Plant Life

I was so thankful today when the rain stopped, the sun came out and I could spend three very productive hours tidying up in our garden. We have gravel paths and unfortunately weeds like to congregate in the paths now and then. Luckily for me I had my trusty Hori hori tool. This is the best tool ever for gardeners. With a hori hori and a pair of handheld pruners a gardener can accomplish nearly all gardening chores. Google the words hori hori and you’ll find a photo and information on this great tool.

It’s a serated thick concave blade with a thick wooden handle. Hori horis are originally of Japanese origin and were used in the art of bonsai. The word hori is purported to mean dig. It is indeed a great digger but also a super cutter, separater, and especially good for prying weeds out of their tenacious attachment to our gardens. The blade of a hori hori can be used to measure the depth for planting bulbs too.

My hori hori was a find – literally unearthed from the Raab Park Youth Garden years ago when we were first weeding and planting with the kids. The handle was a dull brown and the iron blade had turned rust colored and dull with age. Luckily for me no one knew about hori horis at the time so the gardeners let me give it a home. I too did not appreciate the treasure the hori hori is. Now I do though. My one complaint is sometimes I have to remember where I placed it because it blends in well with garden soil. I heartily recommend purchasing a holster when purchasing a hori hori. It can be worn on a belt and that way you’ll never misplace this amazing tool.

I actually don’t like the word chore when it comes to gardening. For me gardening is pure pleasure. The weather was mild, the birds were singing, our puppy Paddy was frolicking and only occasionally getting in the way; and, I got nearly all the gardening tasks completed in three hours. This is the second Sunday afternoon I’ve had the luxury of “playing” out in our garden which means tidying up, watering, and finishing up pruning of dead or damaged woody plant materials. And, with the rain we’ve had the weeds pop out pretty easily.

I also planted these beauties in our garden: Hellebore, Schizostylis, Rudbeckia, and Sage. Even though it seems like we’ve had torrents of rain this past week, the ground was quite dry in several places. Please check your own plants to make sure they don’t need some fall watering.

I finally ran out of energy and time. Next weekend I’ll be using the trusty hori hori to plant 50 daffodil bulbs. We are so lucky to live here in the northwest where gardening pleasures abound nearly every day of the year.

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This is the time of year that termites enter their flying stage. Ants have a flying stage too, but those red ant like winged creatures you’re now seeing are Pacific damp wood termites. Note that their bodies are much flatter than an ant’s body.

If you live near woods you’re probably seeing them now. The best time to see them is earlier in the day and around dinner time. Paddy our puppy and I have been seeing them on our 2 times a day walks and sure enough, we’ve been getting calls about them at the Extension Office.

For more information on termites see the following link for a WSU Extension Publication on how to check your home for termite damage and also how to identify termites on your property. The second link has very good color images of termites in all stages of their development.

http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/eb0787/eb0787.pdf

http://bugguide.net/node/view/31161

Seeing these flying insects does not mean your home is full of termites, it’s just an annual occurrence. Think of it as being akin to bird migration or bees swarming. The termites are looking for a new place to nest. Hopefully only out in the wilds and not in our homes.

Check around the foundation of your home and under the house for any cracks, moisture or signs where termites could congregate. This is a good time of year to caulk around windows and seams and to check weather stripping and vent openings.

If you have any questions or concerns about termites please give us a call at the WSU Kitsap Extension Office 360-337-7158 for the Master Gardener on Duty. Or send an email to ptillery@co.kitsap.wa.us

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Hello Readers. It’s been quite a while since I last wrote in this Plant Life blog and for that I apologize. I have no excuses except life and work intervened.

Fall seems to be falling and the best part about fall is it’s one of the most perfect times to plant in our gardens. So get out there and visit your favorite nursery (many of them are having fall sales) and pick up some great perennials and/or woody shrubs and trees to brighten up a spot of your garden. Or maybe quite a few spots of your garden.

We’re massively renovating some of our garden(s) surrounding our house. Last weekend with help from my digging hubbie we moved 4 dwarf pieris and 2 dwarf osmanthus onto a hillside we’re renovating. They look great and we’ll be planting other plants into the mix. As soon as I figure out how to download the photos I’ll post them on this Plant Life blog.

Also last Wednesday my rhodie loving hubbie Pat and I went with the WSNLA Olympic Chapter up to Chimicum Woods (a rhododendron species garden) for a tour and lecture. It was fabulous and if you’re reading this column this weekend (Sept. 11 & 12) – hop in your car and drive over to Thorndyke Road in Jefferson County to visit this amazing rhododendron garden and nursery. It is only open to the public by appointment, but this weekend it’s open both days and you won’t want to miss this opportunity. Here’s the website so you can get driving directions and see for yourself how gorgeous these rhodies are:  http://www.chimacumwoods.com/

Here too in today’s blog is the tomato report – they’re green, green, green. I’ll be catching up with the Port Orchard and Poulsbo Farmers Market managers this weekend since it was their tomato tasteoff day and will post a report on what’s up with the tomatoes. Blueberry Park in Bremerton (Sylvan Way) is having a tomato tasteoff tomorrow. Check it out.

Several folks in the north and south have reported blight already. So keep an eye on your tomotoes – the blight is alive and well in parts of Kitsap County. Here is an excellent webpage from Cornell University (another land grant university) with photos of late blight and also how to distinguish it form other diseases and conditions of tomatoes:  http://www.hort.cornell.edu/department/Facilities/lihrec/vegpath/photos/lateblight_tomato.htm

Did you know you can pull up your tomatoes, strip off the leaves, leave the fruit on and attached to the vines and hang the tomatoes upside down (as in hanging down from their roots hitched at the top to something)? This method allows them to cure in a cool garage or room – near a window works best. The tomatoes will ripen that way. This is a trick I learned years ago when we lived in England. We had an outside laundry room off the garage and it had a well lit, but not sunny window. We were eating tomatoes for several months after the season was well over. Try it and report back next spring to me. One caveat – the tomatoes don’t get bigger, they just ripen.

It’s also a perfect time to harvest our squash such as acorn and spaghetti squash as they ripen – cut the stems one to two inches long; leave these stems on and store the squash in a cool garage or laundry room. We stored ours in 5 gallon buckets. We did this last year (thanks Chris Smith for the tip) and we ate acorn squash for months all fall and winter long – it was wonderful. Try it – it actually works.

Well, dear readers, I have to go figure out how to download photos from an android phone and load them here on Plant Life. Cheerio and happy gardening. I promise I won’t take nearly 3 months to blog again.

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Here’s a photo of our puppy, Paddy. My pal Wendy Tweten calls him Paddy Paws. It turns out Wendy’s year older dog Dobby is actually Paddy’s several litters older brother. It was such a great coincidence from one garden writer to another – I told Wendy about Paddy and when we chatted we discovered they had the same mother and father. Both of our dogs love being out in the garden.

Paddy says, “Please pick up your pet waste. It’s a good thing to do. And it keeps all our paws, streams and gardens clean and pretty.”

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As promised, to whet your appetite for Japanese maples, here are several photos of a few from my own garden:

Full Moon Maple with Pacific Nine Bark and rhododendron.

This red beauty is called Acer palmatum “Koto no ito” – it is a stunner. Starts out quite small in stature and then grows up into a stately beauty.

This one is very charming and sweet. Wish I knew its name. Sorry about that. The leaves are quite small and it is open and airy.

Here’s a close up of the leaves.

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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 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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Next on our list of local pollinating bees is the Leaf Cutting Bee (aka Leaf Cutter Bee). 

    Leafcutter bees are black with white or silvery hairs. Instead of carrying pollen on its legs, the leafcutting bee carries it in hairs on its underside. The males have hairier faces than the females. The alfalfa leaf cutting bee is used in pollinating alfalfa crops in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and Montana.

    You’ve probably noticed this bee’s lovely perfectly circular holes (along with parts of circles) cut out of rose leaves and petals and other green leaves in the garden. Leafcutter bees wrap these plant parts up into a cigar shaped packet containing pollen and one egg that soon turns into a larva to pupate within this nutritious capsule. The packets are tucked here and there throughout our gardens in small holes left behind by other small creatures. Sometimes you may even find a leafcutter nesting packet tucked into the soil in a containerized planting. Leafcutter bees will also nest in hollow trees, hollow plant stems, bird nests and holes in wood.

    Each packet is constructed of about 15 pieces. The female leafcutter bee can produce about 40 offspring but the number can be as low as 12 to 16. Nests are constructed in the spring, the leafcutter bee from that season dies and the next generations emerge from the packets the following spring. Some years more than one generation is possible.

For a photo and information on leaf cutter bees visit:

http://www.everythingabout.net/articles/biology/animals/arthropods/insects/bees/leafcutting_bee/

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