I’ve tried 3 times to grow climbing hydrangea, with it’s crisp glossy leaves, 10″ wide white flowers, and peeling cinnamon bark. When I planted it before, though, I didn’t really have the right spot for it. It’ll grow on a tree or house or wall, but I hoped it would grow on the chain link fence, surrounded by weeds, and completely ignored and unwatered, but that didn’t work out. Now that I’ll allegedly have a new wood fence (eventually, if the contractors come back), I’m giving it another shot. It can eventually grow 50 - 80 feet with self clinging aerial roots, but it takes a while to get going. People bring up that line “first year it sleeps, second year it creeps, third year it leaps.” God I hate that line. I prefer to say it takes a few years to get established. I look for a lot of shortcuts because I’m not a patient gardener, but this is one worth waiting for.

After some fantastic thunderstorms the other night, everything looked refreshed.

Crocosmia Lucifer is one of the few vibrantly colored flowers I haven’t ripped out. It looks good next to the tropical looking big leafed plants, and it earns its keep fairly well, with spiky foliage, and these buds, followed by intense red flowers, followed by interesting seed pods.

I have two mock oranges (philadelphus), left over from the previous gardener years ago, cut down to the ground by the owner before me, that have made a comeback on their own with no help from me. I have to make a point to go visit them up close, since they’re planted out of the way, far in the back, where their fragrance can’t be appreciated from the path.

My plume poppy clump isn’t as tall and vigorous as I’d like. Some of the isolated plume poppies behind trees have grown to 7′ tall, but my biggest clump out in the open is only 4 feet tall or so, and only a handful of the leaves are dinner plate sized, but they’re still good to look at. I love when the wind blows and you can see the silvery undersides of the leaves.

I planted these fillipendula in the bog, and this marks the first year they haven’t promptly died on me, despite my very best but admittedly sporadic watering efforts. I have never managed to keep them around long enough to bloom. I just liked them for their deeply creased leaves, reminiscent of maple leaves, but I’m appreciating the flower show this year.

It’s not huge or thriving, but the astilbe here is also my first survivor of the species. Small victories.

I just love the hairy wiry kiwi vine’s big leaves. It’s finally to the stage where leaves are bigger than my hands. This one doesn’t put out fruit, because I’d need a male and a female plant for that to happen, and I don’t even know which one this is. The kiwi always makes me feel like I’m getting away with something. It doesn’t look like it should grow in our area, and especially not as vigorously as it does with no attention from me, in the shade, where it frames my front porch. This is a good one.

The oakleaf hydrangea I planted last year is blooming for the first time, and the blooms are surprisingly pretty. I really bought it for the brilliant fall color.

This lacecap variegated hydrangea is one of my earliest successes in the garden. I love it in this stage, where the flowers are just starting to come out all green, before they age to a bluish purple.

This rhododendron is hiding under the hellebores I need to take out, but it’s plugging away, putting on new growth, so that’s a good sign. It’s one of my recent acquisitions, part of my newfound appreciation for rhododendrons.

Mostly I love where I live. I’m a 5 minute drive from downtown but live in a neighborhood with a big yard and plenty of house for two people (and two dogs, two cats, and two potentially pregnant foster mongolian gerbils). Sometimes I’m sad I don’t live somewhere I can have horses. I work with a woman, Gail, who lives about 45 minutes outside of the city, who has the perfect country house, with this horse, Booger, and chickens and dogs and a swimming pool and a garden. Pretty much she has it all. So I deftly managed an invitation out for an afternoon at her place, by telling her “I’m trying to get an invitation to your house!” I’m slick like that. I did my best to make myself useful, by offering to help walk the horse with kids on it around the property, so she wasn’t stuck with that all afternoon. I did that once. The rest of the time I hogged the horse all to myself. I’m helpful. This is the first time in my life I’ve ridden a horse solo, without a guide of some sort, usually reminding me that I’m not allowed to trot or gallop or anything fun. I don’t complain, any horse time is fine with me, walking, sitting still, just petting or brushing them, whatever, but it was kind of the best thing ever.

Gail was awesome and offered to let me bring my little homeless foster puppy out with us. I don’t like to be without a dog, ever, so he came along. He was not so sure about the horse. He wisely took cover to check out the situation while we were saddling up the horse. Why are all the good dogs not mine?

By the third trip around the property, puppy decided he wanted to come with us, but Justin kept him back at the house.

Puppy update: skinny little homeless puppy put on some good weight over the last few days, proved himself the best behaved puppy there ever was, and last night went home to his new family with Dave Allen, his wife Paddy, and their three kids. Happy ending, yay!

I might be celebrating too soon, but fence contractors came and removed the old fence, put in the posts for the new fence last Thursday, and haven’t broken a single thing yet. Now I just hope they come back again and finish it up so I don’t have to keep explaining to Oscar that he can’t go out there and play fetch because he would pee on the neighbors’ patio furniture, eat their kids and challenge their dog to a duel.

I was pleasantly surprised to find blooms on my little evergreen magnolia I planted this spring, but they weren’t what I was expecting. It was identified on the tag as magnolia wilsonii, which is a 25 foot tall evergreen that blooms in early summer with fragrant flowers that hang upside down. I didn’t buy it for the flowers, I bought it for its compact multi-stemmed evergreen ways, so I’m not heartbroken, but I do hope this mystery magnolia ends up the right size for the space.

My little melianthus major that was huge last year but shrimpy this year is unscathed, even though it’s right next to the fence line.

The colocasia I thought I’d lost due to my poor overwintering technique of digging it up and then forgetting to store it after letting it dry out, and then again forgetting to plant it until late spring, appears to have survived and is finally starting to grow in earnest.

The cannas are all intact, except for all the perforated leaves from the slug damage.

Even the black leaved elderberry that I wasn’t too worried about, because it can be pretty well abused without showing any signs of trauma, is 100% intact. If we get this thing done on time, I’m going to be pretty happy with this project.

This is one of those ideas I think could make someone rich, but I’m never getting off my ass to make it happen, so I hope someone else will do it for me. After a recent post about the swanky prefab (can you say those words in the same sentence?) houses from WeeHouse, I had several conversations with friends and coworkers about all these great modular building systems, like one from Flatpak, which comes in 8′ x 8′ panels, to build customizable houses and buildings.

These are all terrific for ambitious projects, but I’m surprised I can’t find an equivalent for smaller projects. I’m thinking some sort of interlocking fence panels you could attach onto existing fence posts. I know there are some pre-assembled good neighbor type fences, but I don’t mean those. I mean something attractive. Something you could put together without requiring hiring a contractor or scary saws or precise measuring. Like legos. How hard could that be?

My neighbors have scheduled a fence guy to allegedly start today ripping down the chain link between our back yards and put in a new cedar fence. It’s not a fancy pants fence that would ever cause me to think twice, but I’m hoping it’s at least not the eyesore that the chain link is, and I’ll be able to take pictures of that side of the garden from more angles than just top down. I’m desperately hoping the fence guy doesn’t kill my good plants. He’s probably going to kill all the best stuff. Which is all of it. I know there’s going to have to be some collarteral damage to the akebia quinata, since it’s growing through the fence. I probably can’t trust him not to just yank on the fence and pull the whole damn thing out, can I? It’ll kill me, but the akebia is at least replaceable and fast growing enough I can make up for lost time in the next couple years. I’m praying he doesn’t trample and ruin the Tetrapanax, which is doing so well and growing so fast, or break any branches on the copper beech, or smash any leaves on the gunnera. OK, I just hope he doesn’t touch ANYTHING. That’s probably what’s going to happen, right? I am going to be a broken hearted girl tomorrow.

sort of fancy pants. not like the new fence going in.

Last night started out great. I left a busy day at work to meet some former co-workers for drinks to talk a little about how my old company was totally lame without me work over drinks. That was awesome and all. And then Justin was picking me up to go out for 37 margaritas and dinner with Dane and Kiala, which sounded like the best idea ever after a million stressful days in a row at work. All good things. Yay!

Over the last few years, I’ve fostered some animals for the Oregon Humane Society. Cats, mice (38 at one time!), rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, and dogs. If I were counting, it would maybe come out to 150 in the last 5 years. Enough animals that the neigbors’ kids’ friends’ ask me how many dogs I have, and when I say “just two,” they tell the neighbor kid, “you said she had like 100!” My neighbors may not like me, but they do know that I love the animals, and can be counted on to help a puppy in need. I love them all, but most of all I have a soft spot for pit bulls.

The thing that’s great about fostering is that you have an agency that is responsible for placing the animals once they’re ready for adoption, so there’s no risk you’re just stuck with them forever. I had a string of dogs (food aggressive pit bull pup, pomeranian with a broken leg, a bald chihuahua with food allergies, and a pit bull who was afraid of EVERYTHING) all in a row for over a year and a half, but when I got a new job, I ended up too busy for all that, so I took a break from the labor intensive dog fosters and settled into taking in potentially pregnant rodents.

I have been getting my puppy fix from my neighbors, who got a baby pit bull that I pet over the fence and occasionally dog sit, and when they weren’t able to get him vaccinations and all that, I did it for them. And I was HAPPY to do that. But now they have me pegged as a sucker.

Tonight, when Justin came home, one of the neighbors politely asked him to do him a friendly. I did not know that was what the kids were saying these days. Back in my day, when I had time to watch TV (NYPD Blue days), they called it doing someone a solid. Also, the definition of doing someone a friendly/solid has changed from “talk to my junkie daughter about her loser boyfriend” to “I dumped a pit bull in your back yard. Good bye.” In the car with Dane and Kiala, we debated what to do. When you have a puppy in your back yard, you can’t just open the gate and wish it luck. Now it is my dog until I figure something out. Now I’ll be one of those people I look at disapprovingly, dropping a dog off at the shelter, if I’m lucky enough to convince the shelter to take it, which is a long shot.

I posted the found dog on craigslist last night, and the game plan today is to take it in to the animal hospital to scan for a microchip, and assuming that comes up negative, I’m lucky enough to have a job where I can take it to work with me while I’m looking for the rightful owner or a new home.

This weekend I went out to the Bamboo Garden in search of a clumping bamboo for an empty spot along my fence line to create a little more privacy and winter interest. I had to resist the urge to head up the street 10 minutes to a great local bamboo nursery, because I wanted to check out as many options as possible, and to see large stands of bamboo growing in the ground, to really get a feel for what I was getting, so I made the almost hour long trek out to a remote wooded area to check this place out. It did not disappoint. There are probably a couple hundred different types of bamboo to pick from, many I’ve never seen before.

My favorite bamboos are the huge timber bamboo varieties, which all seem to be running bamboo, so I’d have to be vigilant about controlling spread by circling the clump with an edger a couple times a year to keep it from venturing past its planned location. Since the spot I’m filling is next to my fence beside the neighbor’s cement patio, I was worried a runner might sneak past me and under the patio and pop up 30 feet away on the other side, and we’d have a hard time getting it back under control, and then the neighbors would hate me and sue me, so I’m staying away from the running varieties this time. I was hoping against hope that there’d be something that looked like running bamboo, standing up straight and tall, with big leaves and huge culms. Maybe something like this fantastic one they had, with this amazing velvety finish that was so cool to the touch it felt refrigerated on the muggy warm day.

No luck on any clumping bamboos that look like that, unfortunately. Most clumping bamboos are smaller and droopier, almost a small weeping willow effect, like this fargesia.

I liked the fargesia, but the kind I wanted in a large clump wasn’t ready for sale yet. I did find this chusquea culeo, which I’ve never heard of. It’s a Chilean/Argentinean native bamboo that gets very stiff upright dense culms that reach 12 to 20 feet with small pointy dark green leaves.

I had my very first plant haul in the new car, and I used up every inch of the cargo space, and drove home with the top of the plant resting on the dash and dropping leaves all over the formerly spotless interior. Sigh. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

I’m spoiled with some excellent nurseries within a few minutes of my house, and it’s easy to rely on them without venturing out of the city limits. This weekend though, I’m heading out to The Bamboo Garden Nursery in North Plains Oregon, which seems very far away and remote, but I think it’s actually only a half hour from Portland. It’s a 16 acre property (what’s that, something like a million miles?) with all different kinds of bamboo. Bamboo is so satisfying to plant, because it has such instant impact, and doesn’t take a few years to look settled in, like a lot of new plants. It wouldn’t be cheap, but they will deliver 50 foot tall bamboo. Wouldn’t the neighbors be surprised?

From the June/July issue of Domino Magazine

I have a spot on my patio, right next to the neighbor’s elevated hot tub, which is currently screened fairly effectively by a huge snowball viburnum. It’s serviceable for now, but it really can’t be a forever solution. It’s quite old and misshapen, and barely supporting its own weight, and I have to cut fallen limbs from the trunk each year so I know it’s just a matter of time before it’s a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree looking thing. It had climbed into and been supported by an apple tree up until last year, which I had to remove, because it was planted right between the houses, and aside from making a terrible mess every year, it rubbed up against the houses and ruined the paint and dropped leaves and apples onto the roof and into the gutters. Since the apple tree is gone, the viburnum is reaching over and trying to use the japanese maple ’sango kaku’ for support. That is where I draw the line. It hides the beautiful silhouette of the tree, competes for light, and will start to break off the delicate branches. So it really has to go.

What kills me is that I’ll lose the privacy for a while, and have to start all over. The picture in Domino magazine looks to me like a staged area, not a permanent garden, and I think I could borrow some tricks to jump start the re-growth effort.

One of the things I like is the couch up against a 4 foot wall. Starting from a 4 foot high raised planting area, you get an instant height boost in whatever you plant, and the patio area will feel more intimate, like an outdoor room. I’m leaning toward planting bamboo, just like this picture, because it’ll quickly form a dense evergreen screen, effectively getting us that 9 foot fence the neighbors wanted, without the imposing wall of cedar. I won’t be able to afford enough bamboo to fill in the whole area, I’ll probably get three or 5 clumps, and wait a couple years for it to fill in. It’ll eventually be the only thing in what is effectively one large container, but until then, I like how the Domino scene filled in between clumps with what looks like Agave attenuata (LOVE THAT), but they’d be too expensive and small around here for me to get enough to make an impact, so I’ll probably fill in with some large strappy variegated golden new zealand flax, also evergreen. Once the bamboo takes off, the new zealand flax can get transferred to large containers to cluster around the furniture.

For the furniture and accessories, I’ll probably stick to Ikea for lights and lanterns, and go with target couches and cushions, since it really is possible to get something simple and not goofy looking out there if you’re careful. I’m kicking myself for not buying the ceramic stools like the ones pictured, when I could get them from Target for $16.99, and now all the stools I can find are over a hundred bucks. I’m holding out for another low priced option coming up. And finally, I’ll top it off with a big umbrella. The umbrella will prevent all that awkward eye contact with the sunbathing neighbors.