Palm Central

My obsession for plants originated about 10 years ago with an obsession for palms.  Instead of just moving to Hawaii (I didn't have any money and was still in college), I figured the next best thing was to at least make my yard look like a tropical paradise - even if it didn't always feel like one.  So my love affair with palms began.  Below are the different species of palms currently growing in my garden, ordered by easiness to grow in the Seattle area.  The last three palms are not reliable hardy, but do spend the vast majority of their time outside.

Trachycarpus fortunei (Windmill Palm)

Trachycarpus fortunei var. wagnerianus

Rhapidophyllum hystrix (Needle Palm)

Jubaea chilensis (Chilean Wine Palm)

Butia capitata (Jelly Palm)

Chamaerops humilis (Mediterranean Fan Palm)

Washingtonia robusta (Mexican Fan Palm)

Sabal mexicana

Sabal minor

Brahea armata (Mexican Blue Palm)

Rhapis excelsa (Lady Palm)

Syagrus romanzoffiana (Queen Palm)

The Desert Southwest

I started having visions back in December of a desert rockery on the Southwest corner of the yard.  I've come to realize this small corner has an amazingly desert-like microclimate: it's in full sun most of the day, it's right next to the road which soaks up heat during the day, and it gets some frost & rain protection underneath the canopy of a tall deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara).  

December 28th, 2012

There was a Japanese maple, an umbrella pine, a barberry, a small hardy banana cutting, and a fairly ugly patch of candy tuft that all had to be transplanted somewhere else (by the way, the picture below was taken on Dec. 28th, 2012 - pretty amazing the banana leaves were still in tact that late into the season).

December 28th, 2012

There was only one thing left to do to make this the best possible spot for growing opuntias, agaves, aloes, dyckias, and other heat-loving plants outdoors....Add lots and lots of sand...

Six 100-pound bags to be exact.  This sand was so pristine and white, I almost felt guilty burying it all.  I hand-mixed it with garden soil to create a "dirty sand" mix of about 60% sand and 40% soil.  This pindo palm (Butia capitata) that has been growing in a pot for the past few years finally has a permanent home.

March 3rd

I started taking cuttings of some plants growing in other places.  The plant with the silvery-green leaves is Astelia chathamica 'Silver Spear'.  Of course I had to borrow (permanently) some big rocks from other places in the garden to make a sort of skeleton to keep all that well-draining sand in place.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but this hill is about 3' tall, with pretty steep slopes.

March 3rd

The little plant in the lower left corner in the picture above is Opuntia humifusa.  I saw this growing as a groundcover outside the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.  I wasn't about to let Chicago grow a cactus outside that I didn't have in my garden.  Luckily Far Reaches Farm came to the rescue and had the plant in stock.

March 16th

I used pea gravel as a mulch.

March 23rd

It will help keep the sand from blowing away and hopefully keep dogs and cats and kids from digging in it (it's basically a giant sandbox after all).

March 31st

Here are a couple before & after shots (Dec. 2012 Vs. April 2013):

What started back in January as Project #1 for the year is now 99% complete...which is about as complete as it's going to get!

 

We Now Conclude Our Mild Winter

Brassica oleracea var. longata

The entire West Coast, all the way down to Southern California, is currently experiencing a healthy dose of freezing weather.  The good news is we're still within the realm of what's normal for us, making this a great opportunity to test out the hardiness of some newer plants.  Of course, the frost will take with it more than a few brugmansias, kangaroo apples, castor beans, abutilons, iochromas, and bromeliads that were pushing their luck anyway.

Mahonia x media 'Charity' is just about to open its hummingbird-friendly flowers

Even though the daytime highs are barely above freezing, no ice has formed on the fountain yet.

January 12th, 2013

Compared with the worst of the freezing weather from the previous two winters...

Winter 2011/2012 (Jan. 2012)

Winter 2010/2011 (Nov. 2010)

The subfreezing weather causes mottling effects on some plants.

Aspidistra elatior

Eucalyptus pauciflora

Others are just a bit droopy.

Drimys winteri

Some irreplaceable plants have gotten a little protection but for the most part I'm seeing how things handle this bout of freezing weather on their own.

Butia capitata

Lowest temperature so far this season: 21 degrees F/-6 C on Jan 13, 2013.

The Northwest Flower & Garden Show, Part 2

There are so many well-designed displays at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show, it takes a lot of mental power to soak it all in.

Speaking of soaking, this lady has apparently been sitting out in the rain too long.

 

Some of the attention to detail is incredible.  I don't know if I could ever create a display like this - knowing that it is going to be taken down five days after being put up.

This was an interesting idea: growing epiphytes in glass ornaments that are hanging in a tree.

Forced Fritillaria flowers.

Here we see rain spouts creating streams of water running off the roof.  This would only happen in a rainstorm, in which case you wouldn't really care because you would be inside watching TV.

It doesn't look that big in the picture, but this Japanese maple was huge.  It's at least 50 years old, and probably 6' tall.

How the heck did I end up here again?!?

Look at all those plants hoping to find a nice garden to grow up in.  I couldn't say no to all of them.  When I went to the show yesterday, there were two Pindo Palms (Butia capitata) in the Christianson's booth for $25.  I thought that was a pretty decent price.  Surely someone would quickly snatch the other one sometime on Saturday.  But, no one did!  I waited until the end of the day on Saturday to buy it, along with six Dahlias, three orchids, and an umbrella pine (Sciadopitys verticillata).

On to Part 3...