Hedychium 'Tara'

Large stand of Hedychium 'Tara' blooming in my garden now

     I have grown lots of hardy gingers in my garden over the years and. by far and away, the best has been Hedychium 'Tara'.  According to the San Marcos website,  this plant was grown from seed collected in Nepal by Tony Schilling of Kew Gardens, and named for his daughter. That website indicates that it was thought to be a form of Hedychium coccineum originally, but has recently been classified as H. gardnerianum. It is also sometimes listed as H. densiflorum.  This can get very confusing, so I just call it Tara and forget about the specific species name. This plant has received an Award of Garden Merit from the RHS, meaning it is a good garden plant for the UK, and that, of course, means it is a good garden plant for us in the maritime Pacific Northwest.
     Over the years I have seen many Hedychiums sold in nurseries here in the Pacific Northwest, many of which have originated in California.  Almost all those hedychiums are destined never to bloom in our cool summer climate. Indeed, I once calculated that if a ginger listed in the Plant Delights catalog (it has an extensive hedychium list) bloomed after June in North Carolina that it simply would not bloom here. While I have had a couple of other gingers bloom a few times, almost none, except Tara, and a smaller one called Stephen, reliably bloom here.
     I got my Tara plant originally from Glenn Withey and Charles Price who visited my garden a long time ago and gave me a large pot of it.  Over the years I have divided it and planted it in many parts of the garden.  The picture you see is the result of placing four or five divisions in this spot and then letting them grow for a number of years.  This is a sunny, rather sandy location, but I have found that Tara is remarkably tolerant of different soil and light conditions.  However, if you want it to do really well, I would plant it in a sunny location and give it lots of water and fertilizer.  That said, I never fertilize my Taras and they seem to do OK.  Also, I have some that grow in relatively dry conditions and they seem to do well there, too.
     I should mention that Tara is such a good, easy plant to grow, and it makes this great dazzling show of color at a time when the garden needs some punch, so it has made the cut and will be going with me to my new garden.  It is available from a number of online sources which are revealed by a google search of Hedychium Tara.

Agave geminiflora

Agave geminiflora

     In my last post which featured Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii" I noted that one of the plants in a pot in front of the banana was Agave geminiflora.  So today I am posting another picture of that agave, taken last year amongst some of my other potted pets.  Most people would not recognize this plant as an agave, since the leaves are rather grass like and not stiff.  I have grown other agaves, such as Agave striata, which also has narrow, grass like leaves, but on that agave they are held much more stiffly and are much more wicked.  I like this one the best of all the agaves I have grown because its bright green color and rubbery pliant leaves make it a star once its gets to a decent size.  I have found that it is quite tolerant of being kept in a pot smaller than the diameter of the rosette, and, in fact, it looks best this way because then the leaves sort of spill over the edges of the pot. 
     I got this plant when it was relatively small from Cistus Nursery.  I think I have had it for about 10 years, although I could be off by a year or two.  I have potted it up to larger pots several times in its life, and I think it will probably require a larger pot in a year or two.  As I have mentioned before, I now pot all my wicked plants in clay pots that I can break with a hammer when I repot.  Otherwise, they are too difficult to remove from the pot.  Nice fancy pots are all well and good until it comes time to repot the plants that are in them, particularly when those plants are agaves or puyas!
     I used to have a huge collection of 'Pets' that I kept in pots, but with our move and the general decluttering of the house and garden that goes along with putting a house on the market, I have gotten rid of most of them.  This agave, however, has made the cut and will be coming to our new house. I should mention that there is really no place to store non-hardy plants over the winter at the new place, but I will think of some way to protect this agave!  Some other plants that have made the cut are my Cussonia and Boophanes.

Red Banana Love!

Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' growing in a pot on the terrace

     I wanted to show you this image I recently took of one of the Ensete ventricosum 'Maureliis' I have growing in pots on the terraces at Froggy Bottom.  This is a plant that I got earlier this year from Home Depot for the large sum of ten dollars.  It has grown quite a bit as you can see.  Fertilizer, water, and warm weather will have this effect!  I love how the light glows through the leaves.  As I have said many times, why grow fuschia baskets when you can grow these bananas?
     In the pots in front of the banana is an Ochagavia, which is a hardy bromeliad I got from Sean Hogan, and an Agave geminiflora which I have grown from a small plant to the size you see there.  This is a most unagave -like agave which is one of my favorites.  It is probably not hardy for us, so I have taken it inside every winter I have had it. Behind the banana is Aralia elata 'Aureomarginata', one of my favorite small trees.  I am going to have to find a source for this, because I intend to plant one at my new garden.
     For those of you who might be interested in seeing Froggy Bottom before it is sold, the real estate agent is having an open house on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2013.  Info can be found here.

More Garden Views

Front Gate

West Terrace Looking Toward Lionness

West Terrace Patio With Pond

West Terrace Patio Looking North

Long View of West Terrace Looking From Lionness

South Terrace Looking Towards Blue Wall

Garden View of Lawn Sweeping to Pink Chairs

West Terrace

     As I have alluded to in previous blog entries, I have been very busy this summer and now I will tell you what has been keeping me so busy--we are putting our house on the market.  Indeed, it was listed last week and if you are curious about what the inside of the house looks like, you can see pictures of it here.  So today I have posted pictures of the garden that I took a couple of days ago.
     I have to tell you that it was a monumental task getting the house ready for sale, all the while keeping the garden looking in top notch shape.  But now that task is done, and we can just sit back and wait for the offers to roll in!
     You may want to know why we are selling. Well, we are both (my husband and I) reaching retirement age and we decided that we wanted to downsize.  So we are moving to Port Ludlow, Washington, which is a small, master planned community just over the Hood Canal Bridge on the Olympic Peninsula. It is pretty much out in the woods and seems much more rural than Bainbridge Island. You can read more about it here. Port Ludlow is full of walking trails and on my many walks with my dog I have seen the following wildlife: deer, coyotes, bobcat, bear, racoons, rabbits, and eagles.
     We have bought a smaller house in Port Ludlow that is new construction on a half acre lot. The lot has some awful landscaping on it which I propose to eventually replace with better things.  First, though, I will have to improve the soil which is very sandy and not very nutrient rich. In Port Ludlow there are restrictions on what you can do in the way of landscaping on your lot, but I think I can work with those restrictions.  Chief among them is a prohibition on fencing.
     The climate in Port Ludlow is very similar to that on Bainbridge. It is, after all, only an hour's drive from Bainbridge. It is probably a little bit cooler than Bainbridge and a little bit dryer, since it is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains.  Supposedly, it only gets 20 some inches of rain a year. In future posts, I will show pictures of the new place, and will have tales of creating a new garden.  Meanwhile, I will still blog about what is going on in the garden at Froggy Bottom until the place is sold.

Front Border in High Summer

This is a scene from my front border after the eremurus, poppies and alliums have gone by

     One of the big problems with a garden is how to sustain interest year round.  As I have explained before, my front border reaches its peak in June, and so the problem becomes, how to keep it looking good the rest of the summer?  This is particularly a problem in a no water border like this, because typically plants deal with lack of water by going dormant.  So the plants in the picture are ones that I have found are good to provide interest later in the summer.
     One of the chief among this group is this late blooming kniphofia.  This is a very large plant I got from Plant Delights many years ago.  If I remember correctly, it was billed as coming originally from Beth Chatto and was considered to be one of the largest kniphofias around.  Unfortunately, I don't remember its name.  I used to grow a lot of kniphofias, but currently this is the only one I have.  I have made a note to myself, however to add more of them for the purpose of providing this kind of late season color.  When planting kniphofias it is important to pay attention to bloom time because their bloom time can vary widely, depending on which one you plant.
     One reason I do not have that many kniphofias any more is that they have rather sloppy foliage.  In the situation pictured above, however, that does not matter so much because the plant is in the middle of a large bed, surrounded by other foliage, so you do not notice its foliage.
     Other plants that are good in a late summer drought tolerant bed like this are Lobelia tupa and various thistle like plants, such as the scotch thistle in the picture (which I am almost afraid to mention for fear the invasive plant mafia will get after me),  cardoons, and globe thistles (the blue globes in the photo are Echinops ritro ssp. ruthenicus). Some of the eryngiums are still going on now, too, although Eryngium alpinum is done blooming.  I have noticed that Eryngium 'Big Blue' has a very long bloom time, and for a border is actually better than Eryngium alpinum,  although its individual flowers are not as good.  It just has such a long bloom time and such a multitude of electric blue flowers on a good looking plant that you can't beat it. If you look closely you can see some of it in the lower left hand quadrant of the picture.
     Another essential plant for late summer interest is Melianthus major which you can see mounded up behind the Kniphofia.  This plant will keep going strongly well into winter in our climate.  It is the foliage which is the thing with it, and it is glorious at this time of the year.

Beetle on Cactus

This beetle was sitting on one of my cactus plants the other day

     I thought I would show you a picture of this cool beetle that was sitting on one of my cactus plants the other day.  After googling images of beetles found in the Pacific Northwest, I have tentatively concluded that this is a ten lined June beetle.  According to a Washington State website, this beetle is commonly found in sandy soils west of the Rockies. Adults feed on the leaves of broadleaf trees and some conifers.  The adult can be between 3/4 to 1 and 1/2 inches long.  This particular one was about an inch long.  For those who might want to know, this beetle did not do any damage to the cactus, and it moved on within the day.  This is a good picture to view large if you are not creeped out by insects.

A Way To Avoid Staking Delphiniums

Delphinium 'Blue Lace' still upright and unstaked amid Orienpet lilies

Close up of 'Blue Lace'

     I grow a lot of delphiniums in my garden, and I have posted about them previously here and here.  This year I neglected to stake them, and they were all right until we had some rainy and windy weather and then they all splayed every which way onto the ground.  Once they have done that there is nothing you can do but cut them.  There was one bright spot in all this disaster, however.  I have three plants of 'Blue Lace', one of the Dowdeswell delphiniums, planted in a bed surrounded by a number of the well established Orienpet lily 'Satisfaction'.  I wrote about that lily here.  These orienpet lilies, once they are mature, make very thick, sturdy, upright stems.  They are so sturdy, in fact, that if you plant them around a clump of delphiniums they will support them!  How exciting is that?
     I have grown several other orienpets and they all have such sturdy stems that they would serve as delphinium supports equally well.  Other types of lilies that I have grown would not be such good supports.  To adequately support one clump of delphiniums I would estimate that you would need at least 6 lilies to provide adequate support.  That should be no problem as these orienpets can be had relatively inexpensively.  For example, see Brent and Becky's Bulbs where you can get 25 of these for a little over 60 dollars.