By August the ground gets pretty dry around here. The grass has turned brown, many unirrigated landscape plants are in a holding pattern, maybe even wilting or dropping some leaves. Our location near the coast and west of the Cascades allows for more precipitation but our rain generally falls in autumn and winter when gardens need it least. That said, the second half of August has been much rainier than usual. It only got up to the low 60s yesterday. Rain tapered off by early afternoon but the ground is positively soaked after many days and nights of cool rain. My Italian prune plums at home have started to split and I’m sure the same is happening to tomatoes, maybe yours. Small price to pay to see the whole flora of the city brighten up. In the forests the mushrooms are arising and the wildfires are damping down. August rain followed by a warm and sunny September and early October; is that asking for too much? Probably. But if I had my way, that’s what we would get. And maybe we will.
August raindrops on the Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa) in section C.
The irrigation in section C is so degraded that it is nearly impossible to keep the ground moist in summer. The grannyvine (Ipomoea tricolor) has produced more flowers with the prolonged rain and all of section C looks great.
Well, the time came for a big change. It wasn’t easy. Change never is. But I finally had to bid farewell to my trusty straw hat.
Doesn’t look too bad from the top but…
…it was held together by tape and it had to go. It lasted about ten years and did double duty as a rain hat at times. Perhaps that was its undoing. The brim would droop, the crown would stretch and entropy won the day. I brought a slightly less used hat from home as its replacement.
Speaking of change, look at the garden shed. It looks even better up close. To the painters who did this meticulous work, thank you.
The garden shed looks much, much better. It’s almost enough to inspire me to clean and organize the inside. But that is a winter job and it’s still summer.
Two plants in the same bed flowered for the first time. It’s often surprising how long it can take for certain plants to start flowering.
It’s unfortunately not the beach but behold the first flowers of beach morning glory (Calystegia soldanella) and it is surrounded by beach pea (Lathyrus japonicus) and another coastal plant, rock samphire (Crithmum maritimum).
Beach pea (Lathyrus japonicus) has finally flowered. Slowly but surely I’m turning this bed into a maritime garden.
They don’t call it magnificent elecampane (Inula magnifica) for nothing. The flowers are larger and showier than common elecampane (Inula helenium) in section B. I don’t know if it is as effective as a lung plant. Pretty much all of the medical literature refers to Inula helenium. But it sure is a looker.
It’s called lemon beebalm (Monarda citriodora) yet nothing about it smells lemony to me. But they are attractive plants and a favorite of many pollinators. Not a day should go by when we fail to consider the pollinators. Our fates are intertwined.
The sign said wild mignonette (Reseda lutea) but I think this is actually dyer’s mignonette or weld (Reseda luteola). So I made a new sign. It makes a yellow dye and also makes a lot of seedlings. But they’re easy to remove and here in the herb garden they are rarely found far from the parent plant.
There’s a lot going on in this bed. The blue is grannyvine or heavenly blue morning glory (Ipomoea tricolor), the orange is lion’s ear (Leonotis nepetifolia), the yellow is kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus) and hidden in the middle is a row of nalta jute (Corchorus olitorius) all in section C.
Mube flowers (Stauntonia hexaphylla) growing up a trellis in section C. The fragrant flowers did not result in fruit.
Fire on the prairie! No, it’s just prairie smoke (Geum triflorum). Have I made that joke before on this blog? Probably. It’s hard to come up with new material. Behind is prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) and Canada wild rye (Elymus canadensis).
The night shift and the day shift in one place. The white flowers of the datura (Datura inoxia) are fragrant at night and the chocolate flowers (Berlandiera lyrata) during the day. They smell like white chocolate to me.
I received this plant as a gift a couple of years ago. I think it was supposed to be cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus) but it looks like it is actually arctic bramble (Rubus arcticus).
You’ve seen this in spring on other plants; the new growth starts out reddish. This is the camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora).
Look at that springtime, pristine western dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) branch…before the dogwood anthracnose (Discula destructiva) hits as it does every summer. This tree is on the eastern edge of the garden and there is another in Cascara Circle.
It briefly stood upright. By now, this compass plant flower stalk (Silphium laciniatum), all 8 feet of it, is leaning over, parallel to the ground. Tall grass prairie plants do best in tall grass prairies where their neighbor plants help to support them.
Nanking cherry (Prunus tomentosa) produced a lot of fruit this year. They’re good but not great. When the western sand cherries (Prunus pumila var. besseyi) start producing fruit, try those. They are darker, have much more robust flavor and more flesh.
Finally started some Chinese licorice/ gan cao (Glycyrrhiza uralensis) plants from seed in section A. There was some growing in section B for many years but it died out a few years ago in the heavy clay soil. Hopefully in this lighter soil they will thrive. It shouldn’t take them long to run underground to the pathways and wherever else fate leads them.
It’s a bit out of focus but that 5 foot tall plant (which can get even taller) is tree spinach or magenta spreen lamb’s quarters (Chenopodium giganteum). There was extra space in the grain bed so that’s where it is, a few beds over from the quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), its close relative.
I haven’t seen a barred owl (Strix varia) or Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii) in a while but garden visitors are treated to weekly overflights by ospreys (Pandion haliaetus). Sometimes we just hear but can’t see them circling and chirping above like ghosts. The large birds we can count on daily are sometimes in the garden but more often within sight at a nearby dumpster, either by the greenhouse or the Chemistry loading dock.
Think you can sneak past this crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) on your way to the greenhouse? Unlikely. And if you have ever offered it food, it saw you coming before you even took a notion to make a motion.
Gulls are a conundrum. There are so many that look similar, at least to my untrained eyes. I haven’t made much effort at gull identification. Gulls and ferns to be honest. And grasses. But I think this is a western gull (Larus occidentalis) staring majestically southward toward what, a distant dumpster? Hark, was that the sound of a crispy taco hitting the deck at Agua Verde Cafe? Worth a look, bird. The gulls and the crows are the totem birds of the LSB/greenhouse dumpsters and decks. Hold tight to your morning muffin lest you share it with Larus.
junk food suits them fine
with a side dish of roadkill
western gull and crow