Dominant Species

Day 285: This is the Barren Wasteland at its best. Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan) dominates the space with occasional pops of colour from Rose Campion, Deptford Pinks, Tall Phlox and (now) Milkweed. A few white Yarrow stems are interspersed despite my efforts at weeding them out, and the odd stalk of peppermint which escapes being made into tea may add flecks of lavender. Already gone are the California and Oriental Poppies, the "orange" phase of the Barren Wasteland's phenological cycle, but the Rudbeckias will persist until after the first light frosts. When a section becomes too crowded with clumps of this vigorous species, I pull them out to make more room. There never seems to be a shortage!

Volcanic Rudbeckia

Day 308: I live with volcanos. There's a 14,411' one within spittin' distance, and another known for its violent temper not too far away to the south. And then there are a hundred or so juveniles in the Barren Wasteland between the outer walls of my kitchen and garage: Rudbeckias, with their cinder cones surrounded by any number of tiny fumaroles emitting sulphrous-yellow smoke, rising above a bed of rough talus. Red-hot lava spreads out below, dusted here and there with the ash of earlier eruptions. Black-eyed Susans, you say? Nah. Etna, Kilauea, Popocatepetl, but definitely not Susan, however upset she must have been about that black eye.

Misumena Vatia, Golden Crab Spider

Day 298: Sorry to spring this on the arachnophobes in my audience without any forewarning, but trust me, I fall within your numbers. That does not stop me from appreciating the clever beauty of Misumena vatia, the Goldenrod Crab Spider so common in Pacific Northwest gardens. Misumena exhibits quite a range of colour variation from solid yellow to a gold heavily striped with red, a factor which renders it relatively unnoticeable when it's perched on an orangey-gold Rudbeckia flower. This female (note the large abdomen) took me entirely by surprise when I bent over to turn on the water tap. After I began breathing again, I retrieved the camera from the house, but she was not exactly enthusiastic about having her portrait made. Although I was careful not to allow my shadow to fall across her, she waved her forearms at me menacingly. I took the picture and the hint, and left her in peace. Sometimes using a foe's fear against themselves is the best defense. Misumena wins this round.

The Barren Wasteland

Day 297: Readers and friends will have heard me refer to the Barren Wasteland as a section of my garden, perhaps without understanding the history which brought about its naming. When I moved onto this property some thirty years ago, the flower beds had been let go for so long that they were entirely grassed over and filled with weeds. My first horticultural project was to clean them out and salvage what I could. To that end, a friend and I excavated to a depth of 18", delving up unidentifiable roots, pieces of broken glass, old wire and the occasional rock of grapefruit-sized dimension. The roots were returned to their beds, and no one was any more surprised than I when peonies and delphiniums shot up the following year. But the flower beds were not my only focus. I wanted a vegetable garden. A forested belt to the west excluded digging up the back yard for the simple reason that it received very little light after 2 PM, not an ideal condition for sun-loving crops. The front yard was out of the question and at the time, the side yard was partly covered by a concrete patio, ruling it out as well. The 10'-wide strip between the exterior kitchen wall and the garage seemed to be my only option, so I set about digging and sifting, weeding and hoeing and, at long last, planting. Bottom line: the only thing it would grow was green beans. Not lettuce, not zucchini, not radishes and definitely not corn.

Whether the fault lay in the nutrient-poor soil or in the hoodoo which customarily overshadows any attempts I make with respect to vegetables, I can't say. I suspect it was a bit of both. The patch became known as the Barren Wasteland and returned to weeds when I resigned myself to eating store-bought veg. A few years after I conceded the match, the gardening bug bit me again. This time, I pulled weeds and threw down wildflower seed from a mix. I mean, surely something will grow, right? It did. California Poppies and Yarrow filled the space and threatened to invade the rest of the county. Then I noticed a few oddments: Deptford Pinks, Wallflower. I pulled the more aggressive plants from around them in the hopes that they'd fill in. Rudbeckia seed spread naturally from my flower beds, providing some welcome tall colour. Seeing its success, I transplanted some Echinacea. It was happy there. Pigsqueak (Bergenia) and tall Phlox surfaced from the previous owner's garden, a bit too pink for my tastes but I welcomed them nevertheless, adding Rose Campion to keep them company. There's a wild Currant in there somewhere, a treat for the hummingbirds when it's in flower, and the Yarrow and Poppies persist in the "understory" despite my best efforts to eradicate them. I still call it the Barren Wasteland, although it's anything but. Today, that impoverished strip of land is largely populated with tall colour which spills out of the hoops I use to confine it, homesteaders succeeding despite the difficult conditions of their environment.

Barren Wasteland

Day 287: I call it the Barren Wasteland: the ten-foot wide space between my house and garage. When I first moved here, I thought to turn it into a vegetable garden, working around the concrete and wood dead spaces which cover the pit where my water system's captive-air tank lives. Little did I know that nothing but weeds would grow in that soil...not radishes, not zucchini, and definitely not corn or peas or tomatoes. A few years' experiments with bush beans yielded rather sickly crops, so after several attempts at trying to draw blood from the proverbial turnip, I threw in the towel and let the Barren Wasteland go. Then one year I hit on the bright idea of making it a wildflower garden. I bought a mix of seeds "designed for the Pacific Northwest" without paying too much attention to the content. It came up mostly California poppies which, despite being pretty en masse, are undesirable for their tendency to go out of control and into monoculture. My vision of a rampant English-garden style space refused to go according to plan until I relocated a vigorous Rudbeckia to one corner, apparently providing just the "lift" the Wasteland needed to take off on its own. I even found that some of the wildflower seeds germinated long after they'd been sown, delicate Deptford Pinks shooting up here and there accompanied by orange Wallflowers and the occasional Tall Phlox from some prior point in history. I added Rose Campion (purloined from a friend's yard) and more Rudbeckias, even a wild currant. Little by little, the Barren Wasteland filled in. Today, it's far from barren, but the name persists for this "wild space" where colour now crowds out the weeds. I'm happy with it, even though I am still pulling California poppies.

A Glad, Good September Morn

Day 323: A Glad, Good September Morn to you, my friends! As many (but not all) of you know, this is my personal "holiday," second only to Christmas on my calendar. Traditionally, it is celebrated with a swim (or at least a dunk) in a chilly alpine tarn somewhere, but with this being Labor Day weekend, the celebration will have to be put on hold until it can be performed without the chance of being seen. Instead, I have chosen to bring you the beauty of my garden, just a small bouquet which includes no more than three stems of any given plant species. Believe me, the sacrifice was negligible! Included are two types of Coneflower (Rudbeckia), two Cosmos, Nasturtiums, Lavender, Delphinium, hardy Fuchsia, Snapdragons, Nigella, tall Phlox and a few California Poppies which were in a "wildflower" mix. May your coming year be as bright and festive as these flowers, and may you find joy in the Beautiful Month.

Gardener's Study

Day 312: Thunderstorms are not common in the Pacific Northwest like they are in so much of the rest of the country, and generally occur during the nighttime hours, although not exclusively so. I had been asleep for an hour or more when the first flash-and-crash woke me. Several more rollers tumbled through, following several seconds behind the broad brightness of lightning behind the clouds. Then came the torrent. Ten minutes of pattering, pounding rain broke against the shingles and filled the gutters. Half an hour later, the storm had passed, searching for new sleepers to awaken.

As welcome as the rain was, it took its toll. I found the tallest Rudbeckias' stalks broken six inches up from ground level, the flowers toppled over and dashed with muddy splatters. The Rain Gods had seen fit to leave the Delphiniums standing through June, so to complain would have been ungrateful. Instead, I interpreted their whims as a gift, and after rinsing the mud from the flowers under the garden hose, I brought them indoors. I don't usually cut my garden's color, though to round out the arrangement, I clipped a a few orange and yellow bits to go with the mahogany.

Hidden In Plain Sight

Day 310: You really don't want to go sticking your nose in the daisies around here. You never know who might be living there. Misumena vatia, the Crab Spider, is a master of camouflage, although its ability to change hue requires a protracted stay on the flower its coloration mimics. When it moves to a white or pale green blossom, it slowly excretes the yellow pigment normally found in the outer layer of cells. These spiders are very common in the Pacific Northwest, but are often overlooked because of their chameleonic talents.

A Rudbeckia Of A Different Color

 Day 291: Typical of my haphazard gardening, I bedded starts and sowed seed in the spring and then promptly forgot what I'd planted. The best part of this method is that something invariably takes me by surprise. I did remember that I'd stuck some Rudbeckias out there...perennials because I'm getting lazy in my old age...though the fact that they were a rich maroon entirely slipped my mind.

I have a passion for dark-colored blossoms. I love Queen of Night and Black Parrot tulips, Superstition Irises, black Callas (which I can't grow), even silly little black Pansies. I am always looking for new black-flowered plants which can survive my neglectful gardening practices. If not black, give me the darkest shades of purple or red available for a species.

This is not to say that my garden has a funereal aspect. Far from it! I really don't plan for color, so the flowerbed looks more like a crazy-quilter had a hand in its design. Over here, there will be a thick mass of bronze marigolds; over there, clumps of blue Globe Gilia or a tangle of pink, white and purple Nigella. It's not a "scatter garden." It's more like a mosaic.

The Rudbeckias will be permanent fixtures, although they may get shifted around over the coming years so that they form a backdrop for shorter flowers. I'll probably forget where I put them until they burst through the ground, ready to surprise me with their gypsy-dark eyes yet again.