Love yourself, check your supplies

We don't celebrate Valentine's Day around these parts. I think it's a silly holiday, though I do enjoy the extra chocolate that seems to pop up at work. I was thinking about what this silly stupid holiday could be good for and I thought about emergency preparedness.

A year ago we had a dinner party to celebrate the anniversary of the Cascadia quake. It was really fun but I think we scared the shit out of our guests. This year Greg had the brilliant idea to do zombie preparedness instead. I could still harp on people to be prepared for emergencies but within the safety of a discussion about how awesome The Walking Dead is.

In the course of the evening I found out one of my friends doesn't own a fire extinguisher and I proceeded to harangue her ALL night. I am the worst hostess ever. We played a round of Zombo, which is just like Bingo except it hopefully inspires a feeling of panic in those who don't have emergency supplies at home.

So how about this year we check our emergency supplies instead of trying to get a reservation for that restaurant that will charge you twice what it would on any other night? Maybe you can eat that canned food that's going to expire soon. The list above is by no means complete, but it's a great start.

So this is your gentle reminder: give your sweetheart a real gift and check your emergency supplies. If nothing else, when you see the valentines candy at the grocery store, I want you to think "disaster."

Your fire extinguishers: are they still within their expiration dates? When natural disasters hit, emergency services get overwhelmed. Fires are very common after earthquakes/zombie attacks and the fire department may not be able to get to you. If you don't yet own a fire extinguisher, you can order one online or buy them at any hardware store.

Do you have a first aid kit? I'm not talking about the old box of band-aids in your bathroom cabinet. If something sharp fell on you (or your dog or your cat) and caused a deep gash, do you have supplies to staunch the bleeding? If emergency rooms are overwhelmed, do you have enough first aid supplies to take care of non-life threatening injuries?

Do you have enough food set aside for three days of meals? When we first started putting together our kit I thought, "We've got loads of food in our kitchen cabinets!" It turns out a lot of it (assuming we could get to it) wasn't ideal. We had a lot of pasta, which would require a stove, a pot, and precious water. Have you ever eaten black beans straight from the can? They don't taste very good. Instead we stocked up on baked beans, spaghetti-os, canned fruit, refried beans, and things that are edible straight from the can. This is the first time in my life that I bought processed, sugared peanut butter.

You may get caught in an emergency situation while in your car. Do you have supplies there? Remember after Katrina how the highways were like parking lots? You may need to hang out in your car for some time. Having some food and water, plus a small first aid kit would be a good idea. You can buy pre-made kits on Amazon (I don't make any money off of these Amazon links, I just don't like leaving the house).

Do you have spare food for your pets? What if a disaster strikes and you had planned to get food at the vet/store that day? Stores might now be closed or unreachable. Portland shuts down when there is one inch of snow on the ground. Even a minor disaster will likely bring us to our knees.

In our party bags this year we packed mylar blankets, twinkies, and glow sticks. My next goal for myself is to pack "go bags" for Greg and I. Ideally we'd have backpacks stuffed with extra clothes and basic supplies, in case the house was collapsing/on fire and we needed to grab it and go. I also need to get my bicycle in working condition.

Do I have everyone feeling sufficiently panicked? How about we calm down by looking at this photo from the recent snow.

Remember: Valentine candy = disaster. Delicious disaster.

I only like the cold when it does stuff like this

Because this winter has been so much colder than the last, some of my evergreen perennials are doing wonderful things. I don't even mean that sarcastically.

The cold turned my Mahonia nervosa wine-colored. The stems are pink! I recently read up on this plant and discovered that it doesn't want full sun, where I have mine sited. It's done fine so far (I barely watered it last summer) so I'm going to keep it there until it screams.

Parahebe perfoliata's purple stems have spilled their coloring into some of the leaves, making it even better looking than before.

On the downside, my favorite agave is mush.

Agave parryi, ay yi yi.

This was before six inches of snow fell. It's completely rotted through and there's no saving it. Sigh. I guess I'll just have to go shopping at Cistus for a more cold-hardy replacement! 

Dasylirion texanum is my favorite plant in the garden (this week)

When Greg and I were in Amsterdam we went to the Botanical Garden. I flew halfway around the world to see gunnera for the first time, a plant that grows incredibly well in Portland. I had no idea it existed! I also witnessed the biggest agave I'd ever seen in the flesh and a Dasylirion acrotrichum. I was totally fascinated by how soft (looking) and kinetic such a spiky plant could be. I fell in love.

Two years ago I picked up a Dasylirion texanum at Rare Plant Research.

It's taken its sweet time bulking up but it's finally starting to come into its own.

The filifers are perfectly coiffed.

Those perfect ribbons of green sport teeth that glow in the sunlight.

I can't wait to see how it fills out the berm as it continues to grow.

It's a tough SOB, zones 5a-11. It can form a trunk (which may be partly buried beneath the ground), with an eventual height and width of 3-5', depending on who you ask. It needs well drained soil but handles the ample moisture in Portland well. It's heat and drought tolerant, liking sun to part shade. It has handled the recent freeze as well as some scorching heat with no sign of stress at all. It will eventually form a 9-15' flower stalk. BITCHIN'.

My favorite plant in the garden this week is hosted by Loree at Danger Garden. Be sure to check out what she's liking this week!

Garden bloggers' bloom day January 2014

"Thank goodness for Mahonia" edition.

I don't have a lot blooming right now but my Mahonia 'Arthur Menzies' is putting in overtime, making sure that every hummingbird in the neighborhood has a food source to fight over. I love this shrub and it's been blooming for over a month now.

My Mahonia 'Charity' hasn't bloomed and doesn't look inclined to, but a recently acquired Mahonia 'Underway' is just starting to bloom.

Just one hellebore has started blooming . . . the others are almost there.

Helleborus x ballardiae 'Cinnamon Snow'

While I don't have a ton blooming right now, I couldn't be more delighted. Every day that goes by means more sunlight and every month will bring more and more blooms! How lucky are we?

Happy bloom day and thank you Carol of May Dream Gardens for hosting!

I let someone photograph my garden in January

Our house is featured on Houzz today, holy smokes!

My Houzz: Paint and Pluck Revamp a Portland Ranch

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I was emailed by a Houzz photographer in December about showing some before and afters of our house and I initially didn't want to do it. There are still so many rough edges and unfinished projects that I didn't feel like the house was ready. In the end I decided "perfect is the enemy of good" and that I might never get a chance to have a professional photograph our house again. 

Greg declined to join in because he felt like he'd be stealing my thunder (and he's shy). Oddly, the bathroom didn't make it into the shoot. I think that's the universe confirming that I need to repaint!

There are more photos here, as well. Eeep!

And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth

Our recent extended dip into freezing weather knocked a lot of my garden down. Some I expected, like my poor echiums.

Echium wildpretii and Echium candicans 'Star of Madeira' 

But I didn't even think to worry about my daphnes!

All of the leaves of Daphne odora 'Aureomarginata' are burned.

Anybody have any experience with this kind of damage? Great Plant Picks states that it can lose its leaves to freeze and completely regenerate but it still worries me.

Not the black daphne I had in mind.

My Daphne odora 'Mae Jima' in the front garden fared a little better and it looks like I might get blooms for the first time this year.

I tend to be pretty cavalier about my garden; if something doesn't survive it's an opportunity to go plant shopping. But this . . . daphne is my very favorite! And the 'Aureomarginata' was one of the very first plants I placed in my garden. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of my garden but I suspect some of the newer plants I installed this fall (like a passion fruit vine) are toast. I don't know how you gardeners in the lower zones do it. Winter, you are a cruel beast.

Hellstrip redesign

Back in the spring I dug up the tiny hellstrip area to the right of our driveway. There were two arbor vitae planted here when I bought the house.

After I removed them, I hoped the groundcover from my neighbor's hellstrip would spread here. Instead, grass popped up. And then all the neighbor dogs used that area as a toilet. I finally got sick of cleaning up poop and removed the sod, then amended the soil with crushed basalt and compost.

I banished a number of plants that I didn't love anymore to this spot, figuring they'd all die. It's difficult to get the hose to this spot and it gets baked in sun all day. I tried to make it as crowded as possible so dogs would be discouraged from pooping here.

Euphorbia 'Blackbird' has not done well in my back garden. It constantly fell over, like it couldn't get a proper root system going. Instead of throwing it in the compost bin I plopped it here. And you know what? It totally rocked this spot.

That's not morning dew, that's dog urine. It gets marked several times a day and it got almost no water after May. It's been stepped on, neglected, and it looks a thousand times better than it ever did elsewhere.

The main area of my hellstrip was never planted with any proper plan--I just threw down kinnickkinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) and coastal strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis) and called it a day. The coastal strawberry covered everything and tried to eat the sidewalk as well. It sent out runners and rooted in the cracks of the street. It was so aggressive it apparently ate my camera because I can't find a single picture of my hellstrip. I am such a useless blogger.

Right before the freezing temperatures hit Portland, on a brisk day in December, I tore out the strawberries and replanted.

The plants include, from left to right, Pennisetum spathiolatum, Arctostaphylos 'John Dourley', and Euphorbia 'Blackbird' (I like it again!).

Agave pups will be worked in to deter would-be poopers.

In the spring, once I can find my Agastache 'Golden Jubilee' seedlings again, I'll work some of those in for brightness.

I'm also going to plant Grosso lavender, whose scent I like the best of all the lavandulas. I normally hate lavender as a landscape plant; in the NW it gets woody and awful looking after a few years and then people prune them into nightmarish shapes. To avoid this, I'll be treating mine like annuals and replacing them every year. I just love the way they smell and how many bees they attract so I'm willing to put in the extra effort.

I'm really excited to see how things fare this summer and how they jibe with the rest of the front garden.

I'm getting so excited for spring! I know winter just started but I'm already earmarking plant catalogs for purchases and thinking about seed starting. I've also got some wildlife upgrades planned (we're not getting a bear, don't get too excited) and maybe some more sod removal. What is life without sod removal?