GardenTrip

Friday, January 22, 2010

It's still winter - what's thriving in our Northwest Territory?

I recently posted about some sad holes in my 2-year-old Mediterranean garden this winter.

But I'm happy to report the Northwest Territory part of our garden is filling in, and it's clearly proving the appropriateness and value of native plants over these last two hard winters.

The salal filled in well last summer and is looking cozy beneath a lodgepole pine.

The kinnick kinnick (arctostaphylos uva ursi) has almost covered some of the landscape basalt.

The ribes sanguineum is bare now, but we're anticipating beautiful early-spring flowers. Behind it, three camellia x 'Winter's Snowman' bloomed back in November, but are continuing to add to our green screen. The little wild huckleberry in front has thickened up, too.

A lodgepole pine that had a difficult start has recovered nicely and is looking healthy. Our nice neighbor has given us permission to paint the side of his garage. We'll do that this year: that barn red is pretty overwhelming and it looks terrible behind the magenta currant flowers!

The three Western red cedars are probably our the most impressive success. They have filled in amazingly in less than two years: standing on our back patio, I can't see the neighbor's kitchen window. What's more, I can't see their window from inside our bedroom window now, so they can't see in, either.

Looking south, mugo pines, a hellebore, mahonia aquifolium and more kinnick kinnick are helping to cover the vine maple (acer circinatum) bed.

One sad note: we're losing the second of three small rhododendron impeditum. I've pulled out the first dead one and you can see the second one at the inside corner of the patio is browning out now. I know they don't like wet feet, but this little bed has new soil, is mounded, and drains well. It's perplexing and sad to see them go belly up, but when two out of three do it, that's a clear message. We need to find some substitutes, but I'll miss their tiny, bog rosemary-like leaves and their soft mauve flowers. A tougher native of some kind is in order to replace these little shrubby hybrids.

This picture doesn't show a native and it's not in the Northwest Territory, but I had to include it because it's such a success story. I think nandina domestica tends to get passed over by serious gardeners because it's so easy to grow and it's been ubiquitous in commercial landscaping for years.

But I love the winter leaf color, and mine still have a few bright red berries hanging on.

Besides, I like the way nandina looks in my garden all year round - it's not just for winter.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Grass OUT, plants IN!

We couldn't afford to replace the major expanse of chain link fence, so we pulled all the plastic vanes out of it and painted it glossy black. It was a big improvement and made that fence look almost intentional.

The two of us felt comfortable creating a landscape design, but we needed professional muscle to implement concrete and grass removal, soil addition and the planting of larger trees and shrubs. Winterbloom did all that and more, including sourcing many additional plants for us, and mulching after all the initial planting was done.

In the end, we had three main garden areas: first, a Northwest native area in the north backyard, planted with Western red cedars, three pinus contorta, vine maple, cornus Eddy's White Wonder, several rhododendrons, ribes sanguineum, mahonia aquifolium and nervosa, huckleberries, salal and lots of kinnikinnik.

We imagined a tropical fusion area in a narrow part of the yard between the two big areas, and initially planted it with a crape myrtle tree, bamboo and callas we moved from the front yard.

And we had a zonal-denial, Mediterranean area in the sunny south backyard, planted with pampas grass, eucalyptus, pyracantha Mohave, flaxes and a Trachycarpus fortunei palm.

Over that first year, major additions in the south garden included ilex crenata convexa for a low hedge along the house and deck, an arbequina olive, two trachelospermum jasminoides, a negronne fig, ceanothus, and cistus. And in the north garden we added snowberry, mugo pines, several smaller species rhododendrons, and three white camellias for privacy.