Testing the limits - Palms in Pacific Northwest

This beautiful palm is about a mile from our house. Only a couple of varieties of palm will survive here; this is a Windmill Palm (Trachycarpus fortunei). We have a smaller specimen of the same species - so far it's survived 4 winters, including 2 ice storms and a couple of snow storms.

If the world really is getting warmer, maybe we should be experimenting more with plants that need warmer and probably drier conditions. At any rate, it's fun finding out what will grow and testing the limit.

Puttering. Garlic for next year.

Garlic is fun because it is planted in the fall, grows in late fall, becomes somewhat dormant during the winter then resumes growth in Spring for an early Summer harvest. Since we average a couple of cloves daily in the kitchen, we use all of the garlic that this small garden nproduces. It is easily planted among roses and perennials as well, and is reputed to be a good companion plant, repelling insects (I dont know if that is really true.)

This year I planted saved cloves from the last harvest of "German Red" garlic, which produced large clove bulbs of fairly strong tasting garlic. The wrappers of this variety have purplish-red stripes, adn the variety is said to have been brought to the US by German immigrants several generations ago. This is the '3rd generation' of this garlic in my garden. As I have read, each year I save the largest bulbs and plant the largest cloves from those bulbs. They do seem to be adapting to this yard, and this year's crop had the largest bulbs so far.

I also bouught a couple of bulbs of Inchelium Red garlic, which Rodale Institute rated as the best tasting. I wonder if these were mislabeled in the bins, however - they didn't look red and the cloves were not as big as photos on the internet. Still, they would be an interesting variety to try, since they have a good story (originating from Washington State tribal reservation gardens) and a good reputation.

I did not replant the garlic that I had grown from grocery store left-overs. These also turned out great, with larger bulbs than I had bought originally. However, since they are easily purchased, I wanted something 'more special' in the yard.

"Vancouver" found variety of fig. Main Crop. Yum.

The net is there to discourage feathered and furry friends. These are big juicy figs. AFter a month of wondering, they are starting to ripen.
These are very juicy and sweet. Worth the wait and effort. Looks like there will be a nice crop this year. So far only one fig has split from the rains.

An hour at Portland Nursery

 

This trip resulted in the impulse buy on the previous page, and some of the sedums. Not a bad time to find a few perrenials - they are grown to a nice size, and on sale. This is a good tree and shrub planting time too. 

Anigozanthos flavidus (Kangaroo paw) impulse purchase

This one may be a mistake - apparentlly this Australian native is difficult to grow almost anywhere in the US. They seem to do OK in California, but the climate here is wetter and cooler in the Winter. Still, if it does survive the winter, it will be a lot of fun. I think I will overwinter it inside, somewhat dry, and move it outdoors in the Spring.

From Kitchen Gardens International: Beauty Food

Dog fun in the grass

They like running around in the grass. Sometimes they nearly fly.

With the rains starting now, the grass will green up soon.

Drove to work today. Still too tired from the last over-night shift, and the back was hurting.

I did remember to take clothes and some food for tomorrow.

Exact miles, work door to house front door: 9.6 miles.

One day's harvest

One day of harvest. Plus a half-pound of Chinese chive for dumplings. Not bad for a small yard.

Still tired; last night was an all-nighter at work, no breaks. Slept 1/2 of today.

Small back spasm, more due to being tired than anything that I did, so will drive tomorrow. Will bring clothes to work for anticipated bike ride on Tuesday.

Sempervivum & Sedum "roof" project

This view shows an individual compartment, lined with recycled pond liner. The white area is a plastic mesh cover, made from a used mesh bag (that originally contained garden bulbs). The mesh covers the pipe outlet. The bottom of the box slopes about 1 inch per foot, toward the drain. The pipe is the only item specifically purchased so far for this project, 3/4" inside diameter rubber tube (about $1.75 for the entire length).


Close up of drain arrangement. The white plastic mesh was stapled to the side of the box so that it would not move around. The plastic pond liner is stretched around the end of the pipe.


After adding growth medium. The growth medium is "Whitney's organic potting soil", lightened with about 25% perlite for better drainage. After exploring the plant options, sedum was used in addition to sempervivum. About 1/2 of the plants were scrounged from around the yard, mainly Sempervivums that have multiplied and spread in several locations, and needed thinning, and Sedums that have been used for ground cover in dry locations. The other 1/2 were from end-of-summer sale at Portland Nursery. This view is from the stairway. Coming up the stairs, the plants can be viewed at eye-level.


Viewed from front door. My only real concern is that this is on the North side of the house, and the succulents may not flourish there. I think they will do OK, since there are already some at ground level on the North side of the house and North of a large tree.


This project is inspired by various green roof articles, such as a university site from Michigan, a do-it-yourself garage roof (with nice photos), a do-it-yourself roof in Vancouver Canada, and some sites in the UK. Even though it is the top of a small wall, it actually does serve as a small roof for a basement room, and the existing wall did leak into the basement. I'm hoping that with the pond liner and the drain system, the leakage will no longer occur, and that the plants will not require summer watering or other significant care.

Genetic Dwarf Peach "Garden Gold"

This "tree" is in its first bearing year, second year in this garden (but only 3 peaches). As with a lot of garden fruits, they taste more like one would expect from a peach, compared to the grocery store type. They are quite "peachy" and sweet.

The tree doesnt take up much space in the garden. Near it is a "Honey Babe" which is 5 years old, and is about 5 feet tall and 4 feet across at the top. It bore last year but not this year.

These trees are covered with pink flowers in the Spring. I keep saying that even if they dont have any peaches, they are worth it for their appearance. But I do want the peaches.

There is a good Mother Earth news article about these miniature trees. It has lost some of its formatting, but is still interesting to read. These trees are very dwarf, due to a loss of length of stem between nodes - instead of several inches between notes, there is only about a millimeter between nodes. They are said to be very high yielding - much more than the same amount of orchard space with larger trees.



The biggest hurdle to fruit, in this climate, is leaf curl. This disease strikes in Spring just after blooming. I tried a lime sulfur spray last winter and Spring, and it might have helpd some, but I think that the reason that there were so few fruits is that this disease strikes just when blossoms are setting. It may be possible to cover the trees during the winter to prevent this problem (I dont have faith in this approach) or a different (still organic) spray.