A little creative reuse in my garden…

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time you know I’m not a fan of garden art. Need a focal point? That’s what the plants are for, sculpture and the like are just taking up space where another plant could be! I do however appreciate the skill of those who can take a piece of cast-off junk and make it useful. A rusty bucket doubling as a planter, a large piece of industrial metal used as a trellis or “room divider,” doing this successfully requires a certain attitude…and a dedication. A dedication I just don’t have, which is why I was afraid this wouldn’t work…

But it does!

At least I think so.

Andrew and I were at our local ReBuilding Center looking for a piece of wood he needed for a project, he was also trying to track down one more planter that wasn’t a planter for his office. We were digging through piles of stuff when he found this metal gooseneck fuel funnel. There was something about it; I just had to have it.

Coincidently I had an Agave montana 'Baccarat' that needed a home.

I think I like it because you don’t realize what it is until you get close, it’s subtle.

Andrew also found something that worked for him, an old piece of ductwork. I initially threw it aside because it had duct tape on it making it undesirable, or so I thought. Turns out it was a bonus for him.

It’s a long story how he went from just a single planter on the table to two…but they look good together. The short one is actually sold as a planter, still it made the creativity cut.

Especially since it was the perfect size for the pair of Euphorbia polygona cv. 'Snowflake' we’d purchased online for him.

(He’d tried to talk me out of the plants I purchased in New Mexico last January but I wasn’t falling for it. If you are in the market for those ghostly Euphorbia and can't find them locally I can’t say enough good things about these plants and the way they were shipped...order them here)

Sharing space with the euphorbia is a Pachypodium succulentum…

And in the duct work planter…a Drunkards Dream (Rhipsalis salicornioides). You can see why they call it that, millions of tiny bottles!

I think the new planters work well with the old.

By the way I want to thank everyone who voted for our entries in the “That’s So Potted” contest. Neither one of us made it to the finals but it was fun trying.

All material © 2009-2013 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

How long does it take to forget?

Last week as I was planting this gorgeous 5-gallon phormium (picked up at the orange big box for only $24.99), it hit me how far backwards I’ve slid, and I paused for a moment to reflect.

When we moved to Portland this area was midway through a historic period of mild winters. I jumped in with both feet when planting…phormium, cordylines, yes and yes! Then the PKW’s hit (phormium killing winters) 2008/9 and for those of us that foolishly replanted, again in 2009/10. Since then it’s been pretty smooth sailing, with this last winter being particularly mild. You know what that means right? Those plants I vowed never to replant are creeping back into my garden.

First it was just a couple phormium in containers…

But now I’ve got seven phormium in the ground!

Their tall strappy foliage just can't be beat.

And of course their colors are pretty fabulous too.

It’s not just the cordy's and phormium that were hit, I lost a few sizable astelia during those winters as well. After that experience I vowed they were only going to be grown in containers. The current count? I’m up to three in the ground and I’m seriously considering releasing the containerized trio.

Am I asking for trouble? Perhaps.

I have serious doubts that the Euphorbia stygiana I posted about a couple weeks back would make it through a repeat of the PKW’s…

And no doubt the Banksia marginata would be toast...

But here I go doing crazy things like planting a tree fern (Dicksonia antartica) in the ground!

Why? It wasn’t doing so well in the container and since it’s my second I thought I’d see if I couldn’t get it to thrive here. Plus maybe I was a little jealous of the tall tree ferns in the garden of Mark and Gaz. We’ll see.

So my initial post-PKW resolve to only plant things hardy to zone 7 or lower (a full zone colder than mine) has obviously been forgotten. Or at least blurred by things like this Acacia pravissima continuing to succeed when I thought for sure it would be dead by now.

The current best example of my zonal denial? I’ve planted an Echium candicans 'Star of Madeira’ right out in an unprotected spot in the front garden.

Should make for a wonderful summer focal point, wonder what it will look like next January?

All material © 2009-2013 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

So about finding that second Pineapple Guava…

Yesterday I mentioned it was the chance discovery of a nice little specimen Acca Sellowiana at The Gardener’s Choice that pushed me to go for it and do away with our established Pieris japonica. It wasn’t just the Pineapple Guava that caught my eye that day. For instance I’m still kind of obsessing about this Ligularia 'Osiris Cafe Noir'…

I have a springtime love affair with Eremurus ‘Cleopatra’ every year.

In my experience this is the way to plant them, when they’ve already emerged and have a nice bunch of foliage.

I’ve planted 5 or 6 tubers (corms?) and nothing ever happened.

This was the first time I recall seeing Euphorbia c. ‘Portuguese Velvet’ for sale in a nursery. Of course since then I’ve seen a couple.

Its leaves really do feel like velvet.

This was a new one too, and wow! So bright…Golden Zebra Daylily.

So when I went inside to pay for the Acca Sellowiana, that’s when things got really interesting! Because I saw this…

A Schefflera taiwaniana with HUGE leaves.

It’s not like you see one of these everyday (this is only the 4th time I’ve seen one for sale) and this one, with the big leaves, I’d never seen before. Do you suppose I bought it? Damn right!

And I managed to fit two 5-gallon shrubs in my car no problem!

Are you wondering just how much bigger those leaves are? Here’s a comparison to the plant I moved a few weeks ago…

New one…

Old one…

Why the difference in a plant with the same name? I was reminded of a slide from a talk given by Dan Hinkley. The photo illustrated the extreme variance in the plants growing at Monrovia, all were grown from seed he'd collected. From this batch they selected the plants to grow on to sell. So it stands to reason they probably released the others for sale and that's why the ones on the market thus far show so much variation. At least that’s my theory. I do have one other Schefflera taiwaniana, this one from Cistus Nursery. It has dark petioles…making it different too.

So that’s the story of how I came to have 3 Schefflera taiwaniana, all different, all loved.

All material © 2009-2013 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.