Desperately seeking dark “evergreen” foliage hardy in USDA zone 8…

Aeonium 'Zwartkop' - not hardy

I’m addicted to dark leaves. Love them, can’t get enough of them. However most of them are either not hardy in my zone 8 climate or not evergreen (either losing their leaves for the winter or dying back to the ground). What’s the story?

Albizia julibrissin ‘Summer Chocolate' - deciduous

Canna NOID - dies back in the winter

Canna NOID - dies back in the winter

Canna x generalis 'Tropical Bronze Scarlet' - dies back in the winter

I’ve put on my research cap and tried to get to the bottom of this mystery. There must be a reason, right? But sadly I haven’t been able to answer my own question. Can you? Why aren't there any great evergreen leaves that are dark and hardy in USDA zone 8? Is it so obvious I’m going to be embarrassed when someone tells me why? (Like why you don’t see many all white leaves on plants).

Colocasia NOID - marginally hardy, dies back in the winter

Cordyline NOID - marginally hardy and evergreen!...will make it through a mild winter

Cotinus ‘Royal Purple' - deciduous

Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens' - my fall back plant for dark evergreen (and hardy) foliage!

Pennisetum purpureum 'Vertigo' - not hardy

Pennisetum purpureum 'Vertigo' - not hardy

Pseuderanthemum 'Rubrum' - not hardy

In the mean time I’ll appreciate my black mondo grass and hope for a mild winter. I‘d love hear about your favorite hardy, evergreen and dark foliage plants!

Zingiber malayensis - not hardy (front view)

Zingiber malayensis - not hardy (back-lit)

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

Evidence of a past gardener…

I grew up in a house my parents had built for us, the newness and sense of possibility were very exciting. No one had ever lived there before, it was all ours! However as an adult I've become quite sentimental about connections to past residents of my homes. To mark the purchase of my house in Spokane, I had the privilege of sharing a toast of "Uncle Shorty's scotch" with the executor of the estate. It came complete with heartfelt reminiscing about the time he and his siblings spent visiting their favorite aunt and uncle in the home that was now mine.

Our home here in Portland has had at least five owners, we met the most recent residents during the process of buying the home, but it's the ones that came before that have me curious, because I've found things they've left behind. The first was this little Bakelite box...

Digging out some ugly over-grown ferns my shovel unearthed it, wrapped in foil. Something was inside; we were going to be rich!! No such luck, it was an old house key which no longer worked in any of the locks.

Cleaning out the drawers of a huge old cabinet in the garage Andrew found these fabulous seedling pots. Could these have actually come with a nursery purchase? They're beautiful.

I haven’t allowed myself to use them, I'm afraid of accidentally breaking one.

In the rafters of the garage we found these marvelous wooden crates.

Still filled with their wooden inserts! The seed label was also a garage find.

Red Fescue, 1957…98.53 per cent pure!

These brass nozzles with their beautiful patina were unearthed a year apart.

The first one in the front garden during last year’s Bishops Weed dig. And the second this spring as I dug sod to enlarge the planting borders (photos coming soon, I promise). They were buried several feet away from the hose bibb and under a lot of soil. How did they get there? I don’t use them but I treasure them just the same. Have you found any treasures left behind by a past gardener?

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

You smell like dirt!

An insult hurled at a gardener? Nope. A complement actually, if you’re wearing Dirt by Demeter…

My friend JJ recently started carrying these fragrances at her shop, Digs. I went in pretty certain I’d grab Wet Garden, after all that is one of my favorite scents…

But then I had to smell them all! Earthworm…

Tomato…

And of course Mildew…

And I couldn’t decide.

So I went home smelling like Wet Garden to see if it passed the long term test, nah…didn’t love it. I need to go back and spray myself with Mildew. How many times are you gonna read someone say that? Right…never.

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

I feel a change a comin…

I have a reputation for having strong opinions, and I suppose it’s somewhat warranted. However I also have been known to do a complete 180 and reverse my direction. Take Mexican Feather Grass (Nassella teniussma); I hated that plant for years. Never could understand what people liked about it. Then one day I had to have it…had to! My current flip flop plant…Dusty Miller (Senecio cineraria or Centaurea cineraria)…

(photo source)

A little history…

My mom grew this plant in the late 70's/early 80’s; as I recall it always looked on the verge of death. Its bottom leaves crispy, overall too tall and gangly, a slightly better version of this…

Not the best of plant memories. Many years later the first thing I did when I moved into my house (mine all mine! I finally owned a house!) in Spokane was to pull out the sad little dots of Dusty Miller. They couldn't go away fast enough, I hated Dusty Miller!

Then on a rainy day back in November of 2009, I was stopped at a traffic light here in Portland and I spotted these sweet white clouds…

Dusty Miller!...and I liked it…oh the horror! But as luck would have it that was just a short burst of affection and I quickly went back to Dusty Miller hating.

Until now. Now I’m totally fixated on planting it this spring. Must have it! Can’t you just see it brightening up the garden, adding a little light and texture with lots of green leaves around it? I can, and I’m very excited about it. I think part of what I’ve always hated (besides the leggy woody stems) is the way it’s used as an island in the landscape, plants plopped down all by themselves (and often surrounded by bark mulch).

Since I garden by the cram-it method (you know, cram as many plants in the garden as possible) I hopefully won’t have that problem. Although I am afraid it can go south pretty fast and end up looking like “trailer park landscaping” (a favorite quote from a comment my “But I hate Dusty Miller” post in 2009). I’ll have to keep an eye on it and be ruthless if it gets leggy, oh and no ugly yellow flowers allowed (off with their heads)!

To be continued… (do you think I’m crazy?)

Roots, literal and otherwise...

Several of the succulent cuttings I took last fall have developed air roots.

There is something a little unnerving about them, kind of like old man ear hairs (I know…and yes, I’m sorry).

As January progresses I've been thinking about Spring Fever, one of my favorite essays from The Roots of My Obsession. It was written by William Cullina and this particular passage I can’t seem to forget:

“In truth my gardening life would be greatly diminished without winter. The blanket of snow puts the tangible parts of gardening out of sight and out of mind, so when spring comes, it is the very first spring. Without winter, there would be no end–and no beginning. Last year’s season would trail on into this like a dull conversation filtering in from the room next door and preventing me from sleep. Still, I can’t wait for spring.”

“Without winter there would be no end–and no beginning” makes me wonder…what would it be like to garden with no end and no beginning? Would I love it? I think I would, but until you experience something for yourself how do you really know?

I also got a little lost in this comment from Tom on a recent Alternative Eden post by Mark and Gaz…

“Sometimes I really hate the winter but then I realize it's a blessing in disguise. Every time I visit a tropical climate in the winter everyone’s gardens look tired and unkempt, probably because they're just tired of gardening. At least here we have a forced break from gardening which allows us to be excited about it all over again. I think having a spring time where EVERYTHING is fresh and new again is also really helpful, I imagine living in a climate where everything is growing all the time there really wouldn't be any one single time where everything is fresh and new.”

Imagine…

Housekeeping

If you open my blog to read this post no doubt you'll notice things look a little different. I like change (on my own terms) and the New Year seemed like a good time to spruce things up (so what if I'm almost 2 weeks late...). Hopefully you won't find the new look too shocking. There might be a few more tweaks (bye-bye pug avatar?) in the coming days but I'll settle in eventually.

One of the things that spurred me to update the header was how pixelated the old one looked in mobile view on my iPad. Unfortunately the new one doesn't seem to be much better, ugh! Speaking of mobile view does anyone know how to change your Google Reader on iPad so Blogger blogs open in web version not mobile? I don't like looking at those tiny pictures that show up in mobile! Any suggestions would be appreciated.

As always, thank you for reading. I enjoy this partnership very much.

Getting through the cruelest month…

Everyone has their least favorite time of the year. For me this is it…January, the longest, darkest, cruelest month of all.

When I lived in Seattle (always in an apartment, never with more than window-sills to garden on) winter didn't hit me quite as bad. After all everything was so green, the reverse of what I’d known for the first 21 years of my life in Spokane, Washington.

In Spokane the lawns were green in the summer (lots of cheap water) and then would go dormant in the frozen wintertime, when the entire city turns an ugly brown. Of course Spokane is filled with conifers which should green things up, but they’re so dark they end-up sucking most of light from the sky, and broad-leaf evergreens are practically non-existent in eastern Washington. In Seattle lawns were allowed to go dormant in the summer, but as soon as the rain returned in the fall…POW! It was the emerald city all over again. And of course the lawns were just the carpet; the entire city seemed to be one big green garden, there were happy plants everywhere, all winter long! Surrounded by all that green, winter was not the depressing event I’d known it to be.

But then I moved back to Spokane (it’s a long story).

It was no accident that I moved in May, after all spring, summer and fall are all lovely in Spokane. I had a good 7+ months to get acclimated to my new life before I had to hunker down for wintertime. I also had a secret weapon, a quote I’d read months before when still in Seattle and tucked away, knowing I’d need it. Come January I pulled out that piece of paper and put it where I could see it every day. When the darkness of it all became too much I’d read that quote and somehow get through the day. I was reminded soon I would smell that glorious smell of warming earth and begin to see bits of green appear.

Time passed, there were moves, and I lost the quote. It was okay, I didn't need it. It had served its purpose.

Now I’m living in Portland, and just like Seattle the lawns go golden in the summer and turn bright green when the rains return in the fall. There is green all around me. But my gardener’s heart wants more. I've gotten greedy; I want summer year round, the cold wet darkness that is January dulls my soul. However I recently came across that quote again; I’ll be reading it a lot over the next few weeks. Of course I’m taking the words far more literally than the author intended, but I doubt he would mind. Maybe you can use it to, we've all got the power inside of us, we just need to remember to feel it...

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer"
- Albert Camus

Dangerous Gardens, on Garden Designers Roundtable

The topic for this month's Garden Designers Roundtable is “Dangerous Gardens” and I've been invited to guest post, what an honor! Since dangerous gardening is my passion I do have a few things to say on the matter, I’m sure you’re not surprised.

Agave utahensis

I believe a truly dangerous garden includes multiple layers of perilous essentials…..first up is monetary danger; any gardener that hopes to build a "Dangerous Garden" must be able to throw financial caution to the wind at a moment’s notice and buy a trunk-load of plants whenever the opportunity arises.

the trunk of my car after a fabulous day of plant shopping with friends...

The word “budget” has no place in this style of gardening. Of course you won’t want to spend your actual mortgage payment on plants, that would be fool-hardy…you need a plot of land on which to put your plants after all! But if your goal is to have a spectacular dangerous garden there’s nothing wrong with putting off investing for retirement, or even that new roof you should be saving for.

Secondly, what is more dangerous than the possibility of death? It’s very important for any dangerous garden to have several poisonous and carnivorous plants.

carnivorous Sarracenia

Take the genus Euphorbia, it’s a garden mainstay in many parts of the world, yet lurking just below the surface is a caustic, poisonous milky sap. This sap has the potential to not only irritate any skin that it comes in contact with, but also cause permanent blindness. Use care when handling!

Eryngium  agavifolium (left)  Euphorbia excalibur (right)

Next, forget the commonly accepted parameters of your climate zone, what fun is there in playing is safe? Embrace the danger; push that zone, after all how do you really know that plant isn't hardy in your garden until you've killed, it at least twice?

unknown Cylindropuntia from my in-laws in New Mexico,
is it hardy in my garden? Only time (and the upcoming winter) will tell...

Hybrid Echinocereus triglochidiatus v. gonacanthus (left), Yucca rostrata (right)...the Echinocereusis
hardy to temperatures colder than it will experience in my garden, but can it handle the winter wet? 

But the most important (and my favorite) component for a truly "Dangerous Garden?" The spikes!

Agave gentryi 'Jaws'

Whether they be the obvious spikes found on Yucca, Agaves and Cactus or the more unexpected tips of Mahonia, Phormium and Poncirus nothing beats a few carefully chosen spikes to really make a garden memorable!

Mahonia x media 'Charity'

Seriously though, beyond any other type of plant I think it’s the spiky ones that cause the average gardener pause. I've been told that since they look so different from “other plants” they are intimidating. As though anyone can grow a daisy but it takes special knowledge to grow an Opuntia or Agave.

Blooming Opunita humifusa with Cotinus 'Royal Purple' 

Actually, in some ways they’re right; it all depends on where you’re gardening. Many of the best spikes are dry sun-loving plants; you've got to make sure the soil around these plants will allow water to flow away. Here in winter-rainy Portland I make sure to work in enough grit (pumice, small gravel or chicken grit) with the surrounding native soil that it’s impossible to make a ball of soil in my fist without it breaking apart when I open my hand. Secondly I mound up the area around the plant so it sits on a mini hill, to keep the rain streaming away. Also I tilt the plant a bit, so that water can’t collect in the crown, which can be the kiss of death for an Agave. Finally a little gravel mulch helps keep the plants clean and allows you to cover the neck of the plant with a material that lets it stay drier than if you brought the soil all the way up.

Agaves in my garden planted on a small hill and tilted slightly for rain run-off

Another factor that I believe intimidates people from planting spiky plants is the question of where to plant them? You can’t just plop a cactus down in the middle of a perennial bed; you need to have a designated area, a rock garden!

Or so the thinking used to be. Thankfully that’s changing and more and more people are realizing how beautiful a few spikes can be mixed in with the rest of the garden.

Agave parryi 'J.C. Raulston' with Ceanothus gloriosa ‘Pt Reyes’

In fact their pointy tips and dangerous look can be the perfect counterpoint to a soft billowing grass or a big leaf.

Puya coerulea in the center surrounded by blooming Grevillea molonglo, with a tiny Agave ovatifolia
in the foreground (left) and Nassella tenuissima (right)

Opuntia with Yucca whipplei on the left and the big leaves of an unknown Canna on the right

Rosa sericea ssp. omeiensis f. pteracantha (Wingthorn rose), a big red spike for you rose lovers out there!

So go forth, embrace the danger…buy that expensive plant you've been eyeing, push that zone, and remember the spikes! Oh and don’t forget to read what the regular bloggers of the Garden Designers Roundtable have to say about Dangerous Gardening:

Pam Penick : Digging : Austin, TX

Rebecca Sweet : Gossip In The Garden : Los Altos, CA

Mary Gallagher Gray : Black Walnut Dispatch : Washington, D.C.

Deborah Silver : Dirt Simple : Detroit, MI

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

David Cristiani : The Desert Edge : Alburquerque, NM

(Wingthorn rose, close up)