More Showing, Less Telling---This Time

Love this Daylily/Columbine combo. Hemerocallis ‘Rose Petticoats’
with accompanying foliage of Aquillegia ‘Woodside Gold’ that tagged
along as a wee baby in the daylily pot when I brought it home a few years
ago. How’s that for serendipity? What, you thought I could plan something
this good? LOL Don't you love it when Nature makes you look like you
know what you're doing?


A cluster of ‘Lauren’s Grape’ poppies.


This is a hybrid between ‘Lauren’s Grape’ and a hideously orange-red
monstrosity that, unfortunately was the bulk of the color of a seed mix that I
sprinkled around last year. Most were torn out but a few remained by a red
rosebush to set seed. I guess they knew they were going to have to get more
purple into the DNA mix if they wanted to live in my garden.


Agastache ‘Red Fortune,’ my favorite!


Veronica spicata ‘Red Fox’ in front of one of my many Fry Road Nursery
hardy fuchsia purchases.
 
Clematis ‘Ville de Lyon.’

A few garden photos……
 



 






And without further ado, July’s Tarp of The Month.
 
Yes, Tarpitis is alive and well for the jet set, er I mean the jet-ski set, or
whatever attempts to hide beneath this overworked tarp.  Christine in
Alaska’s blog, Last Frontier Garden  has the entire lowdown on Tarpitis.
Seen any tarps in your neighborhood?

Random Observations

 Salvia 'La Trinidad Pink'
*    *    *

Hi Everybody!  I was looking at photos from  a long time ago, like  April. When was that?
Like two months ago? Sheesh. Well, it seems like a lot longer when comparing the
sparseness of then with the lushness of now. Know what I mean?

Phuopsis stylosia [above] is one of those plants I saw in catalogs and magazines for years before spotting it for sale at Dancing Oaks Nursery.  It's a mildly spreading ground cover

that reminds me of Sweet Woodruff until June when it erupts in these ping pong

ball-sized purple inflorescences. Cool, huh? 

With all the rain we've had this year, I've got the single most prolific raspberry crop I can ever recall. And early too. Being of "everbearing" lineage, my bushes typically don't begin producing berries until mid-July then go through November. Nice. But you know how it goes. Where there's food there's a hungry mouth. Or in this case an entire flock of raspberry robbing Cedar Waxwings. Cute little devils, aren't they? I don't have the heart to shoo them away. [Please excuse the crappy photo quality. All that zooming and cropping...]


And speaking of berries, my honeyberries (Lonicera caerula edulis) are on schedule.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly when they're ripe enough to eat. They look great
but they're still awfully sour. For perspective, they're about the size of a pinky fingernail.


This is Carpenteria californica. I bought this plant years ago during my fragrance phase.
Despite the research to the contrary, I can detect no scent whatsoever. But it's an
evergreen shrub that, thankfully wasn't phased by the colder than normal December.


This is what remains of a container of Clerodendrum bungei that I was sure was dead.
Lazy gardening has its benefits because rather than remove its carcass from the
container, I simply tucked plants around it. A few days, ago I noticed this. It's alive,
by jove! [See it in flower on my sidebar.]


Charlotte has taken up residence in my gardening work area. Silly girl. [Sorry about the
crappy photos.]


These bugs crack me up. I call them the GAR-Bugs. [GAR stands for Get-a-Room.]


Major score! May I brag? I've been wanting a heat mat, like forever, but didn't really
want to put out the required $35.00 to have one. So when I saw this at the St. Vincent
De Paul thrift store, still in the box, never been used, for $7.95, I had to stifle an elated
scream that could have reached Teza-land.

And finally, it's that time again..... 


A serious case of Tarpitis happening here, evidenced by what has to have been a
direct-from-the-tarp factory delivery of fancy silver with sky-blue trim. There must be something mighty important going on under there. [Tarpitis courtesy of Christine
of Alaska. Thanks, Christine.]

Carol's Garden

GREETINGS, LOYAL CO-HORTS~~~
How's about a little peak at one of the most awesome-est gardens on
the planet?


But first, check out one of my favorite of Carol's thousands of garden inhabitants.
Hebe albicans 'Pink Elephant' is a smaller-leaved, hardier plant than its cousin
'Tri Color.' I'm not sure about flower color but who cares?



And now, may I present, Carol's Garden.

Indecisive as I often am, I couldn't choose The Best photos so I opted for the
all-seeing collage method which I'm now thinking isn't doing her fabulous
garden any justice.


Having a generous garden buddy like Carol means MPFM or More Plants For Me
given her finesse for dividing and propagating. Her greenhouse is put to good use.
Lucky me!




Carol is a fellow-foliage-fanatic, obviously. She's also an avid avian. And,
along with mutual garden buddy Lynda is an equally avid rock collector. Inspiring,
I always, without fail, come home and copy one of her design tableaus.

And once again, for your viewing entertainment [thanks to Christine in Alaska]
it's time for TARP OF THE MONTH. Drum roll please,


This month's selection comes from dear, cyber garden-buddy Wendy and begs the
question, "Wuh duh fuh?"

Daphne, oh Daphne...

Remember my trip to the aforementioned "posh nursery"? Well, somehow this little
persnickety gem didn't make into the nursery's preamble pink display. I'm baffled.
When you've already coated your eyeballs with Pepto Bismol what's a little more?
Surely it would have been a fabulous complement to the statuesque [a stretch]
flamingos. Well, far be it from me to shun a perfectly pristine member of the beloved
PINK community, even if I have killed this Daphne variety [twice] in my own gardens.
So, while meandering the shrub section of said nursery, a brief eye and nose treat. Sigh...
This was as far as I could allow myself to go, given my history. Why shell out the twenty-something dollars to reinforce my shamefully, well-honed neuroses? The "third time"
would likely NOT be the charm and it's that telltale image of a gnarled tuft lying on a
gurney in a cold, dark plant morgue that holds me in check, further reinforced by
the echoes of my stupidity bouncing off its steely walls in concert with my equally
cavernous pocketbook begging for padding. Sorry Miss Ruby, your cousin, 'Summer Ice' although not endowed with your girly-girl looks sports the constitution to survive my
gardening methods.


See for yourself. Virtually year-round blooms of pristine white fragrant-enriched blossoms.


Onward and downward... A few of you mentioned a curiosity about my frog population
so I thought I'd offer a frog's life photo-chronicle. The above photo is a small cluster of eggs sprinkled with the brown remnants of a Bt mosquito dunk, not to mention the life-giving [necessary evil] algae.


Brother and sister tadpole sunning themselves on a submerged, wayward Acorus frond.


This photo was taken last spring. These babies are no larger than a human's small fingernail. Just so gosh darn cute!!


Admittedly my area of interest leans precariously in the direction of the flora so it is a
mystery to me why some tree frogs [aka Pacific Chorus Frog] sport markings while others remain as verdant as a golf course in May. Maybe it has something to do with the whole camouflage thing.... Sharon?


I was thrilled when my garden buddy Carol positively IDed this scary creature as the endangered Western Red-Legged frog. His clan has been in attendance for several years, coexisting seemingly without malice with the tree frog. Note the under-turned
[deformed?] front "arm."

And now, thanks to Christine in Alaska,
it's time for...

~~~Tarp of the Month~~~
So tell me what you want to do: a) peak underneath, b) run!?

Finally, congratulations to Amy @ Go Away, I'm Gardening! Mrs. Greenthumbs is on her
way. To the rest of you, I've got a few more giveaways in the works, but for now, thank
you for entering and for being such loyal friends.

Warning: Spring Alert

I suppose I should be careful with this post. Be sensitive to all of you who are buried in snow up to your eyeballs right now as the grip of winter obstinately flaunts its white knuckles. I probably shouldn't mention the Daphne odora or the Wintersweet or the Snowdrops. There is even an early daffodil variety that is... oops. I got carried away there for a second.

Kudos to all of you who shared photos of the garden show in Seattle. That moss recliner had me drooling as the idealistic side of my brain incessantly roared its, "How can I do that in my garden?" mantra. Any of you got one of those? It's kind of annoying actually, always getting me to do things that cost too much money, time and stress. I tell it to go away but it always returns with a vengeance when I look at you all's cool photos!!

This is Hydrangea 'Buttons & Bows' from last summer. "Shade!" it kept screaming. Predisposed with louder tasks, I didn't quite get its SOS until one noonday-scorcher too many. The dang thing is in a container, on wheels, for gosh sakes. How hard would it have been to slide it to a shady spot? My poor plants. I don't know how they put up with me.

Here is the aforementioned Chimonanthus praecox or Wintersweet. From the photo below you can see that the shrub is not exactly a standout. Its in-leaf state is equally prosaic. But the scent of these diminutive flowers...ooh, la, la.

A humongous thank you to Randy of Randy & Meg's Garden Paradise. Would you believe little ole me is now in the presence of greatness? Yes it's Randy's very own interactive butterfly CD. I'm honored. How is your flamingo doing now, Randy?

One last thing. I can't resist posting my TARP of the month. Brilliant blogger Christine @ Last Frontier Garden, this one's for you.

Tarp-itis: The Next Pandemic?

Clarkia rubicunda 'Shamini' with Agastache cana last JULY.

I'm attracted to opinionated people. Opinionated gardeners, all the better. Perhaps this is why Teza and I get along famously. His mantra is something akin to, "It's my blog and I'll rant if I want to." Case in point: a no-holds-barred constern-atious diatribe on garden magazines that foolishly waste precious space on outdoor living accouterments such as BBQs, patio furniture, etc. Yep. I agree.

Admittedly, I'm not always so brave in revealing my opinions to the entire world. For one thing I don't want to get fired from my money-making writing-gig. I'm not really interested in offending you, my beloved blog readers either so hopefully none of this is taken too seriously. That said, when I read Christine's Last Frontier Garden blog post on "tarp-itis" I knew I had to add my two bits.

Yes, tarps are all the rage here in western Oregon. Abundant rainfall seems to be the only required justification for employing these tacky pseudo-fabric eyesores. As Christine pointed out, the ubiquitous neon blue, [easily recognizable from an airplane window at 35,000, and I daresay the space station] is not a color found in nature. What executive sitting behind some desk in some high rise in, say, New York City, [in other words, completely out of touch with the outdoors] had the color say?

Last Sunday, in the pursuit of blog post fodder, I went drive-by shooting. I thought the photo below was nice. I've admired this little street-side oasis from its inception a few years ago. But with eyes [and ears] immune by familiarity, I didn't catch wind of the alien megalomaniac with its head peaking over the fence silently screaming, "get me in your shot!"

You know the old saying, "when you point a finger at someone, remember that three fingers are pointing back at you"? Well, yeah. Maybe green isn't quite as grotesque as neon blue. [Perhaps the NYC dweller was listening after all.] Still, isn't my compost heap's wrapper not just as tacky? I fear I too have a case of tarp-itis. Sorry Christine.

Okay, I can admit my faults. This makes the ranting okay, doesn't it? Christine has devised a unique new monthly feature. I would like to be a regional representative. Look for hers and then my TARP OF THE MONTH feature. Anyone else game?