Plant Life

My colleague Dana Coggon, Kitsap’s Noxious Weed Coordinator, asked me to pass this very important information on to our Kitsap Sun Readers.

Poison Hemlock is on the increase in Puget Sound and it resembles parsley, carrot tops and other edible vegetables and herbs. But it can kill and/or make a person extremely ill. Please read carefully what Dana has to share with us and also view the King 5 News link provided in this warning from Dana.

If you cannot access the video one of the staff at our Kitsap Regional Library system branches can help you access it.

Here’s a photo of the stems with the purple dots:

Here’s the information from Dana Coggon:

“Some noxious weeds are more than just an ecological issue.
Not only does hemlock invade areas and destroy habitat but it can also cause human and animal deaths. What can you do to help protect our County from this aggressive deadly killer? Let the noxious weed control board know about where you have seen poison hemlock, check out the Kitsap County noxious weed control programs web site: http://kitsap.wsu.edu/noxious_weed/poison_hemlock.htm

We know that there are locations with of Poison hemlock throughout Bainbridge Island, a few sites are scattered in central Kitsap and new sites have been identified in South Kitsap over the last year.

Here’s the link for the King 5 News segment:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Hemlock-may-have-caused-Tacoma-womans-death-93292179.html

If you think you have some poison hemlock on your property please take some digital photos and send them to the noxious weed control program for verification! Be cautious when touching this plant as some people may have an allergic reaction, and make sure to wash your hands throughly after handling any portions of the plant.

Please be on the look out.”
Dana – dcoggon@co.kitsap.wa.us

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Don’t forget this weekend is a weekend of lots of plant sales: Poulsbo Garden Club (May 8), Hansville Garden Club at Buck Lake (May 8), Master Gardener Plant Sale at the Van Zee Building at the Fairgrounds (May 7 and 8), Bainbridge Garden Club (May 8) and a new plant sale at the Fire Hall on Rocky Point in Bremerton (May 8). If you’re too busy this weekend there’s a plant sale on May 22 in Port Orchard.

Here’s the list of plant sales, locations and times:

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I am still trying to get the hang of this blogging thing. Earlier tonight I wrote a blog about rhodies and azaleas, posted it with an error and then when I tried to fix the error I lost half the blog post. Aaarrggghhh!

So, dear readers, here’s the rest of the story and a few more photos of some of the rhodies in our garden.

April through early June are the perfect times of year to relish rhodies and azaleas. These plants bloom profusely in our northwest gardens.

A great place to stroll through acres of rhodies to enjoy them and their relatives and companion plantings is Whitney Gardens in Brinnon – a short drive from Kitsap.

We went overboard in our garden the first few years we lived here and recently we had to edit out several of these lovely plants. But, in doing so we’ve learned to enjoy even more the plants we kept.

Lavender Rhodie

The rhodies we kept make a gorgeous backdrop for other plantings. We kept the ones on the edges and have low growing azaleas in the borders.

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The downside to rhododendrons (if there is a downside) is that they often grow up to be towering tree-like shrubs. We learned that the hard way in our typical northwest garden. But boy did we enjoy these plants and all their atributes before we reluctantly decided to start editing a few out.

Not to worry though, rhodie lovers, we still have plenty of plants galore in our garden. We’ve kept the ones around the edges. They are forming wonderful hedges and serve as magnificent backdrops to shade loving plants.

The best part is our plants were chosen to bloom from as early as October through late July.

who says you can't combine red and Pink

We’ve also woven in other evergreen plants and lots of native plants. We have decidious beauties such as native vine maples, Japanese maples and native elderberry. A gorgeous dogwood is currently blooming and lots of evergreens: mahonia, evergreen huckleberry and numerous hydrangeas, hostas and great ground covers (native twin flower vine and non-native but quite lovely evergreen vinca) also enhance the garden palette of textures and colors. We have much more but that’s just a taste of the myriad eco-system of plants in our garden.

Rhodie 'Nancy Evans'

We’ve put in a few raised beds full of veggies and herbs in two areas of the garden to capitalize on the sunny areas. Our favorite veggies from last year were round carrots called Parisien market carrots. They froze really well and we were using them in stews and soups until about February when we finally ran out. You can bet these are going to be planted again this year – even more than last year.

Last but not least we’re putting in a small patch of lawn this year. I never thought we’d do that but after much study it’s the right thing to do in our garden. See my column on Friday May 7 for more details on our lawn adventure.

I though you’d like to see a few of the rhodies  and azaleas in our garden. I’ve posted them on this blog. Enjoy and happy gardening.

deciduous Exbury azaleas are easy to grow

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