Cottage Lake Gardens Tea and Trillium Tour

I recently attended the Tea and Trillium Tour at Cottage Lake Gardens in Woodinville, WA., with a Northwest Perennial Alliance neighborhood group called Petal Pushers. My friend Annette introduced me to the group, and I decided to tag along with them for a visit to Cottage Lake.

The Tea and Trillium tour is run by Susie Egan, who gardens at Cottage Lake with a special focus on Trilliums. There are 48 varieties of Trilliums, and she has them all. Not all of them were flowering when we were there, but that's the way it should be. Trilliums are a spring ephemeral perennial, and most perennials flower briefly. But since Susie has some that flower early in the spring, even in snow, and some that flower later, you are pretty much assured of seeing Trilliums in flower whenever you go (the tours only run in the spring).

The main house at Cottage Lake Gardens

All set for tea, with Trillium-decorated plates and glasses

Susie gave a Powerpoint presentation on Trilliums while we sat and had tea and cakes.

Susie is a wonderfully animated and entertaining speaker. Her excellent talk was jam-packed with information about Trilliums, including their natural history. Most Trilliums are native to the East Coast of North America, with only 7 that are native here on the West Coast, and only three in Washington state. There are also a few that are native to temperate regions of Asia.

The view out the front door -- Let's go!

Cottage Lake -- the view from the house

Susie pointing out a Primula -- it's the same color as her shirt

Trillium cuneatum

Trillium luteum

Double white Trillium

Trillium cuneatum

Trillium sulcatum

White Trillium sulcatum

Like my own garden, Cottage Lake Gardens is built on glacial till, which is basically a small amount of sandy and/or clay soil and lots of rocks. And like me, Susie has edged all her beds with the many rocks she unearths as she digs.

Trillium chloropetalum

Susie has also planted an interesting variety of foliage plants as companions to her Trilliums. It's a smart move not to plant too many other flowering plants, so as not to draw attention away from the Trillium flowers.

The mottled leaves of a Podophyllum offer a good contrast to the mottled leaves of the Trilliums

A painted fern also makes a nice combo, with good burgundy echoes of each other

The small blue flowers and white, veined leaves of Brunnera go well with the yellow Trillium luteum

Paris aff. incompleta

Paris quadrifolia

Trillium in a sea of Oxalis

Susie saves most of the seeds from her plants and propagates them herself. She has quite a variety for sale at the end of the tour. I have a few Trilliums growing here, but I bought a couple of new ones.

A Peek Inside the Greenhouse 4

It's time for another peek inside the greenhouse. Usually, Helen at The Patient Gardener's Weblog hosts a meme about greenhouses on the 20th of the month, but her post for May hasn't appeared yet. She's English and her last post was about the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. She's probably been distracted by those fabulous display gardens.

So I thought I'd just go ahead and share what's going on with my greenhouse now anyway.

The greenhouse from the living room window

On Mother's Day the great migration began, of plants that were over-wintered, out into the garden. I don't actually know quite yet what I'm going to do with all of them, but I'm sure they're happy being outside in the fresh air.

Former greenhouse residents waiting outside the greenhouse for final placement

I'm trying to make a stylish display at the western end of the greenhouse, but not much success so far. I'll get there eventually, probably just in time to move everything back inside

I've been planting out lots and lots of lots of tiny little seedlings that sprouted from many of the seeds that I sowed this past winter and kept in the greenhouse getting toasty warm.

Castor bean plants waiting to be planted in the front bed

More castor bean plants

The Musa sikkimensis is just as happy outside as in -- it's outgrown the "roof' of the Folly.

More former greenhouse denizens milling in place like children waiting for an amusement park ride

So...what's inside the greenhouse, if all these folks are hanging outside now?

Roma tomatoes and a variety of peppers, both sweet and hot

Sun Sugar tomatoes and basil

One of the Romas already has fruit

I bought my tomatoes at Windmill Nursery in Sumner. I did try growing tomatoes from seed this year, but they were stunted, despite being started in February as soon as the greenhouse was finished, as well as being on heat mats and with the heater in the greenhouse running pretty much full blast. They got a few drinks of fish emulsion as well, which should have helped them take off.

My still small tomato seedlings

I'm torn as to what to do with them. I put so much love and care into making them grow! But I have a feeling they're going into the yard waste bin.

I do have some nice-size squash plants, which are headed for the raised veggie beds in the back garden.

My Bromelaids are still cowering under the table -- they like shade, and I don't want them to scorch. They'll likely end up on the north side of the greenhouse, staged in some way.

Lots of empty shelves

I took some time the other day to organize all the stuff I'm going to store in the greenhouse under the table. For most of the spring, as I planted, I tossed all my little four-inch pots that I used for sowing under the table willy-nilly. Now they're tidy and ready for use next year.

I removed all of my cloches from the beds. Some of the seeds sown under them were successful, and some...not so much.

On top of the table, I'm storing organic fertilizers, tags and now unplugged heat mats. I need to move those boxes of fertilizer, the instructions say "Store in a cool, dry place" and this isn't that.

So, that's what's happening with my greenhouse in May. I hope whatever bad juju has stunted my own tomato starts doesn't transfer itself to the ones I bought. I have high hopes for tomatoes this year now that I have a greenhouse that will give them the heat they need to grow.

A Watched Pot Finally Boils

It seems like I've been waiting all spring for my Clematis 'Josephine' to open its flowers. It was a couple of months ago that I first noticed it had several buds, that since then have just gotten fatter and fatter, but despite my constant hovering, stubbornly refused to open.

I've even been applying a camera-based variation of The Stare of Life, first given its name by Jason in his blog Garden in a City, where he defines it thus: "The Stare of Life is an intense gaze that warms the soil and hastens processes of cell division and photosynthesis." (Read more about The Stare of Life here.) I've been taking photos of the fat buds on my Clematis 'Josephine' over and over, every time thinking "Maybe tomorrow you'll be open." Should I give the constant application of the camera lens a name? Maybe The Fecund Lens? The Lens of Fecundity is too much of a mouthful, and the word "fecund" seems to apply, since flowers are a plant's sexual organs, designed for the purpose of producing progeny in the form of seeds (although 'Josephine' is in fact sterile).

On April 10:

On April 21:

Buds getting fatter

And ultimately, on May 14, the day before Garden Bloggers Bloom Day:

Surely they'll open soon

Still not open

Finally, after a long day out of the garden during our most recent heat wave, I came home to make a quick round of the garden in the fading light of the day, and found the first flower of 'Josephine' beginning to open.

In  the day's fading light, finally the first petals unfurl

More buds waiting in the wings

The next morning, open a little more, although Josephine's infamous ruff of shorter petals has yet to make its appearance

In the morning, a second flower has begun to open

And a third

A few days later, and the shorter petals start to unfurl

For some reason, I have always wanted to call this Clematis 'Empress Josephine' assuming wrongly that it is named after the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. With all those frills, doesn't it look like it should? But in fact, according to the Missouri Botanical Garden website, "This cultivar was discovered in England by Josephine Hill and introduced there in 1998 by Raymond Evison (Gurnesy Clematis Nursery) under the original cultivar name of 'Evijohill'. Plants are being marketed by nurseries under the trade name of JOSEPHINE."

Are you out there in your garden tapping your foot impatiently waiting for something to grow?