a japanese maple for the roof

 I always look at rooftop gardens, as much as one can from down on the ground.  Japanese maples appear to be a successful option for our climate, so I finally bought one and planted it today.   It is a variety called iijima sunago.  Here’s hoping it works and is slightly protected from the wind   

We also put pink and a white snowberry bushes down by the street.  

Another new tree

 In February we put in a little sweet bay tree, next to the box leaf azara we almost killed with transplant shock back in August.  Both are looking pretty good now. 

On the roof our irrigation system is ship shape and the raspberries finally look like they are going to earn their keep. 

Spring 2020 gardening

Here's an update on our gardening efforts, with links and plant names so I don't have to search my emails for them anymore....

On The Ground

We transplanted a black currant from a neighbor.  Hopefully it gets enough sun on the north side of our fence.

I was sooo excited to get some big rocks from a construction site in West Seattle after the garbage truck and other construction trucks pulverized part of our parking strip starting in January (and several more times in February...).   Then someone took our rocks!  These rocks were all I could manage while using a car and a dolly so it's not like someone just causally carried them down the street.

The garbage truck driver's job was made more difficult by the months-long process of pouring new concrete on half the street and several sidewalk curb cuts, so maybe it was him?  Jack thinks that the street inspector told the paving contractors to remove the rocks because they were taken in the middle of the afternoon while the inspectors and contractors were around. 

Over the winter I put in some paving stones in the parking strip and a few months ago we put up the birdhouse we painted over the winter.

Last year the Japanese snowbells bloomed in late May, so we are still looking forward to that.  The daphne  was so much better this year (this pic is from before it bloomed) and the creeping jenny is just the right thing for the shady under-tree, crap soil area.  Below the daphne is some aggressive oregano which makes weeding smell great.

This is not our cat, but he's a frequent sight in our neighborhood.  We call him (or her?) Shoes.

On The Roof

The high country blueberry bush planted in spring 2019 has been joined by a little bluegold blueberry bush and I hope this results in more berries.   I'm encouraged by all the blooms.

I bought some pink coral bells and put two down on the parking strip and three on the roof.   The latest round of construction work has been a three-weeks-and-counting job where they are putting down conduit for comcast in our alley, the street, and the alley to the north.   They further tore up the grass and killed another coral bell plant I'd just put in, a rather sorry sarcococca plant and a new catmint plant.

Also on the roof I planted pale evening primrose (white buttercup sundrops) from seed, a hayscented fern, a big bluestem grass, and several blue false indigo baptisia australis.

I got some lettuce and cauliflower plants and planted more kale and spinach from seed, as well as some onions and carrots for the first time.

For the cats we put in some seeds for a nicer cat grass and cat nip.  Toru spends quite a bit of time on the roof, even when it's cold.   He almost always follows us up there too.  Luna comes up occasionally, when it's warm, though she still insists on struggling to open the cat door with her paw instead of just pushing through it.

We've got parsley and cilantro self seeding, which is just fine by me.  Our delicious chocolate mint plant continues to thrive (surprising no one) and many bulbs from last year came up again.  I think they're hyacinths and ornamental onions, but we'll see when they bloom.   The pansies are self-sufficient and pretty, so I like them.

D is a good garden helper.

house plant roll call

When Jack said recently that our bathroom Boston fern would look better if it had companion plants, I took it to heart and tapped in to my desire cultivate more house plants.

But first, I'm sad to report that our Meyer lemon tree succumbed to something at the beginning of the year, after 1.5 years with us.  It smelled so good and we made lemonade once or twice.  I'd consider getting another, if we had a better idea of what went wrong.

Before I get to the new plants, here's a picture of our aloe, which was actually sun burned from being in the kitchen.  It looks so much better now.  Yes, having a sunny kitchen is kind of a nice problem.  The other senior members of the house hold plants are the fern I mentioned earlier, some spider plants for the cats to occasionally munch on and an absolutely easy going rubber plant that was a house warming gift.

Now for the newcomers, whose names I will mostly not remember unless I document them here. 

Though they are not yet in their ideal pots, we welcomed a trio of sansevieria trifasciata (mother in law's tongue, from IKEA).   I've been dreaming of plants here since we got the coat rack up two years ago.  The two story open space around the entry gets eastern light  Did you notice the young black cat who wishes we would take him for lazy cat walks?  

In the bathroom, the fern's new friends are a purple waffle plant and a pothos 'N Joy' (the variegated one on the bottom shelf) .   In the kitchen we have a trio of succulents, called echevaria afterglow (red), sedeveria (jet beads, the small green one) and crassula (curly green, large green one).

Not quite in the house, we have a pair of perennials in a pot together. The smaller flowers are a Touran white saxifraga and then there's a hellebora, by the door, ah...  whose full name is shooting star lenten rose (heleboro shooting star).

The stairwell is one of our favorite features of the house, and it has a lot of diffuse light from the skylights and the transparent panels between the stairs and the second and third floor rooms.  We have a lemon button fern and then this little tree is a dracaena (marginata sunray)

a bunch of plants

We're officially done with construction now that we've replaced the plants we took out (nasty old bamboo) on the border between our property and our neighbors.  It took them a while to agree on a plant amongst the four townhomes and then we waited until the beginning of the rainy season to plant them.  They are lemon lime nandina and now that I'm familiar with them I'm noticing other nandina all over the neighborhood. 

For ourselves we planted sarcococca which will have amazing smelling white flowers in the winter.  I hope this area is shady enough for them.

We also planted a winter-blooming daphne, which should have fragrant pink flowers, and a Beijing Gold lilac tree.

We really have a lot to learn about plants, but I have done a fair bit of gardening and weeding for other people.  I must say that making our own decisions is kind of a thrill.   

Bloedel Reserve

 

Yesterday, Becky, D and I took three hours to walk the two mile loop at the beautiful Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island.

We saw lots of native plants, a broody goose, a mansion and some ants.

outdoor projects

 

Here’s a look at the outdoor projects we have done and what we have left to do.

Completed:

• installed turf in “the boite,” which is our little boxy yard
• put up mailbox and house numbers on the fence
• painted neighbor’s replacement fence, which required trying to match the paint color of a lichen colored ten-year-old fence, and rebuilt rock terraces
• transplanted one hand-me-down tree from my parents (Hinoki False Cypress) and got two street trees (Japanese Snowbells) planted
• installed bars (with security screws) to lock up bikes in the bike garages.  Hooray for not having to bring bikes in to the house!

To Do:

• figure out how to mitigate the pooling water around the roof drains, which is very disappointing for new construction
• install concrete roof pavers and planters
• landscape along the sidewalk
• add plants to be chosen by neighbors next to our parking spot
• build doors for the bike garages
• install a retractable net around the boite to keep whiffle balls in
• put up an address sign on the alley to help lost delivery drivers
• keep our trees alive for the next few critical years!
• knock out a small interior wall so that Emo can access the cat door to the roof
• add louvres (horizontal slats of wood) to outside of house to fulfill Jack’s architectural vision

 

The roof and keeping the trees alive are at the top of our lists for outdoor tasks, though there are a few indoor tasks that will take priority.  I’ll save those for another post.

we got our Japanese snowbells

 

Our street trees have been planted!  They are styrax japonicus which I’ve had my eye on for a few years.   Now we just have to keep them alive for these next few fragile post-transplant years.  I can’t wait to smell them in a few months!

styrax japonicus

For the past four springs, I have admired this lovely tree on the lawn of the Rainier Club, on fourth avenue.  It's an attractive and dainty tree, but more importantly, it is one of the best things I have ever smelled.  A few weeks ago, when the tree was in full bloom, I was loitering around huffing the heavenly smell, as one does.  A woman walked by and, feeling the need to explain myself, I mentioned the scent and asked if she happened to know what type of tree it was.  And she did!

Allow me to present the Japanese snowbell (Syrax japonicus):

height: 8 -12 ft
foliage: dark green
light: part sun to full sun

Our small lot will be fully occupied by our house, but we do have to plant a street tree.  Happily, the Japanese snowbell *is* on the [list] of approved street trees and I plan to petition to change whatever vanilla tree we currently have specified in the building permit to this stunner!

spring is sprung and flower identification

You’ve probably seen the headlines that this was Seattle’s wettest March since record keeping began in the 1890’s.  However, Jack and I both thought it was a pretty nice month.  Having some good weather fall on weekends makes a big impression. 

food we ate

 

At our wwoof farm in Umbria, we ate organic vegitarian food for two weeks.  We felt extremely healthy and it was also quite tasty.  We’ve eaten all organic at several places we wwoofed and I am pretty much convinced that it does taste better.  We had many simple dishes like lentils or vegetable soups and they just seem to have more flavor.  I don’t know that we’ll ever be (able to be) devoted to organic food, but I do think the taste is better in addition to the other health benefits.

If you ask Jack about the food we ate, there is a 99% chance that he’ll say “Hunger is the best sauce.”    He has a point, but so do I :)

We had a great salad every day at lunch, including fennel, a new favorite.

We also tried two completely new foods.  We had persimone out of the neighbor’s garden, and we needed a dictionary to identify it.  We also ate a large cousin of celary, which Jack really liked and thought tasted something like asperagus.

Oh and in my opinion, Italy tasted better than France, because French food was so heavy and creamy.  

Next up is wiener schnitzel in Vienna.