Something Old, Something New

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Mark Turner

This pretty little garden weed, which goes by the names Ground-ivy, Gill-over-the-ground, Creeping Charlie, or Field Balm (Glechoma hederacea) is one of the first plants I learned the name of when I was a kid. It grew at the edges of my dad’s garden in West Virginia … and it grows today in our garden in Bellingham on the other side of the continent. The name I use most often is Gill-over-the-ground because that’s how I first learned it, but out here in the west I don’t hear many people using that name.

Ground-ivy isn’t native to either the Appalachians or the Pacific Northwest; it’s another of many plant introductions from Eurasia. Continue reading →

Coming Attractions

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Mark Turner

One of the things I love about gardens is that they’re always changing. You might notice the difference from one day to the next, but over the course of a few days or weeks growth can be dramatic. Three years ago we planted this front yard native shrub and wildflower garden. It’s not 100% native, as you can see from the Grape Hyacinths and Geranium foliage at the bottom of the photo, but going native is our intent here.

This garden bed looks open and not all that exciting right now. However, there are going to be a lot of flowers soon. Continue reading →

Go Long or Go Wide? Variations on a Theme

Posted on April 10, 2020 by Mark Turner

As photographers, the lenses we choose can dramatically change the subject’s appearance in the finished photograph. I find that much of the time I fall back on my trusty 24-105mm zoom lens, which covers most of the subjects I photograph very well. But when I visited the patch of ‘Flore Pleno’ Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis ‘Flore Pleno’) in our woodland-edge garden yesterday evening I left “old trusty” in my bag and picked three different lenses as I explored this spring ephemeral. Continue reading →

Henbit

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Mark Turner

Henbit, also known as Purple Dead-nettle or Red Dead-nettle and in Latin as Lamium purpureum, is a unibiquitous garden weed in much of North America. It’s one of the first plants I learned as a child in my dad’s garden in West Virginia. Dead-nettle refers to the foliage vaguely resembling stinging nettle leaves, but dead-nettle doesn’t have any stiff stinging hairs. In fact, the foliage is soft and fuzzy to the touch.

It’s an easy plant to identify and a rather pretty weed. Look for the somewhat velvety, triangular shaped leaves surrounding the square stem (characteristic of members of the mint family). Small pinkish flowers are nestled among the foliage at the tip of the stem. The upper leaves are usually reddish-purple while the lower leaves tend to be more green. Continue reading →

Grow Your Own Wipes?

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Mark Turner

With people hoarding toilet paper and none to be found on our grocery store shelves, I’ve seen several Facebook posts about natural alternatives — plants you can use instead. One of those is our common weed, woolly mullein (Verbascum thapsus). It’s a ubiquitous plant, introduced to and growing in every state and Canadian province, according to the USDA PLANTS database. Continue reading →

On the Cusp

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Mark Turner

Our front yard native shrub and perennial garden doesn’t look like much this week. The shrubs are just starting to leaf out, we haven’t cut back all of last year’s penstemon stems, and there are weeds everywhere. That’s pretty much the nature of gardens in early spring. We gardeners know what’s coming and get out in the sunshine to clean up the mess so we can enjoy the blooms that will soon start appearing.

We began this part of our garden in earnest in 2017 when we had a big truckload of soil delivered. We spread it out to a depth of one or two feet to improve the drainage. Who would have thought that a gentle slope would be waterlogged most of the winter and into the spring?

In the photo above you can see some of the native shrubs we’ve planted — red-flowering, golden, swamp, and prickly currants; serviceberry; Douglas’s hawthorn; red-twig dogwood; birchleaf spiraea; and ninebark. Native perennials fill in the gaps. Continue reading →

Currant Anticipation

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Mark Turner

Golden Currant emerging foliage & flower buds

We’re enjoying balmy mid-50s sunny afternoons this week as we turn the corner from winter to spring. It’s still too early for many of our native (or non-native) plants to be blooming, yet we can be fairly sure that a profusion of blossoms isn’t too far away. Continue reading →

Sweet Smell of Spring

Posted on March 12, 2020 by Mark Turner

Purple-leaf Plum blossoms in red vase
We had guests over for dinner last Saturday evening and in preparation Brian went out to the garden and trimmed our big purple-leaf plum, along with a few sprigs of cornelian cherry, to make an arrangement for our dining room table. He chose an antique red vase that’s been in our family for decades. The plum blossoms were just starting to open on Saturday, but a couple of days later they’d opened fully.

The vase continues to sit where we can enjoy the flowers and the sweet fragrance of the blossoms. We’ll come close and stick our noses right up to the flowers and inhale deeply. It’s a pleasantly sweet aroma, but not overpowering.

Continue reading →

Northwest Flower & Garden Show 2020

Posted on February 26, 2020 by Mark Turner

The Northwest Flower & Garden Show is Seattle’s way of saying, “spring is near.” The show includes 17 delightful display gardens (see video below), hundreds of vendors, myriad free seminars on a wide range of gardening topics, and informational booths from many regional organizations, public gardens, and plant societies. The show runs from today (Wednesday, February 26) through Sunday, March 1 at the Washington State Convention Center in the heart of Seattle. You can buy tickets online or at the door. Continue reading →

Clear Winter’s Night

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Mark Turner

Birdfeeder & winter garden by moonlight — Birdfeeder and winter garden by moonlight

Last night when Brian and went to the kitchen for an evening snack we looked out the window to the garden and were surprised to see moonlight casting shadows. It was crisp and cold (mid 30s F), which is when we tend to get clear skies in the winter. I set up my tripod, mounted my camera, grabbed my puffy coat and a warm hat, and headed outside. The view above is from our patio, very much like what we saw from the kitchen window.