Rare Plant Research sale

So. The plan for the front yard has always been to have a lot of evergreen elements so the yard would look nice in every season. I wasn't going to use a lot of perennials. I really meant it. And I was only going to buy things that were drought tolerant so I wouldn't be watering every day in the summer. I swear I meant it.

But then I went to the Rare Plant Research sale.

Does it remind you of Italy? Greg asked me. No. California.

It started out okay. I bought Lewisia! These will go in the berm with the agaves since they both like sharp drainage and full sun. Good job, me! These will probably look pretty sad and soggy in the winter but they are technically evergreen.

Ditto this Dasylirion. Sharp drainage, full sun, great in the berm. I've wanted one of these since I saw a mature specimen in the Amsterdam Botanical garden.

Dasylirion texanum

Then I saw the cannas. I loved this one with the red-rimmed leaves so much I didn't even grab a tag! But I know it wants consistently moist soil.

Seriously, anyone know what I am?

And then I saw these lovely red cannas. They make orange flowers "all summer long." BOOM. Now I have Lionel Ritchie stuck in my head.

Canna durban

Cannas are neither evergreen nor drought tolerant. But they are so pretty and colorful. And Greg really liked them and he doesn't get excited about plants, ever. I put them next to the house where I can run over them with the hose, which is very likely since I'll be watering them every day. I'm going to blame my non-plan following on the enormous glass of wine I had (I think it was 10 ounces at least--I had to take a nap when we got home) and the fact that I was kind of amped up because I ran into Ryan and Patricia (and her daughter Megan). I have never felt so warmly embraced by a community as I have by the gardeners in Portland and online. Gardeners are the best.

I also bought a castor bean plant, an annual which can get seven feet tall . . . in very hot locations. I'm just hoping for three or four to fill in this blank spot next to the Mahonia x media 'Arthur Menzies'. Fine Gardening featured it this month and just the night before I had earmarked it and showed it to Greg. The next day he had no recollection of this. It's almost like he's not listening when I natter on about plants!

When I warned him that all parts of the plant are poisonous, he asked why I put it in the front yard, when a child/dog/goat could wander up and . . . eat it, I guess?

Ricinus communis

I may just park an agave in front of it as a warning. Get off my not-lawn!

Hortlandia: The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon's plant show

I was so good, you guys. There were so many plants at the HPSO sale and I stuck to my list (mostly). I wanted ferns and I wanted crocosmia, preferably one of the crazier varieties from Far Reaches Farm. I am a newbie at this so I didn't know that you could call them ahead of time and ask them to bring plants down. It's too bad because crocosmia is completely unremarkable right now, so they didn't bring any.

There were, however, a lot of ferns. I was on the lookout for Woodwardia fimbrata, the giant chain fern. It's a NW native and it gets six feet tall and up to eight feet wide. What's not to love about a prehistoric hunk like that? We stopped at one table with a lot of ferns and asked. The woman was COMPLETELY BONKERS. She started laughing hysterically, talking about how she doesn't take them the Oregon, no wait, Eastern Oregon, no wait Washington, ha ha ha ha ha HAAAAAaaaaaa.

Greg looked at me like I'd dragged him into an insane asylum and he wanted out NOW. We backed slowly away from the table and hit Cistus where they had plenty of Woodwardia. I told him about the other wackadoo and how she said they're too hard to grow away from the coast. He sanely replied, "No, they grow just fine here."

Any tips?
Nope. Just put them in the ground and water them. You'll be fine.

No hysterical laughter, no word salad. Greg exhaled. He already liked Cistus, claiming it's the only fun nursery for him, but now I think he loves them. I installed it in the rain garden where it will get ample water. Grow, baby, grow!

I planted a Salal behind the rain garden but it could take many years for it get up to size. I decided to fill in this area with ferns in the meantime.

Click to embiggen

Ferns and fringecups (Tellima grandiflora)should hopefully obscure the gutter after some time. I got an evergreen Mexican male fern, a really cool looking golden-scaled male fern, a cinnamon fern, and a Japanese painted fern. I also put in three fringecups from another plant sale, and a lady fern from another part of the yard. Hopefully they won't look too silly with the non-woodland looking bamboo and Japanese aralia (Fatsia japonica) to the right. I love that plant too much to move it. It wards off bad spirits!

I also had a brainfart and confused broad-leaved shooting star (Dodecatheon hendersonii) with broad-leaf starflower (Trientalis borealis). I already have shooting stars in my yard and find them so uninteresting (even though they look crazy!) that I didn't take a single picture of them last summer. What I wanted was the painfully pretty starflower, a groundcover that likes shade. I've had a hard time finding it in nurseries here and I fell in love with it at a naturescaping tour. It was interspersed with meadow rue and it was the prettiest woodland scene I've ever seen. I mean, come on:

Image from here: http://bamlog.com/mfpmain7.htm

So pretty. Shooting star is neat-looking but not the look I wanted.

Image borrowed from here.

(In my head, at least) the leaves of the starflower would mimic the tropical-looking leaves of the Japanese aralia and it would fit in better with this scene. I'll just have to keep looking.

We finally got sun!

Most of my family lives in California and I quietly weep when I read their Facebook updates IN MARCH that say things like, "First barbecue of the season!" Jerks.

It's been cold and raining like crazy but we finally got some sun this weekend. I had picked up all these plants last week that I ordered in March. Advance plant sales are awesome because your order arrives and you're like, "I ordered five meadow Sidalcea why? Where was I going to put all this now?"

The pink tulips have been up for a while and I've been waiting on the black ones.

 

The black bulbs are my favorite.

Heuchera

Chive blossoms

Goatsbeard

Western trilliums and lady fern

Wild ginger Asarum caudatum

The boy spent the whole day weeding and we barbecued and ate outside. Maybe I had to wear a sweatshirt toward the end but, whatever, I'll take it. 

Shooting star Dodecatheon hendersonii

And 7 out of 9 of all y'all liked the birdbath so now we'll just wait and see if the birds will use the thing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for hummingbirds.

Squee!

I love plant sale weekends.