Wordless Wednesday: Devil's Claw (Physoplexis comosa)

Physoplexis comosa.

Physoplexis comosa.

Why sometimes you must wait for a plant...

By the time I accept that a blast of very cold air is about to hit my garden, I am usually too late to save everything. This year, by some incredible stroke of luck, and I think a dash or guilt, I was out there earlier than usual, working on the winter shuffle. For our garden, that usually means moving some furniture, emptying or moving some planters to safer locations, picking up debris from the Douglas fir trees and entertaining any cats who drop in to watch me.

While shuffling pots this year, I had a bit of a surprise. I found that one native shrub I'd planted a few years back was more than I'd thought it was before this season's growth. As I rolled its large terra cotta planter to a safer location, the leaves rubbed against me and the smell was amazing! It was unlike any plant smell I have ever smelled before and it was kind of exciting to recognize that this was a new sensory experience for me. It reminded me of incense that was both earthy and spicy and I was so excited by this change in my opinion of it because it really had not done much during the last few years. It wasn't going to be edited from the garden like a diseased plant, or a seriously underperforming one. Since I'd already pushed it to the back, I'd given it that chance that it needed to recoup. Now that it has grown a bit more, wow, look out!

The lovely soft fuzz underneath smells nice too and reminds me of the large leaved Rhododendrons. 

Formerly known as Ledum groenlandicum, after recent genetic testing, it it now Rhododendron groenlandicum, but the common name remains the same: Bog Labrador Tea. As can be ascertained from its name, it likes to grow in boggy conditions. In addition, it is a slow grower so that might explain why I was not overjoyed with its performance. I am so sorry now and I will never doubt a slow grower again.

The plant is named after a steeped beverage that Inuit and Athabaskan people have enjoyed for years and which other Native Americans and even early European trappers drank too. According to Wikipedia, in Labrador itself, the tea is called Indian Tea. The beverage is considered palatable and is used medicinally as well. When the plant grows some more, I will attempt to make some myself! I am always willing to try new foods, and will run this one past my chef husband. It might be useful in the future for some kind of special dish.

As I worked throughout the day, cats came and went. Our youngest cat Mona was by far my gardening buddy that day and she stayed outside with me in the mud. She had to run around a lot to keep warm, but she kept me entertained.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

The neighbor cat watched both of us from above the garden garage/shed/studio/atelier all day as well. (When I open the curtains in the morning I often see him perched up high on that same roof looking towards the east watching the sun come up. )

Another important task of the year is always to save any seedlings that didn't grow large enough to plant, trade, or sell during the summer. Here are a few of the plants I pulled into the house recently. These are Lilac Fuchsias I grew from seed that might make it in this zone, but I am afraid to take that chance just yet—if ever. The others are Australian Cabbage Palms.

Lilac Fuchsia, Fuchsia arboresens, before they head into the basement growing area for the winter. I purchased seeds for these plants last winter, and hope to add them to my ever expanding Giant Fuchsia Collection. 

Livistona austalis is not hardy here, so I will most likely end up trading these with some adventurous soul. They were a free gift in a seed trade, so I was really just interested in germinating them. 

Everything is far from being completed outside, and the countdown is on. I have about 4 days until the near freezing temperatures and wind arrive on the scene so it's back to work for me. Hope you are all warm and toasty and have accomplished your garden tasks before this on-again off-again chronically ill up-and-down gardener! Let me know if you find any amazing and unusual seeds for sale in those new catalogs too that are pouring through our mail slots just about now. 

Random Arts & Crafts Progress

It is getting late and my husband is in the kitchen making preparations for our street's first block party tomorrow. He is the trained chef, I am not, and I am grateful that he is here for a visit from the vineyard in CA because I have needed his help dearly in the last few weeks. As much as I love the summer, and I love my garden, this time of the year is always very hard for me physically here in the NW, especially with little physical help available to me, but this has been the best summer I've had in many years so I am not complaining.

In the garden there are a few special blooms to share right now. One is the first bloom I've seen on an unusual plant in our collection while the other is purely a sentimental bloom from a pass-along I purchased seeds for at a museum in Los Angeles. 

This is the only bloom on the Crinodendron hookerianum (aka Chilean Lantern Tree) in the backyard and it is our first. This is a shrub I planted 2 or 3 years ago and I'd forgotten about since it nearly dies every winter but then it springs back to life just in time for winter to slam it down hard again so it's easy to miss in the mess. Maybe we've turned the corner on those days though since there are more blooms to come; they just haven't reached maturity yet. I like what I see though.

The other bloom I wanted to post is on a hollyhock in my garden, single and white, planted from seeds I purchased at Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House in Los Angeles. The plant itself is pretty roughed up with rust, but I just couldn't yank it out. It is one of those sentimental things for me, reminding me of a time not that long ago when I was well enough to work, albeit briefly, doing something I'd studied for, and which I loved a great deal. 

Back when I worked at The Gordon House I applied for one of the small scholarships offered by the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy in Chicago to attend an annual Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy Conference and I was granted that dream. It is a city I have visited many times now, both before and after, but that visit was very special since I attended many events and I saw the interiors of homes that very few members of the public are ever allowed to see. I also met Dion Neutra in his home in Silver Lake—the son of the architect Richard Neutra—and he was a really kind man who inspired me with his humility and kindness. 

At night, after the conference tours, I'd wander off by myself to Pasadena for their annual Craftsmen Weekend with events organized around the designs of Greene & Greene. I was experiencing the best of both worlds in my mind, and I even skipped a party with Hollywood producer Joel Silver so that I could spend an evening dining at the Gamble House. I have never regretted that choice and I will always remember that event as well as the smashing party at the home once owned by Ernest Batchelder, a leading tile designer during the American Arts & Crafts Movement. 

At that party I stayed late, wandering in circles around the property, between the house and the old artisan's studio, lingering near the tiled fountain grotto at the far edge of the property in the back corner of the garden, and then finally in the kitchen, dining room, and living room with the magnificent fireplace. Eventually I spoke with the homeowner, a retired professor who'd spoken that day at my conference, and he was overjoyed that I was such a turncoat. I'd left Frank, and his cult, to spend an evening with someone else's designs, and we both knew that I would live to tell about it. 

This beaten up hollyhock is there to remind me now of my past and of my future, but mostly of my past and I am sad about that. Gardens are so often designed with such sentimental tales attached to their owner's plant choices and this often drives those among us "nuts" when nothing makes sense in the design or is too disorganized for us to understand what the person was thinking or saying. There is often order to such gardens, but is is not often apparent, or it is written in a language that we do not understand, or were never intended to understand. These gardens are the most private, since they do not communicate to us, and are written in code. They are the gardens meant for only a few, sometimes only one, and I am beginning to think that we are folk gardeners creating outsider art as we call it in the art world. This just may not be what I want to communicate though and I have been spending a lot of time thinking over this recently. 

Sometimes I really struggle with what my garden is saying, if it is saying anything at all to others. Writing this has elucidated a great deal to me though and I look forward now to thinking about it some more. All of this was also stirred up by my still not having spun together a name for the place, because this  kind of a vision is really required and necessary at this point. 

I guess it's back to the midnight drawing board with the smoking panda up at the park above my house. That is unless they have banned graffiti from smoking too. Life is simply too short to make gardens so serious and staid. 

My Favorite Spring Bulb: Fritillaria meleagris

No other flower I know of has a bloom quite like this unusual one. I always refer to it as the Checkered Lily, but it is also called the Guinea-Hen Flower, and the Snake's Head Fritillary. It is a spring-blooming bulb that grows to about one-foot tall. For best results, plant in a part sun/part shade location, somewhere where you can see it from inside or near the house since it does bloom often when it is still a bit chilly outside. I must add that the squirrels probably feed on some of these in our garden. I am sure that I planted more of these, but it was so long ago I've simply forgotten.

When You Wish Upon a Star...

Seen here is the amazing white version of the North American native perennial Dodecatheon meadia. These little delicate blossoms are so beautiful they've inspired many colorful and creative names over the years but its most popular common name is simply "Shooting Star". Other common names include: American Cowslip (since it is a relative of the primrose), Indian Chief, Rooster Heads and Pink Flamingo Plant. Since the plants grow east of the Rocky Mountains—in virtually every state—I'm sure that I'm missing a name or two. (Let me know if you know any more...)

Though once plentiful, this plant is now considered a rare, threatened or endangered plant in many states in the US: Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and New York—just to name a few. When purchasing, be sure that you buy plants from licensed growers, or else grow them from seed yourself. I have done so, but I must admit, this is not one of them. (My little ones still have a few more years in their nursery before they'll be ready to show the world their stuff. Some plants simply take longer to grow.)

One confusing aspect to growing them though is that after their bloom is done, and their leaves start to die off, the whole plant kind of disappears. That is normal for this plant and it will come back. It has simply entered into summer dormancy. Therefore, caution has to be used to plant around them as they sleep through their summer dormancy, and then their fall and winter dormancies after that, but just like any great wildflower, they will be back next spring, so leave them some space on your stage.

Have you made a wish yet?

The Green Rose

This is a bloom from a Rosa chinensis var. viridiflora. Ours is still young yet, but it is by far one of my favorite garden plants. Registered in 1830, it is an unusual China rose, with no petals, just a lot of sepal. The blooms are often hard to notice at first, but then you can see them all over. What makes it even more exciting is that it smells of black pepper.

Columbine: Chocolate Soldier

This is the Chocolate Soldier Columbine. I don't think I have to say anything more than it is a Top 10 favorite of mine. The blooms aren't really all that showy, but they are simply so unusual one just cannot get enough of them.
Easy to grow from seed, they can bloom the first year if tended to from the start. They are small-ish, only about 15-20" tall and wide, and appear to be pretty tough. No mildew in sight!