Spring Planting Fever

Spring is in full swing and, like any good gardener, I've been amassing a stockpile of plants to add to the garden. I prefer to plant things soon after I bring them home, but sometimes things have to wait until key plants are acquired that need to be placed first before the rest of the plants in waiting can be placed. Such was the case with one bed in particular that I've been itching to work on for months.

This bed has been lackluster for some time. When I first planted it, I wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. I had an ample supply of Carex comans, so I basically covered the bed in a solid mass of carex, as you can see in the photo below.

However, I began to tire of the tangled mass of sedge, which looked rather untidy up close after a couple years as dead blades accumulated, giving the lush silver-green sedge a faded look. I had also planted most of them too close together, in an effort to achieve fast coverage. In that, I was too successful. As the plants grew, they pushed against and tangled with each other. The long flower stems especially gave it a disheveled look. I could (and have the last couple years) started cutting my Carex comans back annually in early spring to freshen them up, but one can only do so much of that. This winter, I took out a large amount of the sedge and raised the back side of the bed up almost 6 inches, because it's a low spot that gets very, very soggy in winter. I also decided that the bed needed to be expanded to improve the visual lines from one bed to the next. You can kind of see what I mean in the previous photo, though it's not very apparent from that angle. I think I extended the bed about 4 feet. That's the mostly bare area with no sedge in the photo below.

This bed had formerly been known as the snakebark maple bed, after the Acer metcalfii planted in it. I purchased this tree on my first visit to Far Reaches in 2014, with The Outlaw Gardener and the plant nut.  It was a wee stick when I brought it home and grew several feet the first two years after planting. 

The glossy, deep burgundy new leaves in spring always delighted. It would also produce a second flush of growth in summer, with even richer color. Last summer, it failed to produce this second wave of new growth on all but one or two branches, and those did not grow nearly as much as usual. Maybe it was just reaching a more mature phase where it only produced the single flush in spring. Maybe it was something else.

Unfortunately, it suffered bark damage early on, leaving two large scars on each side at the base of the trunk. I'd attributed one to sunburn, but the other has always been a mystery. They never did appear to be healing well. This winter, I noticed tiny red fungal fruiting bodies on one of the scars. I decided it might be best to remove the tree, rather than watch a potentially slow death. But I kept hesitating and putting it off.

Then I took a look at the branch structure. See that junction in the photo below? That's the biggest branch and trunk. Look closely and you'll see the beginnings of included bark. While not a death sentence, junctions with included bark are much more likely to split than one with excluded bark. So? A single branch with included bark, even a major one, isn't enough reason to remove a beautiful tree like this, is it? Ah, but then I looked at the other branch junctions. I found a repeating pattern of these kinds of joints, and they pretty much all had included bark. This tree was a disaster waiting to happen, once those branches grew large enough. I didn't want to constantly fight the tree as it continued to make such poor junctions. It was time for it to go.

Cutting the tree down, my suspicions were confirmed. In the photo of the stump below, you can see the darkened areas where verticillium wilt had infected and blocked the xylem, the tissue that carries water from the roots to the above-ground portion of the tree. Woody plants like trees have the ability to compartmentalize, blocking off infected areas to protect the rest of the tree. You can see how the dark part only fills one section of the trunk. This allows the tree to live on, even as the compartmentalized section eventually rots away. However, the blockade isn't always successful. The infection can break free on the inside and new infections can take hold from the outside. Both have happened in this case, circled in red.

I know I made the right decision to remove the tree now before the disease could move further up the trunk and spread spores to surrounding areas, but it still stung to cut it down. I felt a little sick taking it to the burn pile (don't put diseased plant material in the compost!). But, I had immediately planted a clumping bamboo, Fargesia robusta 'Wenchuan', in its new home next to where the maple had just come out. Walking back from the burn pile and seeing the bamboo leaves fluttering in the breeze made me feel much better. Bamboos (and monocots in general) are resistant or immune to verticillium, so it can safely inhabit the former root zone of the maple.

The leaves are much larger than most hardy clumping bamboo, giving it a lush, tropical appearance. The undersides are also a light blue-green shade, contrasting with the dark green upper surface. As the leaves flutter in the breeze, this contrast creates a beautiful effect.

Then it was time to tackle the rest of the bed! Ok, this photo was actually taken before I cut down the maple. You can see it in the back, with the bamboo just to the left. The three Trachycarpus fortunei 'Wagnerianus' in the photo below are a key feature of this bed and had to be placed before I could put in all those smaller plants waiting in front of the bed.

A mix of plants from Cistus, Xera, and Little Prince. As you can see, I'm keeping the color palette fairly simple, with shades of green. I selected plants for this bed primarily for texture.

A little fast-forward magic, and everything is planted!

It's not quite finished yet (is any garden ever?). An empty space on the right side, between the red and yellow Primula veris, awaits another bamboo, Fargesia sp. Jiuzhaigou I, commonly known as red dragon bamboo. A friend is giving me a division of his plant and I'm just waiting for him to have time to make the division. That spot will keep, but I really wanted to get the rest of these plants in the ground. The waiting area was getting a bit full, what with all the plants I'm growing for sale this year. And it just felt so good to get this bed planted. It'd been sitting there, staring at me, all winter.

Now let's look a little closer and break it down to show specific plants. Trachycarpus fortunei 'Wagnerianus', of course. I now consider this the palm bed, instead of the snakebark maple bed. To the left of the balm is a Beesia calthifolia (or deltophylla, apparently some confusion on the matter). To the right is Dryopteris sieboldii. And in front of the palm is Saxifraga stolonifera 'Maroon Beauty'. The Carex comans in the back was, of course, already there, as was the deciduous azalea just peaking in at the left. I want to say that one is 'Golden Lights', but I'm not sure at the moment.

Here, an orange Primula veris Sunset Shades dominates, with another Beesia in the back. A trio of Wulfenia x schwarzii to the left of the primose will eventually fill in and provide a beautiful purplish-blue counterpoint to the orange primrose. I plan to spread seeds of the primrose throughout the bed, and will take the plantlets which form at the base of the wulfenia flower stalks to do the same with it.

More beesia, with Acanthus mollis 'Hollard's Gold' in the back echoing Hosta 'The Shining' in the lower left corner. Another Saxifraga stolonifera variety, 'Cuscutiformis' will spread around in this area. The leaves on this variety are huge, around 4 inches across!

Amid more Carex comans, there now sit one of several Aspidistra elatior, another 'Hollard's Gold' acanthus in the back, a Schefflera delavayi to the left, and in the upper left corner a Woodwardia fimbriata.

At the base of the Fargesia, I planted these Luzula sylvatica 'Aurea'. I can't wait for them to fill in to make a glowing patch under the bamboo.

Already in the bed, I continue to be impressed that Blechnum penna-marina ssp. alpina can hold it's own against these wild strawberries, Fragaria virginiana. I'm a bit conflicted about the strawberries. They can get a little carried away and make things look messy, and I don't really want them escaping into the rest of the bed, which of course they're already doing. But They're a nice native, good for pollinators and ground-foraging birds alike.

This Aspidistra elatior has been growing in this bed for several years now. I relocated it to a higher spot in the bed to get it out of the muck in the low spot it was in. Maybe it will handle winter a bit better with the improved drainage. I got this plant as a division from a plant growing in a greenhouse I cared for in college, so it may not be the hardiest variety. Hopefully the plants I picked up at Little Prince are of hardier stock.

Of course I take a photo of this after pretty much all the blooms have dropped. Romanzoffia californica is a sweet little evergreen native to Oregon and California. It produces many plantlets on its flowering stems, so before planting the main plant here, I shook it around parts of the bed to drop the plantlets, rather like scattering seed. Hopefully it likes this bed and spreads.

I also planted a Blechnum hastatum, which I somehow managed to grow from spore I collected off of a Dicksonia squarrosa at Cistus Nursery. Well, that's the funny thing about growing ferns from spores. Sometimes you get surprises. I didn't get a single Dicksonia from that batch, but I got four of these. To the right is an Iris japonica [small form] from Far Reaches, which I've been spreading around. To the left of the Blechnum is another fern, Pteris wallichiana, that is a bit slow to wake, so you can only see a few old stems sticking up. I actually ended up breaking the first emerging frond, but it has more waiting.

I planted this section in February, dividing 'The Shining' hosta to spread it around the bed as well as a large clump of Acorus gramineus 'Ogon', which is growing back from the trim I gave it to remove brown, damaged leaf bits. Interspersed throughout are native Blechnum spicant, brought home from my visit to the Gerdemann Botanic Preserve where I had weeded them out where they weren't wanted. Deer fern as a weed seems like a wonderful problem to have, to me. The deer ferns are just starting to send up new fronds. Ahead of them are a couple lady ferns, Athyrium filix-femina, that snuck in with the deer ferns, and some ostrich fern, Matteucia struthiopteris, that had been planted previously (that I admittedly kind of forgot about when I dug out the Carex comans and covered the area with 6-8 inches of compost.

The fertile fronds of deer fern, bright red and green as they emerge, will age to blackish brown and dark green.

Also previously planted in this bed, Osmunda regalis 'Purpurascens'.

Two more new star-players in this bed: Stachyurus salicifolius, in front and just to the left of the palm in the photo below, and Disanthus cercidifolius 'Ena Nishiki', further back and further left.

Not specifically shown, though visible in at least one of the previous photos, were Pulmonaria longifolia var. cevennensis (newly planted), and the previously planted Azara microphylla, Eucryphia x nymansensis 'Nymansay', Mitraria coccinea, a nameless purple-flowered rhododendron, Saxifraga 'Dentata', Linnaea borealis, Cyclamen hederifolium, coum, and purpurascens, Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald 'n' Gold', a chartreuse-leaved Corylopsis spicata, a Camellia sasanqua seedling, and two Mahonia eurybracteata with varying degrees of silver.

But I didn't stop there. I also planted two Indocalamus tessellatus, a slowly spreading large ground cover bamboo with leaves that can grow up to 2 feet long. These I planted, appropriately, in the big-leaf bed. I had to spend over an hour before planting the bamboo, pulling clover and other weeds that I had allowed to take over. However, I only cleared out enough to plant the bamboos. Most of what you see cleared here was done by my father, who's been working to clean this bed up. Now the Asarum caudatum, Oxalis oregana, and Blue Haze acaena can breathe a little and fill in.

In another bed, I planted an Aucuba japonica 'Overlook'.

I strongly prefer this type of variegation of the speckled aucubas.

Before I could plant the aucuba, I had to dig and move a patch of Rubus lineatus. It did not appreciate the eviction. Luckily, it's such a tough plant I don't think I need worry that the pieces I moved will die. And if they do, I've got more.

I also planted several ×Fatshedera lizei 'Annemieke' grown from cuttings I got from The Danger Garden. One went in the same bed as the aucuba, and two went into the big-leaf bed.

But wait! There's more! Another bed that had been standing rather empty in the middle has been planted with an Osmanthus ×fortunei 'San Jose', Mahonia × media 'Lionel Fortescue', Leucothoe fontanesiana 'Girard's Rainbow', a variegated Podocarpus macrophyllus, several Polystichum munitum, and another ×Fatshedera lizei 'Annemieke'.

The podocarpus, at right, and one of the leucothoe. I also planted one in the big-leaf bed and the bed next to this one. They were a lucky find in the discount section at Tsugawa Nursery, $3 for gallon-size plants! I bought all five.

More planting! This Fargesia gaolinensis (which will likely be classified as a Borinda and have a different species name eventually) is a bit of an experiment, as its hardiness isn't well known. It was grown from a batch of seed (not by me) exported from China under various different names. Plants grown under this name have survived -12C (about 10F) in Europe, but the seed that grew into those plants may have been collected in a different location, or it was just luck of the genetic draw. This plant is reported to be a giant among hardy clumping bamboo, growing to 40 feet in its native environment. I'll consider myself lucky if mine achieves half that.

Despite the risk, I'm excited to be trialing this plant in my garden. The new culms are covered in a waxy blue powder that lasts over a year before being worn off. The older culms age to a wine red color with a bit of morning sun. Planted behind the shade garden on the far side of the driveway, this bamboo will hopefully thrive and help block out the ugly view of the neighbor.

Another experimental bamboo, Chusquea gigantea, is reputedly hardy to 0F, according to some sources. However, temperature isn't everything, and specimens of this plant have been known to die in less severe freezes. These two culms are also single culm divisions, which are notoriously difficult to keep alive in Chusquea. I didn't see much in the way of healthy roots when I planted them, but they had a little bit, the culms are slowly growing leaves from dormant buds, and the rhizome buds are firm and healthy. There is hope that these will grow into a 20-30 foot tall screen to block the neighbors.

Anyone who is part of the PNW Plant Geeks group on Facebook, or who reads the Plant Lust blog, will be familiar with this spot. I was seeking inspiration for a tree between these two rhododendrons, and wasn't sure if I was overlooking some special tree that I absolutely had to have. A lot of great ideas were tossed about. Originally, I was going to plant bamboo here, but decided the rhododendrons would need the space and even a small clumper would eventually get too wide at the base. I didn't want them to have to duke it out. So a tree, with a slender trunk and branches above the rhododendrons, seemed the better option.

What did I finally choose? Our native Acer circinatum, the vine maple. All those rare and unusual trees that were suggested in the Facebook group, and I chose the humble, common vine maple. Why? Well, one big reason was that I already had two in this area and repetition is always a good thing in a large garden. I had one more that I wanted to move anyway, so why go out and spend money on another tree when I already have something that will work? Another reason is that I simply love them. I find them extremely beautiful, when grown as they prefer, in a bit of shade and rich, woodsy soil, rather than the compacted soil and blazing sun of a parking lot. I still worry that this spot, which gets sun until about 2:00 pm, might be too sunny for it to achieve its full graceful potential, but I'm taking the risk. Originally, I thought I wanted a tree closer to 30 feet tall, but after looking at the location again, and the overhanging branches of the Douglas fir a little ways behind the bed, I realized even 15 feet would be sufficient. I think in this location the vine maple will easily achieve 15-20 feet. Oh, and I had to move 3 other plants to put this maple in. More shuffling.

No, I haven't finished yet. I finally decided on a spot for this Lomatia tinctoria, which I got last fall and kept in the greenhouse over winter.

But first I had to shift this Dasiphora fruticosa over about 3 feet. It's never as easy as simply digging a hole and putting the plant in, is it?

Or maybe it is. These Orlaya grandiflora were popped in quickly.

As was this Linaria reticulata.

It's so scraggly at the moment. Here's a close-up of the flowers. Hopefully this and the orlaya will reseed.

And that, I believe, was the extent of my weekend activities, aside from a bit of watering (ok, a lot of watering). There may have been some additional weed pulling or shuffling plants around. I don't remember. It was so good to get these all planted. My waiting area is nearly empty of plants waiting to be planted here. Most of what's there now are plants I'm growing to sell, though a few of those will be planted in the garden here, and a few will go to the spring plant swap held by my local garden blogging community.

As satisfying as it was, and still is, to get all those plants in the ground, I paid a price for it. The previous weekend, I had strained my neck and shoulders from increasing my morning workout, pushing a little too hard in the garden, and possibly doing contortions in my sleep (it's been known to happen). I was starting to recover by the end of the week, and then I went and did all this over the weekend. I'm still in recovery now. No heavy upper body exercise or intense gardening for me until my muscles stop shrieking at me for abusing them.