UW Medicinal Herb Garden Blog

Where does the time go? The heat wave has passed, and thanks to the lady beetles, the aphid infestation of the plum trees is over. The heron chicks have fledged and the deer seems to have moved on for now. The rabbits have more or less acquired squatters’ rights in the Medicinal Herb Garden. Sure, they’ve eaten some of the planting beds bare, but the visiting public enjoys seeing them, and where would a public garden be without visitors. Next year, some of the hardest hit plants will probably have to go or be featured on the edges where it won’t be noticeable if they get nibbled away. It’s always something in a garden. At least rabbits are small. Imagine the challenges of gardening in elephant territory or being visited by a herd of hungry elk.

While leading a group from the Jackson School on a brief tour, I accidentally flushed this rascal out of a hiding place in the wild onions (Allium cernuum).

One of the fledgling herons didn’t gain enough altitude to get back to the nest on its first flight. It made it safe and sound to the ground but couldn’t get back aloft. Don’t worry, it was rescued and has probably been released to the wild by now.

It seemed to be looking at its own reflection, maybe thinking it was another heron, as it paced back and forth and kept returning to the glass.

The raccoons must have been making the rounds elsewhere but then one day,  a mother and three kits showed up in a tree by the bus stop.

This is the mother. The three little ones stayed higher up and hidden in the tree until she made sure the coast was clear.

The aphids were out of control this summer. I’ve never seen them so thickly covering a tree and they stayed for weeks, until the lady beetles and their larvae got to work.

Imagine an entire plum tree covered in aphids like these.

Lady beetle larvae in action.

Speaking of insects…

While observing these red soldier beetles, also known as black-tipped or black-footed orange beetles (Rhagonycha fulva) which were all over the asafoetida
(Ferula asafoetida)…

…I noticed this scene. It’s a very well camouflaged goldenrod crab spider (Misumena vatia)  eating a little mason bee (Osmia sp.).

North American answer to the goji berry (Lycium chinense or Lycium barbarum), this is our pale wolfberry (Lycium pallidum) in section C. It is native to northern Mexico and southwestern USA. The fresh fruit have much more robust flavor than the goji berries.

This entire photo should be covered in gotu kola (Centella asiatica) leaves lushly draped over the soil. Rabbits keep mowing them down. If you garden in Seattle and you haven’t seen rabbits yet, look for plants that have been cut off at an angle, usually a foot or less off the ground.They  will be your first indication that rabbits have arrived.

Fully open flower and opening flowers of Australian tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia).

A most unusual flower.

Imagine a whole tree covered with them.

Or these pomegranate flowers (Punica granatum). This is a shrub that should be more widely planted in Seattle. Sometimes they even produce (barely) edible fruit.

Wild artichoke (Cynara syriaca) in section C. They look more like cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) than the globe artichokes (Cynara scolymus) that we see in the stores.

Wait until you see the flowers on this cross vine (Bignonia capreolata)…just don’t hold your breath while you wait. The good news is that the vines have gotten big and healthy. Hopefully they’re storing lots of energy for flower production one of these years. The flowers are alleged to be orange and red, fragrant and attractive to hummingbirds. They will appear when they appear.

I accidentally hit the ‘toy camera mode’ button on my camera and this is the result. It looks like it belongs at the end of the post. Perhaps some who are inclined to such dire thoughts might almost read it as a visual metaphor for the fate of our beleaguered insect pollinators. Perhaps.

August is a good time for a garden visit. We should have a new memorial bench in section C soon. There are fewer people on campus in summer so it’s even more peaceful and quiet than usual in the garden (construction noise excepted). Enjoy the rest of the summer.

fuzzy aperture

 bumblebee fading to black

toy camera mode

See you in the garden.

The growing population of rabbits in the Medicinal Herb Garden have provided a good educational experience. It’s helpful to know what they do and don’t like to eat. Luckily, most of what they eat is close to the ground, though they occasionally saw off and topple  taller plants, like valerian (Valeriana officinalis). But that is an exception to the rule. Yes, it’s a good thing that rabbits can’t climb into the shrubs and trees.

So when I noticed leaves and branch tips up high on the prune plum (Prunus domestica) and the chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) getting nibbled down to nubbins, my first thought was, “Oh no, we have flying rabbits!”. After all, the only other suspect, and equally unlikely though at least known to exist, would be a deer…on campus…in the middle of the city. Not likely. Well, likely or not, there it was one recent morning, a deer in the Medicinal Herb Garden.

Black tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus ssp. columbianus) in section B, not a flying rabbit after all.

Someone is a little camera shy.

That’s the garden shed in the background. S/he wisely chose to avoid crossing Stevens Way and took off for the woods beneath the heron rookery…

…but soon returned to the woods north of Cascara Circle, where we first met. There’s plenty to eat but deer can be discriminating browsers.

Couldn’t ask for a more compliant model. Deer are very good at standing still for a long time.

Lounging west of Cascara Circle, within sight of Benson Hall on late Thursday morning, much later than I would expect a deer to be out in the open in the city.

After knocking off a couple of chokeberry bushes, it’s time to rest and digest and…

…leave the garden some fertilizer.

It’s an open question, how it will work out in the garden with rabbits and deer eating many of the plants. Their pressure will almost certainly drive plant selection as I begin to exclude plants that get eaten repeatedly. It’s definitely a dynamic situation and a learning opportunity.

That’s the news. If you see beds that are a bit sparse, look closely and you might see signs of herbivory by our new residents. Or, if you visit during the twilit hours and remain still long enough you might just see an actual deer or rabbit out grazing, or a coyote, or some day, maybe even a mountain lion. The Burke-Gilman Trail that enables the four-footed herbivores to travel easily through the city, provides the same service to the four-footed carnivores. All in good time…

twilight visitors

get up early or come late

be still and see them

See you in the garden.

This cool, rainy spring has been good for the slugs. Every year, the earliest spring plantings are a gamble. I know I could wait a bit longer to transplant seedlings into the garden but I never do. The show must go on. So the slugs and the rabbits are eating well. Luckily, rabbits are a bit finicky, more so than slugs anyway.  I’m still puzzled by how we so quickly wound up with a spreading population of eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus) in Seattle. They were introduced to the state as game animals in the 1930s but were nowhere to be seen in these parts until the last few years. Suddenly they are everywhere. Maybe it just took them a while to get to the center of Seattle. Mapping their movement into new territory would be a great citizen science project.

For now, most gardeners I know are  grudgingly accepting them as new members of the local herbivores. You can spot their work by the neatly angled cuts they make with their teeth on the plant stems. Love them or hate them, they’re here, though I haven’t yet seen any where I live in Rainier Valley. Knock on wood. Seems like they’ve made it north and south around Lake Washington from the east and are pulling a pincer movement on those of us west of the lake. Applying the old lemons-into-lemonade wisdom, I humbly submit that there are many excellent recipes for rabbit in cookbooks and on the internet. The rest is up to you.

The suspect grazing on two species of Vaccinium, surrounded by Aquilegia canadensis, our eastern columbine.

I think they’re getting used to seeing me so I could take the time to zoom in. That rabbit is not going to starve to death any time soon. In fact it looks like it would make a fine addition to the stew pot.

Rabbits like to nibble many plants, fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) among them. To their credit, they left enough near the bottom for the plants to grow back… so they can have another meal, no doubt. Rabbits! Grrr.

But the world is big and rabbits are just a small part of it. What about those great blue herons (Ardea herodias)?

They look slightly out of place perched in trees.

In an oak tree (Quercus sp.) near Benson Hall, this one is breaking off a branch to add to its nest.

I hope people appreciate how lucky we are to have these beautiful birds on campus for part of the year. This image could have been lifted from an ancient Chinese scroll painting, but it was taken next to the Medicinal Herb Garden.

An eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) paid a visit and the crows finally drove it off. It’s perched to the right, in a Douglas fir tree (Pseudotsuga menziesii). This shot was taken at the edge of the heron rookery. Eagles nest nearby,  often in the big cottonwoods (Populus trichocarpa) growing near the shore of Lake Washington. Sometimes they grab heron chicks from the nest. Beats fishing I guess.

Though it has been a wintery springtime that has been hard on the poor seedlings I’ve put out, the year-round residents are flowering on schedule, more or less.

Shrubby penstemon (Penstemon fruticosus) in section C. This is the first time I’ve seen it flower. There used to be more of it but it has faded away. Maybe it’s putting its last energy into the flowers. Its proper home is on the drier east side of the Cascades where it has been put to a wide range of uses by the Colville people among others.

Flower on the medlar tree (Mespilus germanica).

Our native mountain bistort (Polygonum bistortoides) growing next to…

…our native valerian (Valeriana sitchensis) in section A. Both plants are from seeds  collected in  the Cascade Mountains.

Flowers on the western chokecherry (Prunus virginiana var. demissa) in Cascara Circle.

Pistillate catkins on the Hooker’s willow (Salix hookeriana) in Cascara Circle.

Starflower (Trientalis borealis) in Cascara Circle.

It’s a great ground cover in a woodland setting if you don’t mind that it disappears in winter.

The flowers have faded away but in their wake… some unripe fruit on the Nanking cherry (Prunus tomentosa). There’s one west of Cascara Circle and another north of section C.

Fading staminate catkins of the sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina). Sweetfern is in the same plant family, the Myricaceae, as the fragrant wax myrtle/bayberry (Myrica spp.). Both genera are tough as nails once established and have foliage that is fragrant when crushed. There is a Myrica californica bordering Okanagan Lane, north of Cascara Circle and several specimens of Myrica pensylvanica bordering sections B and C.

It looks like the undersea world of section C but it’s just the tips of he shou wu (Polygonum multiflorum) trying to find something to twine around.

Mason bee (Osmia sp.) at rest. It was a cold morning and I think it needed to catch some rays before heading out to do more foraging. It’s on a tea plant (Camellia sinensis).

Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) north of Cascara Circle.

Flowers and an emerging samara on the vine maple (Acer circinatum) in Cascara Circle

Oh, I almost forgot…the mandrake. Whatever magic rituals the thieves have planned, they’d best be careful. It’s a potent plant. I might have to stop growing it if people keep stealing it. That could spell doom for future Harry Potter tours.

Something about that freshly dug soil looks all wrong.

Aha! Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) rustlers have made off with the roots. It’s always something in a public garden…

Though today feels like late November, it’s supposed to warm up with clear skies by the end of the week. Almost time to put the tomatoes out, once the nights get over 50F. The young herons should start to fledge in the next month. That spectacle is always high drama if you can be there to see it. Maybe the male western tanager (Piranga ludoviciana) will again stop over for a short stay at Cascara Circle, and a rufous hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) will pass though the garden on its way to the mountains. You’ll only know if you come by for a visit.

rufous hummingbird

hovering near the nectar

zoom, off to the hills

See you in the garden.

I once wrote on this blog that in Seattle, spring begins in February. Not this year. Though it has warmed and the sun has appeared often in the last few days, we just finished the coldest Seattle winter since 1985. We didn’t have much bitter cold; it never got below the low 20s, but we didn’t get any warm spells either.  Along with almost incessant rain in February and the first half of March, we got a second round of lowland snow. Thankfully, it melted quickly.

But not before someone could build a snowman in Cascara Circle.

It was actually quite beautiful for a couple of hours before the snow turned to rain.

Looking toward Cascara Circle from the west. The two very young trees in the center and left  foreground are prune plums (Prunus domestica) that I have trained to open centers for easy picking when they finally start producing fruit.

Section F view from its northeast corner. Having grown up with snowy winters, I would wish we had more snow if it didn’t cause such chaos here in hilly Seattle.  But it does and I don’t.

Remember the rabbit? I found one of its little shelters in a plant bed.

This opening is on one side of a thick, matted shrub and is lined with the silky fluff from the seed heads of nearby wild artichokes (Cynara syriaca). Looks cozy.

And this opening is on the other side of the shrub. It’s wise to have a front and a back door when you’re small and delectable to a variety of predators.

The ground is saturated. This is how the garden paths looked all of February and early March. Too bad most of our rain falls in winter when we need it least.

But the swamp-dwelling eastern skunk cabbages (Symplocarpus foetidus) are in their element. They’re still quite small but can be seen in section D.

Fresh growth on the rose root/golden root/Arctic root (Rhodiola rosea) in section A.

Maybe this year, the mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) in section E will produce fruit. The flowers should open any day.

When these flower buds open on the blueblossom (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus) north of section A, maybe the dark, cold days of winter will be forgotten. The large Chinese juniper (Juniperus chinensis) casts a lot of shade on it, so it has stretched sideways to reach the sunlight, but it has persisted for many years. Its native habitat is California chaparral.

The new Life Sciences Building is getting bigger. This is the east side of the building on one of the few sunny days this winter. The deodar cedars (Cedrus deodara) on the north side of the building are blocking the view, so future update shots will be taken from the south side, on the Burke-Gilman Trail.

South and east sides of building from the Burke-Gilman Trail on a, you guessed it, rainy day. The Seattle skyline is currently dotted with cranes like the one in this picture. There’s a building boom going on.

The great blue heron (Ardea herodias) rookery is active again in the woods north of the Sierra redwood (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in section D. In recent years there have been fewer herons nesting.

Here are some of them.

No bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephala)) to defend against this morning, but they have been doing regular overflights. Heron nests are so exposed before the leaves grow back on the deciduous trees. They have to be on the lookout at all times.

Their croaking, shrieking, roaring vocalizations startle me no matter how many times I hear them, and judging by the flinching reactions of people passing by, it seems to be a primal, involuntary and universal response we have to something that sounds loud, big and ferocious, especially if it is nearby, out of sight and possibly coming our way.

In and around the garden, the plants are waking up and this is a great time to see their resilience in action as they begin to grow again while the dead and faded aerial parts from last year linger.  Any garden in a temperate zone looks a bit bedraggled in winter. The previous year’s growth can look somewhat ratty on the herbaceous plants, but I leave it up all winter as natural habitat for the garden insects. If you were to break off a dead, winter stalk and bring it inside, you would likely see all sorts of little creatures crawling out of its nooks and crannies, ready for action. Of course that would be a mean trick to pull on them. They have a job to do outside when the weather warms up, not in a heated building in winter.

I think this is a green stink bug (Acrostemum hilare). Most of the insects overwintering here are not so large and obvious.You can afford to be obvious when no one wants to eat you because…you stink. I’ve seen quite a few of them in the last few years. In winter, when it gets really cold, they hide out in dead leaves that are still attached to plants or in piles on the ground. Though stink bugs can cause damage to orchard crops, they seem to be pretty benign in the Medicinal Herb Garden. Take the time to inspect them closely, they’re attractive insects.

It’s a bit early for the ‘official’  viewing season but this is a great time to see the garden without being overwhelmed. The few green leaves, swelling buds and blooming flowers all stand out as they won’t in another month.

Rhododendron sp. breaking into bloom, north of the garden on Stevens Way, right near…

…this loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) on the east side of Benson Hall. The pale leaves are the new growth.

see it blooming soon

Pacific rhododendron

that’s our state flower

See you in the garden.

By any sane person’s reckoning, we just endured the most poisonous, divisive, noisy and truly bizarre presidential election and inauguration in living memory. Thankfully, it is over, though we now must confront the results of the outcome. Because this is a blog about a Medicinal Herb Garden and not a blog about politics, I will say no more about politics.

If I have any wisdom to offer, it’s based on my own experience. To wit, find a quiet place, inside or outside, but a dependably peaceful and quiet place you love. Go there (even in your mind; I still return to a favorite spot in the Pasayten Wilderness that I haven’t seen in a couple of decades) for a walk or to meditate, row your boat, climb a mountain, sip tea…or whatever, but when you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember that this place exists and is as real as the noise that surrounds you and will  endure much longer. Repeat as needed and return refreshed, ready to do what needs to be done. Much needs to be done.

I hope the Medicinal Herb Garden is somewhere on the list of peaceful and quiet places,

Paper birch (Betula papyrifera) in fall colors.

Birch trees drop a lot of small branches every time the winds blow but that is a small price to pay.

and this year I will make it a priority to install a couple more benches. One in section C, west of Bill Talley’s bench will be coming soon.

Okay, some news from the garden. About twenty years ago I started two Aralia spinosa plants (devil’s walking stick, Hercule’s club) in the woods north of Cascara Circle. They’re now spindly trees, about 20 feet tall. For years I’ve unintentionally ignored them because their branches are all near the top and I guess I don’t look up enough. In recent years, seedlings and root suckers have appeared nearby and this year I finally noticed fallen branches with fruit on them. So…next year there will be Aralia spinosa seeds offered in our Index Seminum…finally.

Black drupes of Aralia spinosa have many seeds.

One of the Australian tea trees (Melaleuca alternifolia). They all came through the worst of the winter (so far) without damage. It’s been cold a lot, but luckily it hasn’t gotten much below 25 F. The manuka (Leptospemum scoparium) is also in fine shape.

All of the Melianthus major shrubs (honey bush) are looking a bit ragged but they should snap back. The Melianthus comosus (honey flower) is completely fine.

No sooner had the birds eaten the last ripe fruit than the Vaccinium ovatum (evergreen huckleberry) began to flower.  Perhaps you will consider uprooting your bug-plagued Buxus sempervirens (boxwood) and replacing it with one of these.

This is the time to see Garrya elliptica (coast silk tassel) flowering in Cascara Circle. It’s one of the great broad-leaved evergreens native to the Pacific Northwest.

If there were no other reason to visit the Medicinal Herb Garden in winter, the chance to see and hear the returning flocks of Bombycilla cedrorum (cedar waxwings) is reason enough. These were shuttling between the Acer saccharum (sugar maple) and the Camellia japonica (Japanese camellia) by the garden shed last week.

through chill winter air

a sound to silence babble

faint call of waxwings

See you in the garden.

Happy solstice. Here are some scenes from the last few weeks in the garden.

Wild artichokes (Cynara syriaca) in the gloaming of a snowy, winter day.

In section B, looking west.

In section A looking east.

Chinese figwort or xuan shen
in section A. Ah, grey winter days in Seattle. This picture says it all.

The Standish’s honeysuckle (Lonicera standishii) is flowering along Stevens Way near Cascara Circle. It’s deliciously fragrant.

Rhododendron species in section D border, flowering in December after a warm November.

I expect Camellia japonica to flower in late winter but not like this, before solstice.

It was warm enough that the seeds of xu duan (Dipsacus asper) in section B sprouted on the plant, a phenomenon known as vivipary.

Leaves of canyon grape (Vitis arizonica) north of section B. Maybe, just maybe it will produce fruit next year.

Leaf of common greenbrier (Smilax rotundifolia) changing color in section B.

Chestnut tree/bush (Castanea sativa) near the bus stop. It could be a while before it’s producing nuts but it grew a lot this year.

It’s a short post for this short, threshold day. If ever there were a time for quiet reflection, winter solstice seems like that time. Longer nights give us more time to dream, but only if we take the time for more sleep. There’s no shortage of tragic messes playing out in the world but we can’t do much about them if we’re exhausted.  On that note, I’m going to bed.

sun low in the sky

day breaks late, night comes early

that’s winter solstice

See you in the garden.

Ok, I wrote that title in a moment of irrational exuberance. It wasn’t raining at the time, in fact it was sunny outside. What a refreshing change. Well, never fear, it’s raining again now. Raining hard and all day. Last month was the rainiest on record in Seattle. We normally get about three and a half inches of rain in October, but this year we got slightly over ten inches. Though the rain and wind have knocked down many of the leaves, the fall colors were, and those that are left still are, brilliant this year (not by New England standards but exceptional for Seattle).

Slowly turning red…and staying red for a long time. Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) is a fine fall shrub, except that it has a tendency to send up root suckers everywhere.

A couple of weeks later it’s all red. This one is north of Cascara Circle. I noticed flower clusters for the first time and I immediately thought of sumac lemonade. Maybe this would be the year.

Unfortunately, this appears to be an unpollinated female flower cluster. It’s quite dry. There are no juicy, sour drupes from which to make ‘lemonade’, though it fooled me from a distance. Time to look for a male plant. Staghorn sumac is dioecious. There are male plants and female plants, so without a nearby male plant’s pollen, the flowers on this plant will remain unpollinated.

The woods north of Cascara Circle are worth a visit any time but fall is best…

… because it’s beautiful, peaceful, colorful and off the beaten track there. It probably needs a bench, maybe a round bench, encircling the birch tree. Pictured is part of the woods and pathway north of Cascara Circle. That is an incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) in the center background, with a spice bush (Lindera benzoin) fading to yellow on the left, and a Canadian serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis) turning from green to yellow to red on the right. The red in the far background is a sourwood tree (Oxydendrum arboreum).

Sourwood is a small tree from eastern North America and its young leaves are edible. Both leaves and bark have been used medicinally. Something traumatic happened to this tree, maybe a heavy snow early in the season or a branch falling from the nearby Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica); I really can’t remember. But it hasn’t grown straight since.

The nearby California wild grape plant (Vitis californica) finally produced some fruit, high off the ground where it had climbed up nearby shrubs and trees to get more sun. That’s what wild grapes do in their native habitat and it’s a good strategy, so I plan to let them go feral. There were two respectable bunches of small grapes. Someone absentmindedly gobbled them up before realizing it would be nice to save the seeds for the Index Seminum program. Next year.

Once they were in my hand there was no hope. I ate them all.

Not surprisingly, the heavy rains of October brought a flush of mushrooms around campus. Some white king boletes (Boletus barrowsii) popped up, along with many other edible, not-so-edible and some mind-altering specimens. A few feet from the grapes, near the white birch tree (Betula papyrifera), some birch boletes (Leccinum scabrum) appeared. They are edible, though the smaller, firmer ones are best.

A slightly tattered birch bolete. They turn grayish black when you cook them, but many people around the world enjoy eating them and other species of Leccinum. A few species can cause  gastric disturbance in some people. Always be one hundred percent sure of the mushroom species you’re about to consume, and eat just a little the first time (after thorough cooking) to see how your body reacts. Better safe than sorry.

I’d rather eat these. I took a day off and drove out to the mountains to look for matsutakes (Tricholoma magnivelare) and I’m including them in this blog post because they are medicinal (though this study was done on the similar Eurasian species Tricholoma matsutake).   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3732428/

Sometimes you find a bunch of them together. Oh, happy days.

Some of the haul. Yes, I’m bragging.

Matsutakes can be hard to find before they break through the forest duff. These pictured below were just bumps in the soil until I moved the duff aside.

It’s often true that where there is a matsutake in plain sight, there are others hidden nearby. Mushroom picking in the mountains is time well spent. If the University of Washington ever decides to establish a rustic research station/ natural history bed and breakfast in the nearby mountains and they need an able caretaker, let it be known that I’m volunteering for that position.

But back to the Medicinal Herb Garden foods. The leccino olive (Olea europaea) produced just enough fruit…for a tapas plate.  Better than nothing.

They’re brining in a jar in my kitchen at this moment.

The medlars (Mespilus germanica) are always reliable producers. Having tasted bland, pasty medlars from another tree, I’ve come to appreciate what a good  (though unknown) cultivar we have. The medlar tree is ten feet from the grapes.

This year, people are harvesting fruit husks (pericarps) from the Szechuan pepper trees in the Medicinal Herb Garden borders. Finally. Every autumn, these trees/shrubs produce thousands of little “peppercorns”. As the ripe, brown husks split open, the shiny black seeds often fall out on their own, but those that don’t can easily be cleaned off the husks. They won’t do any harm but are gritty and add no flavor.

You can see ripe brown husks and nearly-ripe red husks as well as a few seeds in this picture. The fruit start out green in the summer.

This pomegranate shrub (Punica granatum) produced no large fruit but many small fruit this year. It lives near the olives on the border of section A.

False Solomon’s seal (Smilacina racemosa) leaf colors fading away as they approach dormancy. The fruit have mostly dropped but they are a sweet trail nibble when they turn red and get soft. They grow around Cascara Circle and nearby woods.

Moving east in the garden to the built environment. Behold.

Garden shed is ship shape for winter. I needed to clean it up in order to operate the seed exchange out of there for the next two winters.

It took a year and a half of procrastinating to finally set aside an afternoon to clean and organize the place but I now breathe a sigh of relief every time I walk in.

Photos of the Life Sciences Building and Biology Greenhouse construction site become dated almost daily. Those guys work fast. But here’s a shot from over the fence a week ago.

It’s a long way down.

Experiencing winter in the garden is like stepping into another world. The space, the light and the plants all change. Wait, it’s not winter for another month and a half. For my purposes as a gardener, winter in Seattle begins in November.

Can you guess what this is?
In their winter dormancy, it’s often hard to recognize plants we know when we see them in summer. This is balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus).

And what is this wraith in section E? The last faded leaves outline the schisandra vine (Schisandra chinensis) which finally made its way up into the hawthorn (Crataegus sp.) canopy.

Ji shi teng (Paederia foetida) in section B is a new addition to the garden.  Hopefully it will survive the winter outside. From temperate to tropical east Asia, this plant has many, many names and uses in a variety of healing traditions. Here are a couple of links:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3793514/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557762/

Ji shi teng (Paederia foetida) in section B. Note the change in leaf morphology from ovate at bottom to lanceolate at top. It’s a twiner, growing up wires suspended from a bamboo tripod

The Steller’s jays (Cyanocitta stelleri) are very vocal right now (even more than usual). I’m not sure why. This one perched for a while on Bill Talley’s bench.  Bill was the campus landscape architect for many years and he really loved the Medicinal Herb Garden. Near the end of his life, at his request, the bench was installed in section C. It has seen a lot of use since. Good work, Bill.

first winter rain drops

freshening the southwest wind

off the Pacific

See you in the garden.

It was another hot summer, but thankfully, not as hot as last year. I have a freezer full of tomato sauce from a bumper crop of tomatoes, and not cherry tomatoes or paste tomatoes or mid-size tomatoes, but Black Krim and Brandywine, two of the best big slicers in the world. It’s a shame to turn slicers into sauce, but one can only eat so many fresh tomatoes so it’s the dryer or the saucepan for the rest. My clay soil retains water so well that I watered my tomato plants exactly once, on the day I planted them in late May. After years of planting into sandy soil, it’s nice to have clay.  But I digress…as usual. These days the air is crisp and it’s time to pull the annuals and tender perennials to get cover crops planted in their place. The garden needs its winter rest and we growers need to harvest the fruit of our labors.

I finally bought two traps to catch the rabbit(s). Hmm, if only it were that simple. Rabbits are smarter than I thought and I have a new respect for them. I’ve caught and released two squirrels but the rabbits are tougher customers. They’re steering clear of the traps. Maybe I’ll stop growing the grain bed for a few years, since that was a rabbit magnet and a disaster this year. It looked like it had been mowed in places. It’s always something in a garden. Ask any gardener and they’ll tell you a variation of my tale, “Something is eating my plants”. It might be a tiny insect or a huge ungulate, but unsolicited herbivory is part of the bargain when you grow a garden. And so it goes.

The snow is starting to fall higher up in the mountains and the rain is slowly returning to the lowlands. We need more rain for the fall mushroom season but I’m happy to say I’ve crossed paths with a few porcini (Boletus edulis) on backpacking trips in September. Matsutakes (Tricholoma magnivelare), if they’re going to appear, should be popping with this colder weather, but who knows? Last year’s summer drought and intense heat must have been hard on the mycelium. I didn’t bother foraging last fall and maybe this will be another fungal recovery year.

The oak tree (Quercus rober) that languished on the border of section C last year was finally declared dead and cut down. One of the evergreen huckleberries (Vaccinium ovatum), on the border of sections D and E, has lost some limbs and I won’t be surprised if it gives up the ghost. In a drought, all of the plants put more of their energy into finding water. Unfortunately, they’re all competing for the same limited resource. The nearby Sierra redwood (Sequoiadendron giganteum) has stretched its roots into adjacent beds, sucking up much of the water that the smaller plants need. It’s difficult to keep the plants on the east side of section D sufficiently irrigated. The soil surface might look damp but just below it’s bone dry and full of tree roots. The same is true on the east sides of sections E and F.  There are too many big trees much too close to the garden beds and they will be an increasing problem for a long, long time, especially as we live through the transition to warmer summers.

But it’s October now, harvest time, and the rain is here and heat is behind us as we brace for winter. Delicious ground cherries (Physalis spp.) are ripening. They’re an excellent fruit but they ripen late. Give them a very sunny and protected spot and start them at least as early as you start your tomatoes.

Ground cherry (Physalis pruinosa) fruit in its papery husk. This species is native to eastern North America. Another species, Physalis peruviana, is native to South America and looks quite similar. The fruit flavors are different but they’re both delicious. At the nearby Beacon Food Forest, someone made a ground cherry pie as a dessert for a community dinner. It was a hit. This is an easy plant to grow. Grow some and be the first one on your block to make a ground cherry pie.

Ground cherry fruit, ripe and ready to eat.

Before retiring one of the tropical/subtropical beds for the winter,  I photographed the striped cucumber plants (Diplocyclos palmatus). The fruit have been used medicinally in India. They are toxic and not for eating, but they made a beautiful display on the trellis.

Too bad striped cucumber fruit are toxic because they sure would look good in a salad.

Maybe try these Chilean guava (Ugni molinae) fruit instead, for a sweet, spicy addition to a savory salad. There was a small crop last year, but this year both bushes near section C were covered in fruit. The fruit forest from across the street is being reborn on the north border of section C and the lawn east of Benson Hall. The first prune plums (Prunus domestica), Nanking cherries (Prunus tomentosa) and Chilean myrtle berries (Luma apiculata) should be ready for harvest by 2018 and the paw paws (Asimina triloba) by 2019.

Chilean guava shrubs absolutely loaded
with mature fruit. They’re sweet and spicy. These are situated near the top of a south facing slope and they’re protected from winter winds. In short, they’re in the right spot. In the wrong spot they can freeze in winter. A bad winter might trump a good spot but plants of borderline hardiness need to be planted in just the right spot, even in a mild year. Alas, such a spot might not exist where you live. Still, it’s worth a try. They’re evergreen so they would make an excellent edible border hedge.

Some fruiting vines, shrubs and trees bear fruit pretty dependably, and others have productive years followed by nearly barren years. It takes a lot of energy to produce fruit and environmental stress, like too much heat or cold (that might damage the plant’s tissue or shut down its pollinators), not enough water, robust competition from neighboring plants, excessive herbivory, disease etc., can all play a part in irregular fruit output. I’d love to have the time to study the vagaries of fruit production but other duties call. The best I can do is try to be observant. So I do (when I remember) note on the seed collection envelopes, very high or low volume seed production years. If I lived a thousand years and kept very good records, maybe I’d gain some insights worth passing on, but there are so many variables…I’m not sure a thousand years would be enough.

Last year the maypop (Passiflora incarnata) was covered in fruit. This year there is only one.

Just a single passion fruit on the maypop this year. The plant was covered in flowers but produced only one fruit. Hopefully it will ripen and be really, really, really good.

There were more trifoliate orange fruit last year, but they were all small, a very late second crop after the first crop dropped off, presumably due to the intense heat and lack of water. This year they’re fully ripening for the first time in about a decade. I know not why. If you want a life full of unending mystery, become a gardener.

Mature fruit of trifoliate orange or zhi shi (Poncirus trifoliata) in section D.  They have been used in traditional Chinese medicine, but even when ripe, the small fruit are full of seeds and sour/bitter pulp with very little juice. It might be worth making candied rinds, marmalade or zhi shi kosho from them.

Flowers of pigeon pea (Cajanas cajan), a popular and important food crop in the subtropics and tropics. There are now some small pods developing but it’s getting colder and darker every day. I wouldn’t consider growing them as a food crop in the Pacific Northwest  but maybe as a colorful conversation piece. Look at those flowers!

Canary balm (Cedronella canariensis) flowers in section B. The foliage makes an excellent tea and the plant, though marginally hardy around here, will drop enough seeds to keep reappearing in your garden. It’s called Canary balm because it originates in the Canary Islands.

Flowers of grannyvine (Ipomoea tricolor) start out dark blue and white, then fade to pale blue, rose and white.

Since no charismatic predatory birds or adorable (Grrr!) bunnies would pose for the camera, this little spider had to step in for the obligatory fauna shot. What a handsome spider.

Unless you’re afflicted with an extreme case of arachniphobia, it’s hard not to like these little jumping spiders. They’re amazing acrobats who can jump up to 25 times their length and their herky-jerky, robotic movements are quite entertaining. They seem more like visitors from the land of misfit toys than real spiders.  I believe this is the bold jumping spider (Phiddipus audax), but I could be wrong. It was hopping around on a bench in the greenhouse where I start seeds and grow seedlings.

snowy mountaintop

view from an orchard ladder

harvest time again

See you in the garden.

A few mornings ago, as I set off to water on the east end of the garden, I passed through section C. That’s the section where the grains have been mysteriously disappearing into the stomach of the phantom herbivore. Make that formerly phantom herbivore:

What the…? Are you eating the ragleaf bahia (Bahia dissecta)?

Yes, the bunny is finally busted.

Rabbits (this is a young eastern cottontail, Sylvilagus floridanus) are fast and able to turn on a dime. Off it went to the protection of the thicket on the west edge of section C. Grrr!

I’m not sure what to do. Eventually, I might get a live trap and relocate any rabbit(s) I catch to somewhere far enough away that returning will not be a viable option. The barred owl (Strix varia) seems to have moved on but maybe it will be back. Barred owls eat rabbits. For now, I’ll wait to see how bad the damage gets and how dense the rabbit population becomes. The good news is that that so far, with the exception of the grain bed, damage hasn’t been too bad. A lot of nibbled areas here and there, but nothing has been decimated. Peace for now, bunny.

While weeding recently, I came across these two:

Junco chicks (Junco hyemalis) whose nest was hidden beneath leaves and understory plants on the garden’s edge. The alarm calls of their parents tipped me off. The parents were getting pretty agitated so I had to quickly snap this shot and move on.

It might be my misperception, but it seems like there is an increasing number of juncos and a decreasing number of white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) in the garden over the last decade or so.

They’re less than an inch long, but Pacific crabapples (Malus fusca) have a bright, tangy apple taste. They were traditionally eaten by Pacific Northwest natives, from Alaska to California. Bark from the trees was used to treat lung, heart, skin and eye conditions among other things. I’ve seen Pacific crabapple trees growing in an estuary in BC, near Bella Coola. They were sometimes flooded with brackish water and appeared none the worse for it.

Wild plums (Prunus americana) ripening near Cascara Circle. They have thicker skin than most domesticated plums and the flesh resembles the consistency and flavor of apricot (Prunus armeniaca).

Leafy goosefoot (Chenopodium foliosum) has edible, nutritious leaves. Its attractive red fruit are also edible but dull. Leafy goosefoot used to be in the Chenopodiaceae, a plant family that included spinach (Spinacia oleracea),
lamb’s quarters (Cheopodium album), and quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa). All of the above are now in the Amaranthaceae. Recently, the family formerly known as Chenopodiaceae has disappeared, subsumed into the Amaranthaceae. I get dizzy, trying to keep up with all of the changes happening in the world of plant systematics.

Fruit on the Ephedra plants in the xeriscape bed are edible. Though several sources describe them as sweet and insipid, I get a hint of sweet and a hint of bitter, and yes, they are insipid. I had previously thought that some of the plants were Ephedra nevadensis (Nevada jointfir, Mormon tea) and some Ephedra chilensis (Andean jointfir, pingo pingo) but it appears all are E. chilensis which can have either red or white, fleshy bracts on the edible female strobili.

The fruit of this plant in section B, near the fig tree, are lupine seeds but the flowers smell like grape Kool-Aid or  maybe grape Jolly Ranchers. It’s tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis), a food crop grown in the Andes. They get powdery mildew around this time every summer, but they’re covered in flowers right now, so smell them if you get the chance.

There’s nothing about the indigo plants (Indigofera tinctoria) in section C that points to their importance as a dye plant of the bluest blues. I expected them to at least have blue flowers but they’re small and pink. Indigo is supposedly a zone 9 plant, so it might make it through the winter outside with protection around here.

Flowers of the chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus), north of section A are similar though a bit larger than the flowers on the Chinese chaste tree (Vitex negundo) near section B. The seeds of chaste tree are sometimes referred to as monk’s pepper because they are considered to be an anaphrodisiac. They are currently used to help regulate the female reproductive system, especially to treat symptoms of PMS.

You might have heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I think I caught it on film. Either that or qu mai (Dianthus superbus).

Spend a lot of money buying summer purslane (Portulaca oleracea) as a fancypants vegetable at your local farmers market. Or you can come to the Medicinal Herb Garden and get an official authorization from me that will allow you, for a very limited time, to harvest as much summer purslane from the garden beds and pathways as you and your mule can carry home. Really.

What is it about certain shades of yellow and white that confounds my cheap little camera? I couldn’t focus, but finally decided the dreamy, haunting haze around the flowers was, no kidding, just the effect I was looking for.
The plant is sweet yellow bells (Hermannia incana) from South Africa. It has been used traditionally to treat diarrhea, stomach ache, nausea and vomiting. Its effectiveness in treating diarrhea seems to be confirmed by recent tests on rats. Who knows, maybe it works for humans too. Living in a wealthy, industrialized nation, it is hard to believe, but the World Health Organization reports that for children under the age of five, diarrheal diseases are the second leading cause of death worldwide. 

Flowers of thyme-leaved savory (Satureja thymbra) in section B. I recently bought a big jar of Lebanese olives that was packed with thyme-leaved savory. It added a bitterness that was addictive. Olives, who can eat just one?

The manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) that I planted a couple of years ago has grown quickly. I wonder if it isn’t a different variety than I’ve grown in the past. We have had some hot summers and warm winters, so the weather could be a factor, but the newer manuka is as tall as I am and the much older plants are less than a foot tall. Hmmm.

It’s easy to walk past wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa). Its pale pink flowers aren’t as showy as scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyma), but it’s sometimes worth inspecting more closely the things we take for granted. The flowers have a subtle beauty up close.

Wild senna (Senna marilandica) flowers profusely every year and the plants are vigorous. Unfortunately, they rarely produce seeds. I’m not sure why.

Leaves on one of the chokeberry bushes have started to turn bright red, as they would normally do later on in autumn. It might be caused by drought stress.

Floral display in the border between sections A and B. The pink flowers are showy tick-trefoil (Desmodium canadense), the yellow are safflowers (Carthamus tinctorius) and the blue are gentian sage (Salvia patens).

If you make it to the Medicinal Herb Garden, be sure to walk across the street and view the site of the future Life Sciences Building and Biology Greenhouse. It changes from day to day.

That is the southwest corner of the Plant Lab basement and this is the last shot you will ever see of it. It’s amazing how quickly this lot is going from a demolition site to a building site.

surprised once again

by the fading summer light

 days growing shorter

See you in the garden.

Somewhere in or near the Medicinal Herb Garden lives an herbivore whose ways are quite mysterious. It has eaten all the oats (Avena sativa) and has moved on to the spelt (Triticum spelta) and the einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum). Last year I thought it might be birds, but now I don’t think so.

Nibbled stalks in the grain bed in section C. Who is eating the grain? Mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa), rat (Rattus sp.), rabbit (until proven otherwise, I will assume ours are the introduced eastern cottontails, Sylvilagus floridanus)? I wish I knew. There’s no scat or prints left behind. A recent rabbit sighting (first ever in the garden, to my knowledge) has me worried. Rabbits are not a gardener’s best friend. Oh well, life in a public garden..what can you do?

The stalks provide a nice thatch for the soil and probably help retain moisture but…small consolation for losing all the grain. And the song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) and juncos (Junco hyemalis) are eating the smaller grains. It’s always something.

Well, after much preparation, the clearing of the space for the new Life Sciences Building and Biology Greenhouse has begun. The contractors work really fast.

The former fruit forest area being cleared.

Don’t blink. It happened quickly.

The greenhouse was next.

First the south side.

Then the north.  The pile in the center looks a little like a piece of John Chamberlain sculpture.

Then the Plant Lab. They should paint that demolition excavator to look like Tyrranosaurus rex.

Now they’re sorting out recyclable metal, leveling the ground and doing what needs to be done to build a new building.

Meanwhile, back in the garden, I have a followup report from the last blog post. No, the other yi ye qiu (Flueggea suffruticosa) is not female so I need to get more plants started and yes, the Leccino olive (Olea europaea) has a few olives forming, so it must be marginally self-fertile.

Exhibit A: a few Leccino olives forming.

This is a good time to visit the Medicinal Herb Garden if you want to see flowers on display, or insects sipping nectar and gathering pollen, birds and maybe rabbits eating the grains from the grain bed and even a raccoon taking a nap in a tree. Listen for the crows who see all and report on it to those who listen.

Crows alerted me to you-know-who, but they quickly lost interest when they realized s/he was taking a nap and not out foraging for their eggs.

Tufted evening primrose (Oenothera caespitosa) in section C. Though it is a perennial, it rots in our wet winters. Next year I’ll try growing it in the xeriscape bed to see if it will overwinter.

Blackberry lily (Belamcanda chinensis)…is an iris…but who’s counting?

Farewell to spring (Clarkia amoena) has several varieties and subspecies, some ‘showier’ than others but I prefer the subtle coloration these display. They’re in the border between sections A and B. The Miwok people of what is now northern California, traditionally ground the seeds for food.

Great golden digger wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus) foraging in section D. They feed exclusively on flower nectar and plant sap which they’re apparently finding on the goldenrod (Solidago canadensis), a plant that draws in a lot of insects. If I weren’t being paid to do other things, I could stand there for hours watching the insect visitors to the goldenrod and hundreds of other plant species in the garden. What’s your excuse?

By the way, great golden digger wasps are very gentle and won’t sting you if you don’t try to handle them. They are solitary and make their nests in the ground. Their claim to fame: they catch and paralyze katydids, grasshoppers and cicadas(and who knows what else) which they fly or drag back to their nest. There they deposit one egg on each insect they collect. When the eggs hatch in a few days, the larvae begin eating the insects beneath them. Be glad you’re not a katydid.

The downy sunflower (Helianthus mollis) is an altogether joyful plant to behold. It is pretty drought tolerant and will fill in wasteland to crowd out invasive colonizers of disturbed soils. I love this plant…but something about this picture of a developing flower is unsettling. Find it in section D and the border between sections A and B..

Dayflower (Commelina tuberosa) has starchy, edible roots which like to spread, so, beautiful though it is, you might want to plant it in a wild border. Wild borders are all I have in the garden. Borders, in my opinion, are a good place to let plants establish their own order.

Section B ‘just-so’ composition.

Common mallow (Malva alcea) in section A.

You saw the flowers of mountain avens (Dryas octopetala) in a previous post. Their seed heads, shown here, resemble those of prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), another member of the Rosaceae.

If you have wandered through section C and wondered what is going on with the mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum), fear not. This has been a big year for aphids on a lot of plants, but the predators finally arrived. I smushed many aphids at first, but once the ladybugs showed up, I passed the duty to them.

Larval stage of the ladybug (Coccinella sp.) on its way to cleaning up the aphid explosion.

Chinese chaste tree (Vitex negundo) branch whose flowers refused to be photographed in the light breeze. They’re small enough to go unnoticed but they’re worth close inspection.

The whole Chinese chaste tree in its full glory near the garden shed. I’m planting at least one of these in my yard as a neighbor screen.

Update:  Most of the herons have flown the coop. To the best of my knowledge, all of the fledglings made it. Maybe the eagles were busy with the larger rookery in Ballard.

The flower show doesn’t last forever, so hurry if you want to see the garden at its peak. Life is short and it’s good to get outside. Really good.

glare of hot gravel

cool shade of Chinese chaste tree

a day in July

See you in the garden.