Wednesday Vignette

I have a lot of self-sowers in my garden, both annual and perennial. I don't actually recall planting this deceptively delicate-looking plant, Corydalis lutea, although I might have. I do remember planting a few other types of Corydalis, with blue or purple flowers, but they didn't return after a harsh winter. This one pops up all over, though not aggressively, often growing right in gravel. It seems to be drought-tolerant, so I've decided to harness it and spread its babies around. It's also called Fumewort or Yellow Fumitory.

Yellow flower, blue pot -- what could be better?

Anna at Flutter & Hum hosts Wednesday Vignette. Check out her post and her weekly ruminations here.

Fool's Gold for Foliage Followup

Here in the PNW we love our golden-leaved plants. Maybe because we spend so much time sun-deprived, we're desperate to see something bright out in the garden. Lately the weather has been doing its own version of the fan dance, teasing us with glimpses of sun and then snatching them away. We did have three or four days of sunshine, which have been followed by days full of what we call "sunbreaks," where the sun breaks through the clouds and the rain stops briefly, sometimes for only 15 minutes, sometimes for almost half a day.

Recently during one of those sunbreaks I ran out quick with the camera and took photos of many of my golden plants. I finished just in time for the rain to return.

Golden Feverfew/Tanacetum parthenium 'Aureum'

Silene dioica 'Ray's Golden Campion'

Sedum 'Angelina'

Agastache 'Golden Jubilee'

Carex -- probably Bowles Golden Sedge

Himalayan Honeysuckle/Leycesteria formosa 'Golden Lanterns'

Acer circinatum 'Pacific Fire' -- red twigs and chartreuse leaves

Hakonecloea macra with Sedum 'Angelina'

Eryngium 'Neptune's Gold'

Dicentra 'Gold Heart'

Pam at Digging hosts Foliage Followup on the day after Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, to celebrate the role of foliage in the garden. Check out her post here.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day -- May 2017

I visited Heronswood over the weekend, and briefly considered posting a few photos of flowers from that garden for Bloom Day, but reconsidered. One of the purposes of Bloom Day, after all, is to keep a chronicle of blooms and their differing bloom periods from year to year, and this has been quite a freaky year.

So, as Sammy J says in Jurassic Park, "Hold onto your butts."

Here are my blooms.

The first California poppy

Silene dioica 'Ray's Golden Campion' -- sown from seeds shared a few years ago by Nan Ondra

'Ray's Golden Campion'

Pacific Coast Iris -- one of the first plants ever put in the ground in my garden here, most of the tags have been lost

I do know this one is called 'Broadleigh Rose'

Planted too close to a Dasylirion wheeleri, which on a windy day does its best impression of a weed-whacker, this Pacific Iris's petals are a little chewed

Newly planted Berlandiera lyrata

Linum lewisii/Blue flax

Geranium phaeum 'Samobor'

Centaurea montana (and lady's mantle foliage)

Dicentra 'Gold Heart' -- with one withered heart right smack in the middle, a metaphor for life?

Dicentra 'Gold Heart' -- ignore the humongous pile of gallon pots protruding from behind the shed

Pulsatilla vulgaris/Pasque flower

Vine maple flowers

Camassia

Dicentra formosa/wild western bleeding heart

Ceanothus

Weigela, just starting to flower -- a not very interesting or pretty shrub, but it has pretty flowers the hummingbirds love, which gains it a reprieve from being yanked every year

Geranium renardii -- one of the first plants I ever bought at Dig on Vashon Island

Geranium renardii

Most of my Epimediums are finished, but this little clump is still going

Self-sown patch of Anthriscus sylvestris makes an airy scrim

I don't remember the name of this gold-leafed Brunnera, but the blue flowers seem bluer than 'Jack Frost' -- but that might just be an optical illusion

True Forget-me-not Myosotis alpestris (Brunnera, pictured above, is sometimes called False forget-me-not)

Another airy flower, Saxifrage 'London Pride', flowering from rosettes that I cut off last fall from another clump and simply stuck into the soil to root

Euphorbia self sows all over, into the recycled concrete wall

Euphorbia

Melica uniflora

Aquilegia 'Clementine Red'

Clematis blooming still in its pot -- I've already lost the tag, but I think it's Clematis montana

Saponaria ocymoides/Soapwort -- a sweet little perennial that self-sows and is wonderfully drought-tolerant for me

Lewisia, which I cannot keep alive in the ground, loves the great drainage of life in a colander

Interestingly, moss loves the colander too. Here, fruiting bodies called sporophytes protrude from the holes

Sorry -- you'll have to wait a little while to see my photos of Heronswood.

Carol at May Dreams Gardens hosts Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Check out her post here, where you'll also find posts from other bloggers all over the world also celebrating their May flowers.

Wednesday Vignette

I'm not sure I'd actually call today's photo a vignette, it's more like a Wednesday Vista.

Last weekend, Nigel and I spent the weekend in Portland, having traveled down to attend the Portland Bloggers Plant Exchange on Sunday. We had all day Saturday free, so we booked a morning waterfall tour that took us to several different waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge. The very first stop on the tour,  however, was at Vista House, where we got a good long look at the gorge from atop a high bluff.

You can read about the Columbia River Gorge here, and about Vista House here.

Anna at Flutter & Hum hosts Wednesday Vignette. Check out her post here.

Wednesday Vignette

This little Viola labradorica flowering in the middle of a patch of Sedum 'Angelina' is my Wednesday Vignette this week. I'm kind of amazed how these seeds get around. The original plants started out in a different bed at least 30 feet away from here! It's a good thing I like the dark leaves and the sweet little flowers. Come to think of it, Angelina gets around too, doesn't she?

Anna at Flutter & Hum hosts Wednesday Vignette. Check out her post here.

New Plants, And What I Plan to Do With (Some of) Them

It's been a few years since I did a post where I showed off new plant purchases. Last year I bought few, if any, new plants, since my health problems kept me from doing much gardening, although I did manage to redo a couple of small areas this past fall. I have big plans for this spring, if only the rain would stop, and it would warm up just a tad.

I've been to Watson's a couple of times, and once to Windmill Nursery, and a couple of weekends ago I went down to Portland and visited both Cistus and Xera, as well as participated in a blogger outing to the wholesale nursery/growing operation Little Prince of Oregon, where we were allowed to buy some of the plants that were growing there.

So, get ready for the beauty pageant and the list of tongue-twisting Latin names.

From Cistus, the two shrubs in the back are Arctostaphylos 'Pinnacle Ridge' and Philadelphus 'Belle Etoile,' in front are Metapanax delavayi, Grevillea 'Canberra Gem,' and Astelia 'Red Devil'

New growth on Metapanax delavayi

See that hole in the middle of the bed, to the right of the cardoon? Grevillea 'Canberra Gem' is going there

This messy thicket of branches is Lonicera involucrata, aka twinberry honeysuckle. It's coming out, and that new Arctostaphylos is going in.

This semi-shady corner needs something -- maybe Philadelphus 'Belle Etoile'

From Xera, in back: Aralia californica, Callistemon subulatus 'Dark Red,' Grevillea 'Neil Bell'; in front: Primula 'Spice Shades,' Arctostaphylos 'Harmony,' and Arctostaphylos 'Howard McMinn'

Primula flowers

New growth on Callistemon 'Dark Red'

These lilacs are two of the few shrubs still left from the original landscaping. They suffered from the 9 inches of snow we got in early March, and will finally be replaced by a pair of Arctostaphylos and possibly the 'Neil Bell' Grevillea

From Little Prince, in back; Thalictrum ichangense (four of them) and one Podophyllum 'Spotty Dotty,' then Grevillea 'Poorinda Leane', Feijoa sellowiana, Sedum oreganum (four of them), Red Anigozanthos aka Kangaroo paw, two each of Sedum ochroleucum 'Red Wiggle', and Sedum tetractinum

Closeup of 'Spotty Dotty'

Closeup of Sedum ochroleucum 'Red Wiggle' -- I needed some interesting Sedums to compete with and contrast with Sedum 'Angelina' in my sunny west-facing front beds

Feijoa sellowiana (Pineapple guava) is going into that open space between the bare Tetrapanax sticks on the right and the black pussy willow on the left (normally filled with a sea of California poppies and Nigella)

In back: Onoclea sensibilis, Hellebore 'Picotee Lady,' in front: Tricyrtis formosana 'Gilty Pleasure,' Hosta 'Fire Island'

In back: Hosta 'Guacamole,' in front: Hosta 'Cracker Crumbs,', Hosta 'Justine', Hosta 'Fire Island'

Golden baby tears, golden Scotch moss, golden creeping Jenny and chocolate creeping Jenny

Closeup of red freckles on stems of Hosta 'Fire Island'

I redid this area last fall, but already at least one plant is failing.

This is the only healthy patch of golden Selaginella left

The rest have all melted into sticks, like these three sad specimens

The Selaginella was originally supposed to provide a contrast to the dark leaves of the nearby Ajuga. At the recent Northwest Flower and Garden Show, I lamented this fact to my fellow bloggers while we were all at lunch together. Loree of Danger Garden suggested golden creeping jenny and Evan of The Practical Plant Geek suggested Scotch moss. I'm going to try both, along with the gold-leafed and small variegated Hostas, and we'll see who wins the final beauty contest. I don't know where Hosta 'Guacamole' is going, but it was hard to resist those big, bright green leaves.

Carex 'Feather Falls,' variegated Hydrophyllum tenuipes, Artemisia 'Seafoam' (bought online from High Country Gardens)

Carex 'Feather Falls' and variegated Hydrophyllum are going to be companions for my variegated Solomon's Seal, in my own half-assed attempt to recreate a plant combo I saw on Nan Ondra's blog Hayefield, in the very first photo in this post. It's not the same Carex and not 'White Nancy' spotted deadnettle, and I'm planning to use the sensitive fern instead of ostrich fern, but I hope it will have a similar effect.

In front: Hellebore 'Pippin's Purple,' Cyclamen hederifolium, Cyclamen coum, Dodecatheon hendersonii

Closeup of Hellebore 'Pippin's Purple'

What's going in this bed on the far side of the stream (posted about here)? Hellebores, Cyclamen, Thalictrum ichangense, and something feathery -- probably western bleeding heart

I'd like to visit Sky Nursery and Swanson's Nursery in a couple of weeks, so I'm sure I'll be buying a few more plants. Plus, in early May there's a Garden Bloggers Plant Exchange, which I'll be attending in Portland, and I know my fellow bloggers always share fun and interesting plants! I have an intriguing lineup of my own that I'll be hauling down there to give away.