Gardening for the Future With Natives

Posted on June, 2017 by Mark Turner

When we moved to our studio property in 2014, we decided we wanted to incorporate many of our wonderful native plants into the garden. Natives are drought-adapted, hosts to native insects that provide food for birds and other animals, relatively low maintenance, and best of all, they’re pretty to look at. When we walk in the woods and see an environment full of plants we’re seeing many years of growth. In a garden setting, starting from scratch, it takes a few years to go from bare soil to lush growth.

New native garden — New native shrub & perennial bed in front of studio, with Golden and Prickly Currant, Swamp Black Gooseberry, and Scotch Bluebells.

Three years in, we’re making slow progress. In some places our new beds are starting to mature and look good. But garden ideas don’t always work as anticipated the first time around. Continue reading →

2017 Northwest Flower & Garden Show

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Mark Turner

Herbed Butter display garden

It may not have felt much like spring on Thursday, February 23 as I drove to Seattle for the 2017 Northwest Flower & Garden Show. There was a bit of fresh snow on the ground as I drove down I-5 for my annual fix of gardening inspiration. I’ve been going to the NWFGS for 20 years, sometimes as a speaker but more often just to enjoy the display gardens.

Continue reading →

A Little Cleanup

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Mark Turner

Before you press your shutter release, take a good look at what’s in your frame. Pause a moment and take care of any little details you see that might detract from your photo.

In this pair of photos of the daylilies growing by our back door, in the first frame you see all the spent blossoms. That might be OK if the story you’re trying to tell is that daylily blossoms don’t last long and they linger on the stems until they dry up and fall off. But if what you’re after is a nice photo of daylilies blooming, then I think the photo looks a lot better with the spent blossoms removed.

It’s always easier to clean up details like this before capturing the image. Imagine how much time it would have taken in an image editing program like Photoshop to remove the spent blossoms and replace them with plausible background material.

I apply the same principle when photographing people. Let’s get that cat hair off your jacket before I trip the shutter.

Plant of the Month: Pacific Willow

Posted on November, 2015 by Mark Turner

As I sit at my office computer I can look out the door to the large and majestic Pacific willow (Salix lasiandra var. lasiandra) in our backyard. It’s one of 38 species of willows found in Washington state and one of the easier ones to identify (willows in general are notoriously difficult to key out).

Our Pacific willow is one of the last trees on our property to lose its leaves in autumn. Today it’s still covered, although there are lots of fallen leaves on the ground, too. Continue reading →

Plant of the Month: Piggyback Plant

Posted on October, 2015 by Mark Turner

Now that our autumn rain has arrived, the forest floor in our woodland has sprung back to life. It’s almost like a second spring even though the trees are beginning to shed their leaves. Underfoot, piggyback plant (Tolmiea menziesii) has greened back up and is busy producing little plantlets atop nearly every leaf. Continue reading →

Sunset in Our Meadow

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Mark Turner

Tufted Hairgrass, Meadow Barley — Tufted Hairgrass and Meadow Barley with Sicklekeel Lupines

Last summer we planted a native seed mix instead of a traditional lawn in front of the studio. We got them from a contest we entered at WeedEatersCentral.com. It has a bit of a wild look, and now that the grasses and lupines are coming into bloom I think it’s becoming very attractive. The seed mix is called Coastal Grasslands and came from Sunmark Seeds in Oregon.

When I stepped out of the office at sunset last night I was immediately struck by how nice the grasses and lupines looked in the late afternoon light. I ran back inside and grabbed my camera and 70-200mm lens and went to work in the few minutes before the sun dipped below the horizon. Continue reading →

Plant of the Month: Redwood Sorrel

Posted on May, 2015 by Mark Turner

1003907 Redwood Sorrel foliage [Oxalis oregana]. VanDusen Botanical Garden, Vancouver, BC. © Mark Turner — Redwood Sorrel foliage

Redwood sorrel, Oxalis oregana, gets that common name because it grows prolifically under the giant redwoods in northern California. But you don’t have to have redwoods to grow this attractive groundcover. Other common names for this plant are wood sorrel and Oregon oxalis. In the wild its also common in the understory of low-elevation Douglas-fir forests. It is native from British Columbia to California. Continue reading →

Red-flowering Currant

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Mark Turner

A few days ago my friend Annie called to say her red-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) was about to burst into full bloom, inviting me to swing by and photograph it. She has a couple of nice shrubs against the fence in her backyard and when I visited on March 16 one of the two was in full bloom. Continue reading →

Plant of the Month: Witchhazel

Posted on February, 2015 by Mark Turner

Feathery tendrils of gold envelop rich red-purple centers, brightening a corner of the garden on dreary winter days and sending a heady sweet aroma wafting across the lawn. That’s what witchhazels (Hamamelis) will do for you. They’re one of my favorite shrubs for year-around interest in the garden, but especially in February as they come into bloom.

Witchhazels (sometimes written as two words, witch hazel) are shrubs or small trees that will ultimately reach about 15 feet tall and wide. They grow best in slightly acid to neutral, well-drained but moist soil. Plant them in full sun for the best growth form, although they’ll accept partial shade. Like many other plants, the more shade the more straggly and leggy the growth. Continue reading →

Alliums on the Cover

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Mark Turner

My friends at The American Gardener magazine selected one of my photographs of ‘Purple Sensation’ ornamental onions for the cover of the September/October 2014 issue.

The cover photograph was made in late May, 2010 at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia.

I have two more Allium photos inside the magazine on pages 14 & 16, plus one of western poison ivy on page 25. I’ve been contributing to The American Gardener since 1997. Thank you, David Ellis and Mary Yee, for continuing to choose my photography for the magazine.