Oceanside Garden

Gardener’s Log – June 2022

It has been a busy month in the garden, and I am certainly happy with the progress that has been made this year, despite the weather. It is funny because every day when I look at how much progress I make and I am disappointed. But when I look back over a month or two, I am amazed at how much I accomplished. To think that the work area out front, the Winter garden and the Mediterranean garden are all completely new this year (cleared from native undergrowth) and lots of progress in the Fairy garden, plus the Fuchsia wall. Some of the Fuchsia have just started to bloom, but I will wait until next month to feature what I have done there.

Garden Progress

Workspace

The front working area is now finished. All benches have been constructed, the coldframes are finished and the paths laid. While I know there will be tweaks over time, I am very happy with the way everything has turned out and it is far easier to work on the plants now, rather than having to bend over all the time. There has definitely been less damage done by deer, as they trample over the plants hey don’t like to get to the ones they do.

Mediterranean Garden

The pedestal for the sun dial in the Mediterranean garden has been built. We took a trip to the rock shop and I chose a large crushed rock which has very sandy colors as the mulch for this area. We just bought one back so that I could see how it looks and I am happy with it. The stones are about 1″ to 1 1/2″ and contain no fines, so hopefully it will act as a good mulch. I also think the colors pick up the ‘rust’ in the basalt used for the walls and to retain the slope, and yet still provide a contrast. Many more bags are required, next time we are in town.

Other areas

We also picked up some cut slabs of grey rock. This was also for a defined need and an experiment. The defined need was for the bridge in the Fairy garden. It has meant that I needed to get the bridge sides in and the waterfall liner put in before much of the waterfall has been constructed. That may be something I regret later.

I also tried replacing the slate slab on the top of the pedestal with a cut slab and it certainly did not look right. The rough slate is back, but that cut slab will not go to waste. These are the prime candidate for the paving material through the contemporary garden. With the front finished, demolition of that area will probably happen later this year. While I have plans, I also have some trepidation about how to deal with the terrain in that area.

What’s in Bloom

With so much in bloom this month, it is tough to know which ones to highlight, so I tend to favor plants that are new to me. This is the first year we had the native Iris douglasiana bloom and it certainly put on a good show for quite a few weeks.

Cistus have loved the weather this year and they are now full of blossoms. This is a new one to us and is a solid pink/magenta – Cistus x pulverulentus ‘Sunset’. It has more silvery, fuzzy leaves and the colors together make a very nice contrast.

Cistus x pulverulentus 'Sunset' — Cistus x pulverulentus ‘Sunset’

An existing plant that is doing very nicely this year is Fabiana imbricata. The long, swooping branches are filled with tiny blue trumpet flowers. It is an absolute picture.

Fabiana, imbricata 'Violacea' — Fabiana, imbricata ‘Violacea’

But the most favored bloom has to be the Banksia ericifolia ‘Compact Form. This is the first Banksia to bloom in the garden, and one of the few that survived the cold this winter. Half of the floral cylinder has been blasted by the cold, but the bottom half has fully opened. Glorious!

Weather Summary

At last, a weather month that behaved almost as it should. It was a little wetter and colder than last year, but not by a significant amount. This year, the high was 90, the low 45 and the average 56.6. Last year it was 101.8, 46 and 58. This year’s rainfall was 6.88″ compared to 1.93″. I will take that any year. The garden is certainly getting to the dry stage where water runs off the sand rather than penetrated into it.

Calendar

Gardener’s Log – May 2022

After an awful April, we had high expectations for May. April had record rainfall. May had even more! April was cold. May was only slightly warmer and considerably colder than previous years. While we did have a few dry days, there have not been many. Then for the last weekend of the month, we had the worst Winter storm of the year. All that means that progress has been slow, but not stopped entirely. Now we have June gloom to look forward to.

But not everything is bad. Some plants have been slowed down, but none-the-less are blooming well. Some plants have put on a much better show than they have in the past. This could be because they are a year older, or they had such a warm year last year, or the abundant rainfall this year. Not sure. For example, the Venus Dogwoods, that anchor the streambed garden, have had a couple of dozen flowers in previous years. This year, there are well over a hundred. They are about 2 to 3 weeks behind what we would typically expect. Rhododendrons have liked it.

Birds are an important part of the garden and at this time of year or resident birds are augmented with the migratory ones. I love it when the gold finches, western tanagers and other colorful birds come through. The other day they almost looked like flowers in the bush. Attracting birds requires several things. Along with food (both natural and supplemented with sunflower kernels), we provide water, and natural areas where they can get cover. For those that stay here, nesting boxes and materials.

Garden Progress

How many times have you finished up, after a long day of working in the garden, to be disappointed with the progress you made, even though you have the aches and pains to tell you that you expended serious energy? Of course, sometimes that energy was not perhaps used in the wisest of ways, but we all learn and sometimes have to relearn many times until we realize there must be a better way. But then, when we look back over a period of time, we are amazed at how much we accomplished.

That has certainly been the case with the garden this year, especially now that I can put in a few hours per day before I need the Ibuprofen.

Engine Room

The front continues to have its makeover. This is what many people would call the “engine room” of the garden and it is where all the growing and propagation happens, as well as quarantining plants as the come in, or just the time taken to decide where they are going to live. This transformation only started this year. Before that it was just a sea of gravel, a large, overgrown Escallonia hedge and plants sitting on the ground, making them difficult to care for, and often attempting to root into the gravel.

After installing the path being along the bench area on one side of the house, I decided it would be nice to extend it over to the other side. The frames for the cold frames are in. To help with thermal balancing, they are sunk about 8″ below grade. The path was then extended all the way to the emergency supply dump and eventually will go around the back of that to the compost bins. One bench remains to be built.

Mediterranean Garden

Some progress has also been made on the Mediterranean garden. The central feature is a sundial that has been placed on a pillar. It has been made to look like the greenhouse and then has a piece of slate on top that both softens the structure and also provides a color connection to the paths and rock walls. I hope to be able to get a few more things planted in there as soon as the weather allows.

I will need to cut down some of the Sambuca and Ironwood because they are both casting too much shade into the area at the moment.

What’s in Bloom

May has seen some outstanding Iris and Rhododendron blooms this year. Perhaps the most spectacular display has been from the Venus Dogwood trees. This year the number of flowers has increased dramatically.

Rhododendron 'Coral Mist' — Rhododendron ‘Coral Mist’

Weather Summary

This May has been the coldest and wettest May we have ever had here – by far. I looked back over all the years we have been here, and we have gone from just having an inch of rain to a maximum of 5″. This month, we recorded 13.22″. As for temperature, the average appears to be around 55F and this year we could only manage 50.3F. The highs were also low and infrequent. This year, we only managed to break the 60F mark three times. Last year, even with 10 days where the weather station was not functional, we doubled that number. The year before, 20 days were above 60F.

Calendar

Gardener’s Log – April 2022

While Mark Twain is inaccurately attributed with a statement about the bad weather in San Francisco supposedly saying: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” I can now categorically state that the worst winter we ever had in Oceanside, Oregon, was April 2022. The month has been atrocious in just about every manner. It has been cold and wet, including snow and hail. Hardly a day when it became possible to make much progress in the yard.

While conditions are not tracked here, Portland may have its wettest month for any April. They were in the top ten when barely half-way through the month. Snow has snarled the city and brought hundreds of trees down. The weight of the snow captured by slowly opening buds and blossoms caused havoc. The city is saying will take weeks to clean up.

Garden Progress

Still, a small amount of progress has been made. More land for the Mediterranean garden has been cleared. I had hoped that it would be getting more sun than it actually seems to be getting. The large Douglas Firs next door are blocking most of the sun and it is certainly not getting “full sun”. Perhaps it will have to become a Mediterranean semi-shade garden.

You can get a feel for the steepness of the ground when you see the bare soil here. The height difference here is almost 6 feet across the span of 10 feet. To make matters worse, at the far end, the lower point is even lower while the upper point has risen slightly, making it almost a 1:1 grade

Visits

While not a lot of progress was made outside, we did utilize a dry but grey day to take a visit to Dancing Oaks nursery in Monmouth. This is a nursery that has many unique and hard to find plants. The proprietors make international trips and bring new plants back with them. These are plant rarely found in the U.S. nursery trade. Towards the end of last year, they made a trip to England and brought back a number of plants. They are now trialing and maybe will make available in a few years.

What made this visit even more special was the small number of other people who are yet to venture out to the nursery. With only a few other visitors, we managed to make wonderful use of one of the owners (Thanks Fred). Fred not only helped us find plants on our list, but also imparted his wisdom about plants that would do well under our extreme growing conditions. We came back with many new plants and good feeling about plants that we had shunned because we were concerned about the potential for them escaping into our habitat.

Manzanita and Dicentra at Hunter Arboretum

That visit also resulted in a wander around the Hunter Botanical garden in Dallas, Oregon. There is a write up about that here. A true delight hidden alongside the city park.

On the last day of the month, a plant pop-up in Wheeler and a visit to the Wonder Garden in Manzanita raised the spirits. I shall have to write about the Wonder Garden in the near future. It has much the same climate as we do and a lot of plants in common. Given that they are a volunteer run garden (as is the Hunter Arboretum) I did drop them off a plant that may do well for them – Grevillea juniperina ‘Pink Lady’ This is the plant that got me started collecting Grevillea.

What’s in Bloom

The cold weather has slowed things down this year. But there is a bright side. It means that while some plants have been delayed, others have remained in bloom longer than they would in a more typical year. One Grevillea has been blooming its heart out for most of the month is Grevillea lavandulacea ‘Penola’. It has been loaded with its bright red to magenta flowers that are set off so well against the silvery foliage.

Grevillea lavandulacea 'Penola' — Grevillea lavandulacea ‘Penola’

There is so much to love about Prunus serrulata ‘Kanzen’, the flowering cherry tree. It sits across from the tea house. The coppery color of the new foliage that crowns the double pink blossoms is stunning. This year, not only have the blossoms lasted much longer, but it is the first year that the deer did not tear the tree apart trying to eat them.

Another outstanding plant this month has been Rhododendron x yakushimanum ‘Gold Prinz’. Rhodies do not do well for us. We planted a bunch of them when I first started to create the garden here. But they were one of the plants that told us we were going to have to think differently because they suffer during our dry summer. But this year Gold Prinz has put on quite the show. The buds really do start off an intense red and the final form of the blossom is a pale yellow.

Rhododendron yakushimanum 'Gold Prinz' — Rhododendron yakushimanum ‘Gold Prinz’

Weather Summary

As I said at the beginning, it was a long, cold, wet month. Let’s start with the temperature. While individual days can be really nice in April, not this year. Last year, we had four days over 70 and one over 80. This year, that total would be none. In fact, the average temperature across the whole month was 3.5°F colder. Last year, the average was 49.8 and this year a measly 46.3.

But that is nothing compared to the rainfall comparisons. Last year, we had 1.35″ of rain. This year it was 10.81″. Our last rain event of this year gave us over 2″ of rain. That is more than the whole months total from last year! I hope that makes some of the plants happy, but then again I know that one day after rain, the soil is starting to dry out.

The anemometer remains broken, so please ignore wind speed.

General

Hidden Treasure: Hunter Arboretum in Dallas Oregon

A few weeks ago, I received an Oregon and Southwest Washington Road Map, produced by the Oregon Associations of Nurseries. It contains many retail nurseries and garden centers, as well as public gardens in the region. While it certainly does not contain all nurseries, I thought it was a good resource to keep in the car. To get your copy, click here.

While getting ready to visit Dancing Oaks Nursery in Monmouth, we checked the map to see if there were any other nurseries in the area worth visiting.

What we found was the Delbert Hunter Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Dallas. We have driven through Dallas many times and were not aware of his garden and so hadn’t really expected much. It is nice when you go in with low expectations and come out being surprisingly impressed. The arboretum, founded in 1983, is situated on one end of the city park. It covers an area of 7 acres, divided into a number of sections and themes.

Rickreall Creek

The site sits next to La Creole Creek, later renamed as Rickreall Creek, and a couple of rapids along its length means your trip through the arboretum has running water as the backdrop. That immediately provides a sense of calm. The land was sculpted by early logging activities that scoured out new channels so that logs could be floated down river. Over time, that damaged the river and Delbert Hunter was the driving force behind its restoration.

Trails

Today, the young arboretum has seven trails, such as the meadow trail, dogwood loop, Oregon grape loop and the flume trail. There are also small inset gardens like the Lewisia garden, and fern garden. Most of the major plants have easy read signs, and they are certainly up to date with naming – replacing Mahonia with Berberis.

For our visit, the arboretum floor was a tapestry of wood hyacinths, trillium and fawn lilies. Trees were just coming into bud and some of the dogwoods were blooming. Adding to the color were Dicentra, Oregon Grape, Ribes and more. It was a true delight.

So, if you find yourself in the vicinity of Dallas, Oregon and have an hour to spare, give this small, hidden, volunteer run arboretum a visit. I know I will back to see it at different seasons.