This Place is a Zoo!

On Wednesday I went to the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma for a special presentation by the head horticulturist, Brian, who led a group of about 10 people around the zoo, talking about the plants growing in the zoo's gardens. This presentation is part of a new program that they just started running last month. I enjoyed the tour of the gardens very much. Brian was enthusiastic, fun and knowledgeable, and it's obvious that he has put a lot of thought and care into choosing plants for the zoo's gardens. They were all large, healthy, impressive, well-maintained specimens, many of which I could not imagine growing to such great size in my garden, which is only about 20 miles away. The zoo is located in Point Defiance Park, right on the shores of Puget Sound, and I'm sure it enjoys the Sound's maritime influence that my own garden, further inland and 600 feet above sea level, doesn't.

Raised bed at the entrance gate -- Do I spy a Schefflera there?

Brian standing in the dry desert bed, chock full of Yuccas, Nolinas, Agaves, Palms and Aloes

To provide good drainage for these desert plants to overwinter, they created a large berm of sandy soil, about 2 feet high. There were also several low-growing shrubs that look like rosemary, but aren't (too prickly, no scent). I'm wondering now if they were Grevilleas.

Aloe (not sure what kind) with what looks like Agave parryi

Enormous trunking Yucca, with a teeny, tiny Aloe tucked underneath. The low-growing shrub in front is North African native Othonna cheirifolia (Barbary Ragwort)

Brian removing leaves of this enormous Melianthus major to pass among the crowd. The leaves smell like peanut butter.

Callistemon, Corokia cotoneaster, and Lobelia tupa

Wavy Nolina

Yucca and Melianthus

There were huge clumps of Lobelia tupa blooming throughout the zoo

Baeckia gunniana, a Tasmanian native

I was quite impressed with the excellent plant signage -- better than some botanical gardens I've visited

Brian explained that you can tell this is a male monkey puzzle tree, by the small cones at the top

Drimys lanceolata -- a big, healthy specimen

I was also quite impressed with the foliage combinations they've created at the zoo. It's obvious Brian and his team of volunteers have done some thoughtful, meticulous work here.

A waterfall of golden Hakone grass, matched with a low-growing conifer with golden needles

Jazz hands horticulurist

Brian showing the crowd a broad-leaf Salix (willow) leaf, from the tall shrub on the right

I'm not sure exactly which Salix this was.

Persicaria 'Red Dragon' and golden Hakonechloa macra

As we entered the Asian forest section of the zoo, I noticed the interesting impressions of leaves and footprints that were embedded in the concrete path.

Apparently, according to Amy, an education specialist at the zoo who also accompanied the tour, there's a story in the animal tracks. In the concrete you can follow the tracks of a tapir, which is being followed by the tracks of a tiger, as well as the human bootprints of a naturalist. At some point the tapir tracks stop, and if you're eagle-eyed you can spot a pile of bones somewhere nearby in the undergrowth. Then the tiger tracks continue on. There's no sign of what happens to the naturalist.

Path lined with bamboo on all sides

In the dry garden area, a fig tree was right at home. Here its large leaves also contribute to a tropical look.

Did I mention the interesting foliage combos?

I bet the zoo's Musa basjoo have been enjoying our hot summer. I can't help wondering how badly they got knocked back by the severe cold periods we had this past winter.

Fatsia japonica 'Spider Web' and bamboo

Big, shiny-leaved Farfugium

I don't think I've ever been on a garden tour before where the participants were so whole-heartedly encouraged to touch and experience the plants. Brian mentioned the difficulty of managing plants inside the animal enclosures. I suppose the minor destruction humans can do pales next to a tiger or elephant lying on, eating, playing with or destroying it.

Brian casts a mischievous spell on his audience.

A passing child asked Brian if he was a zoo-keeper. "No!" he said, "I'm a plant-keeper!"

Baby self-sown Trachycarpus fortunei

Pointing out the many different types of plants often referred to as rhubarb (here it's a Gunnera)

Looks like another Schefflera

Cannas, Bananas and Brugmansia

Double white Brugmansia flower

Planted "ruin" near the tiger enclosure

Brian points out the symmetrical shape of the Podophyllum leaf

Do I spy another Schefflera?

The double tiger lily beside him has produced bulbils, which Brian passes out to the crowd

Speaking of fabulous foliage...

The tall plant at the top resembles stinging nettle, but isn't. Brian picked the leaves and rubbed them on his face to demonstrate.

One of a handful of Wollemia nobilis, thriving throughout the park, in the ground!

Earlier, Brian had mentioned our native Madrona, and when I first saw that orangey tree on the left above I thought it might be one. Nope, it's a Magnolia! An amusing mistake, if you know how Seattle's Magnolia Bluff got its name.

This patch of Sarracenia is planted in a sunken kiddie pool, with a sprinkler right in front, creating ideal conditions for it to thrive.

Hibiscus moscheutos leaf (possibly 'Kopper King') was thoroughly budded up, ready to flower.

A lovely honeysuckle

A bee enjoying some Rudbeckia pollen

Striking Lobelia cardinalis, a North American native near the red wolf enclosure

Canis rufus

The Point Defiance Zoo is heavily involved with a long-term propagation program for the North American red wolf. Red wolves born at the zoo eventually get released into the wild. Read about it here.

A zookeeper feeds the penguins

Armadillo, probably looking for grubs in the grass

I included the armadillo picture for Jean, who gardens in the hot and steamy region south of "Hotlanta," and has to contend with armadillos digging in her garden and lying dead at the roadside. Do you read her blogs Secrets of a Seed Scatterer and Dotty Plants Greenhouse?

In the children's area of the zoo, an enormous Lobelia laxiflora, a Zone 9-11 plant

I can't help wondering what other plants I think of as tender to this region that they could grow in the ground here at the zoo. Aeoniums? Bromeliads? Jacaranda?

While the Asian section focuses on big foliage combos, the children's area was full of bright, colorful flowers

I stopped to sit a spell.

The hortculturist-led garden tours happen on the first Wednesday of every month and meet right inside the entrance gate at 10 a.m. They're free after you pay admission ($17 for non-residents of Pierce county, $15 for residents).

Yes, this place IS a zoo. But it's also a fantastic botanical wonderland.

Favorite Plant Quickie

This is (hopefully) going to be short and sweet.

My favorite plant in the garden this week is Crocosmia 'Emily McKenzie.' She's growing in the hot bed in my front garden, just planted this spring, in full sun with good drainage. I don't think I Googled this plant when I first received it, so I didn't realize it would have that lovely dark blotch in the center. I was thinking it was just plain orange. I love it!

You can find some cultivation info here on the website Plant Lust.

The Favorite Plant in the Garden meme is hosted by Loree at Danger Garden. Here's a link to her post about her favorite plant in her garden this week.

A Pleasant Sunday Morning

How often do you actually sit and enjoy your garden? If you're like me, not often enough. On Sunday, Nigel and I actually got our Kindles and sat out in the back garden for a couple of hours, after having done exactly that same thing just the night before, on Saturday. We only came in on Saturday evening because it was getting too dark to read.

For a good part of the morning, our east-facing back garden is very pleasantly shady, because of the very tall Douglas firs which block the rising sun.

The view from my lounge chair, across our circle of grass to the bed with the huge patch of Monarda 'Raspberry Wine.'

A closer look

When I turn to my left, I see this bed (and Nigel's slippered foot)

A closer look

So far to the left it's almost behind us -- the waterfall that is the start of our stream

And very far to my right -- a mostly shade bed that gets just this little bit of sun early in the morning

Not too far above my head is a bird feeder, hanging on a corner of the back porch

A chickadee waits its turn

"Hey, I think you've had enough!"

The Douglas firs that block the sun

The birds flit back and forth from the bird feeder to the large filbert on the left

Magellan saw us through the window and cried to be let out

Contented cat on my lap

"Where did all those birds go?"

Hopefully you didn't look too closely at those closeups of the beds surrounding us. They've rebounded somewhat from the heat and lack of water that they suffered through back in July, but they definitely need me to get out there to do some trimming and cutting back.

But not on Sunday morning.

My Favorite Plant in the Garden This Week...

...Is Echinacea 'After Midnight.' I considered saving this post until after midnight so that I wouldn't be posting twice in one day. But 6 p.m. works just fine.

Echinacea 'After Midnight' is the first named variety of Echinacea that I planted in the garden when we moved here five years ago. It was one of the first in the recent explosion of Echinacea varieties, and was still relatively new then. It's shorter and darker than the species Echinacea purpurea, which I have a lot of in my garden, but perhaps not quite as vigorous. They've been very well-behaved plants in terms of spreading. Even though it's one of the few plants that I have never moved since planting it, my three plants have not increased quite as explosively as the species, which is not to detract from them. This may be because the seeds (I think) are sterile. I've tried saving seeds from 'After Midnight' and it does produce them, but so far I haven't been successful at getting them to sprout. Maybe it's a good thing I haven't gotten them to sprout, since it's a patented plant. And quite likely if they did sprout, the offspring wouldn't resemble the parent, which is a hybrid of Echinacea purpurea and E. paradoxa.

The petals and center cone, as well as the stem, are darker than the species

It does produce pollen, so I wonder why the seeds it produces have failed to sprout.

 Like Echinacea purpurea, 'After Midnight' has been remarkably drought-tolerant. While I was away in July this area got no water at all, which caused the nearby Darmera peltata to dry up. But 'After Midnight' started blooming beautifully without a hitch.

'Staying alive, staying alive, ah ah ah ah..."

All three plants lined up along the stream

For comparison purposes, here's a shot of the species Echinacea purpurea.

E. purpurea has lighter pink petals, a more orange cone, taller flowers and a green stem.

Here is some info about Echinacea purpurea x paradoxa 'After Midnight.'

Height: 12-18 inches
Spacing: 8-14 inches
Hardiness: Zone 4-9
Bloom Time: Summer
Sun: Full Sun
Water: Drought-tolerant

While the trademarked name of the variety is 'After Midnight,' it was produced by Itsaul Nurseries in Atlanta, Georgia under the name 'Emily Saul.'

Echinacea trivia: Echinacea comes from the Greek word echinos, which means hedgehog and refers to the flower’s center cone, which when dry is very spiny (and makes saving seeds a difficult proposition).

Loree at Danger Garden hosts the Favorite Plant in the Garden meme. You can read her current post here, and don't forget to check out the comments, where other bloggers leave links to posts about their current favorite plants.

End of the Month View -- Bottle Tree Bed, July 2014

It's time for the End of the Month View of my Bottle Tree Bed, and once again, I'm late, but only a day late. It's August already. I find myself hoping August contains a bit of a cool-down. Our weather lately has been dry and hot (hot for PNWers, which is any time the temp reaches the high 80s and stays there, at least during the day.) Lots happened in July, which started off with my trip to visit my son in the Boston, MA area. I left the sprinkler in this area on a timer, so that it would come on once a day in the early morning for 30 minutes. You may remember that I moved almost everything around in this bed in the early spring, and I was worried that it would need watering to get everything re-established over our dry summer.

After my return I started moving the sprinkler around the garden to get other areas watered as well. That week that we were away was the hottest weather we've had all summer, with temps in the 90s, and as a result, many other plants around the garden suffered. My Darmera peltata, for example, in a different bed on the other side of the garden, which likes being wet, dried up almost completely. I just recently cut it back, and it's starting to produce some green foliage.

Anyway -- the Bottle Tree Bed. It's looking pretty good, although there are plants there that are completely flowered out that need to be cut back, such as the Verbascums. And it seems to me that some plants could use a bit of re-shaping. They're all growing into each other, which is a look I like, but it's just a little bit untidy, for my taste. Too many amorphous blobs, and not enough distinction between plants.

You can read my June post about the Bottle Tree Bed here.

The Bottle Tree Bed in July -- looking past its prime

Most of the Agastache 'Golden Jubilee' is at the end of its flowering, as well as the Hydrangea 'Invincibelle Spirit'

Veronica 'Lilac Fantasy,' which I moved from another bed into this one, started flowering in June. It's near the front of the bed, and is taller than I remember.

Astrantia and Erysimum 'Apricot Twist,' a very sweet-smelling wallflower, which has been flowering since I bought it in May

The pink hardy Geranium in the bed (I knew its name once) has been flowering for a couple of months now too.

I divided and moved three clumps of this grass earlier this year, which involved cutting it back and splitting it into six clumps. It languished for a bit, but it's flowering again.

There are only a couple of sprigs of Astrantia that are still in full flower and not gone to seed.

Lonicera involucrata, a native shrubby honeysuckle, is in full berry now. The hummingbirds that pollinated it earlier in the year, now sit on it to rest when they're tired from feasting on and fighting over the large stand of Monarada "Raspberry Wine' (directly behind me in a different bed as I take this picture).

A closeup of the honeysuckle's purple/black berries

So, that's the Bottle Tree Bed for July. There are only a few hours each morning when it's comfortable for me to be out there gardening, but soon I really do need to get out there and work on this bed. I am a wimp when it comes to heat -- well, any extreme weather, to be honest.

Helen at The Patient Gardener's Weblog hosts the End of the Month View. You can read her current post here, and check out the comments, where others post links to their own EoMV posts.