight, at least for now. In some photos they look a little crooked, but the angles are deceiving.

Like here for instance.

Planting done, it's time to put the dishes in place (different cameras, different days make for different colors and saturation in these photos).

It's a complete accident that these variegated fronds of  'Ogon Nishiki' ended up in a spot where the afternoon light can shine through them. I love the effect!

I did a little research on how rust effects moss and other plants and found nothing but positive reports. Hopefully that's the case. This is the larger dish...

And the smaller...

There was a nice planting pocket in one of the logs, so I worked in a Lonicera crassifolia. Fingers crossed it's happy there.

Adiantum aleuticum 'Subpumilum'

Davallia perdurans PMD, squirrel’s foot fern, from Far Reaches.

The short metal piece helps increase drainage and lifts the fuzzy bits up off the ground, so they can better be seen.

Also from Far Reaches, Deparia lobato-crenata.

And Lepisorus cf. macrosphaerus MD 15-09.

This small Pyrrosia sheareri was sent to me a few years ago by a kind person that I've never met. It was hit extremely hard by last winter (I hadn't noticed that something had essentially pulled the rhizome completely out of the ground) but thankfully it has fought its way back. Hopefully it will be happy here.

There are multiple Asplenium trichomanes worked in here and there.

And the Rhododendron 'Golfer' I brought back from the Fling (and the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden) was planted nearby.

Euonymus fortunei 'Kewensis', another Fling crush that Little Prince satisfied.

Checking out one of the dish planters from the backside, while 'Golfer' glows in the sunshine...

These two new pedestals echo the bromeliad bowl I put in earlier in the summer, unintentional, but I do love a repeated element.

I can't remember if I ever called out the dark Rhododendron 'Ebony Pearl' I planted between Sammy (our oldest Yucca rostrata) and the palm, it's hard to see but rises up above the black mondo. This is also a good opportunity to mention the Parablechnum novae-zelandiae from Dancing Oaks, it's on the far right near the furry palm trunk. Closest to Sammy's trunk is a Pyrrosia linqua and above that the Blechnum sp. #3 from Windcliff Plants (Dan Hinkley) that I brought home from the Cistus Summer Extravaganza.

Looking at this shot I realize I didn't mention the big beautiful fern to the right of the pedestals, that's Dryopteris cycadina.

I wonder how many of you've noticed this new planting plops moss and ferns down in an area with agaves and yuccas all around? It was something I thought long and hard about before I planted. The agaves and yucca are throw-backs to when the back garden was much sunnier. However, they're still alive and doing well—and I love them—so why would I pull them out? When I mentioned this to Susan (she of the log gifts) she called it a very "PNW thing". Yep, I can live with that.

Bold changes. Rule breaking. Planting what you love. That's Fearless Gardening I think....

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