GLORIOUS GARLIC

Glorious Garlic One of the smallest and nicest farm stands in Eugene can be found in the courtyard of the Excelsior Inn on 13th Ave. It is operated each Friday, July through October, by Angela Andre, manager of Excelsior Farm. When Andre’s garlic caught my eye, it was the first I’d heard of Excelsior Farm. In the fall of 2009, the owner of the Excelsior Inn and Restorante, Maurizio Paparo, turned a five acre pasture on his property into a farm to supply the restaurant with fresh organic eggs and produce. He hired Andre, a veteran organic farmer, to set up and manage the farm. By summer 2011 they were producing enough to supply the farm stand and to offer CSA shares. Since the farm got started in fall, one of the first things Andre planted was garlic. How appropriate for an Italian-inflected restaurant, and what glorious, succulent garlic Andre grows! Since I am just beginning to grow garlic, I asked her to tell me something about her methods. It seems that garlic is pretty easy to grow and not much bothered by disease, but it isn’t foolproof. A prolonged, hard freeze can kill garlic. The commonest problem, though, is mold, caused by too much moisture retention around the bulb. The cold, wet spring of 2011 destroyed a lot of garlic in the Willamette Valley. The best insurance against rot is to grow garlic in loose soil in raised beds. Andre’s soil is a good sandy loam, which she forms into raised rows with a small, custom built hiller. She plants garlic from mid- to late- September through the middle of October. “You want to get it in before it rains,” she says. The most important amendment for garlic, Andre told me, is phosphate-rich bonemeal, which is worked into the soil before planting. (Andre uses a custom mix of blood meal, bone meal and kelp) Individual cloves of garlic are planted 8-12 inches apart. Once the garlic sprouts, and before any freezing weather, she mulches with used horse bedding (coarse sawdust with roughly 1 percent manure) and she’ll give the garlic a foliar feed when it shoots up in spring. I grew a little garlic myself last year, mainly for a spring supply of young ‘green’ garlic, which is garlic harvested in an immature state, before the bulbs are fully formed. I’ve developed a real fancy for the stuff. I particularly like it for the subtle flavor and unctuous quality it imparts to green herby sauces that are good with fish. If you enjoy green garlic, it is well worth planting some just for that purpose: it’s expensive at the market, and you can harvest it in time to use the space for summer crops. And you don’t have to worry about curing it Maturity and proper curing are crucial factors in determining how well and how long the garlic will store. Garlic heads are usually ready for harvest sometime in July or early August, when the lower leaves begin to yellow and wither. Hardneck varieties, like the big, succulent Chesnok heads I admired at Andre’s farm stand, produce a flowering stalk (the ‘whistle’) that emerges from the center of the bulb and eventually becomes woody. These varieties are relatively early to mature and have a shorter shelf life than softneck garlic, which produces no whistles and is the type used for braiding. Andre harvests hardnecks in July, cures them for three weeks and expects the bulbs to keep until December. Properly cured softneck garlic will keep up to 9 or 12 months, depending on variety. Here’s a useful quote from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds: “When harvesting Garlic, take extra care not to bruise the bulbs. Gently shake or brush off most of the soil and then transfer the plants - with stems still attached - to a cool, dry area out of direct sunlight. Spread the plants out in a single layer; good air circulation during the curing process is very important. Garlic bulbs should cure for about a month. The process is complete once the stem is completely dry all the way down to the head. Cut the stems off about an inch above the top of the head and put the heads into a mesh bag or basket. Any bulbs that haven’t dried properly or show signs of decay should be used up first. Store Garlic in a dark place with relatively low humidity. Ideal storage temperature is a chilly 35 to 40 degrees F. Maintaining a consistently cool temperature will prevent sprouting.”

Baby Steps

I’ve put in many years of gardening, but when it comes to growing vegetables in the Willamette Valley I am pretty much a novice. Last year I took some baby steps, following our move, in the fall of 2009, to a sunny house and garden already equipped with several board-sided, 8’ by 4’ raised beds. Broccoli, string beans and carrots were flourishing there when we moved in, which was encouraging.

2010 was a very busy year, and my vegetable gardening was sporadic and unplanned. But thanks to those raised beds I made a start, and learned a good deal in the process. For one thing, I learned that it is well worth seizing any short, dry, mild patch of weather in February, even if the weather that follows is wet, cold and miserable. I also learned that however poorly you grow potatoes, you may get something out of it. And I learned that adequate soil fertility is absolutely vital to edible, productive crops. I won’t pretend I’ve mastered how to achieve it.

I learned that I won’t be able to grow spinach at all unless I take serious action against slugs and snails; that taking the trouble to plant seed at an appropriate density may be less tedious that thinning the seedlings; and that you should stake your peas before they fall over. I also discovered that growing from purchased starts instead of seed is convenient but expensive, and should be reserved for things like broccoli and kale that produce useful amounts of food from a handful of plants over a long period.

There were some marked successes. Most, not surprisingly, were with things that routinely appear on ‘easy to grow’ lists, such as peas, kale, lettuce grown from transplants. The peas I sowed in mid February were Super Sugar Snap (Territorial Seed Company) which has very thick, fleshy pods. I didn’t particularly like the large pod to pea ratio when they were cooked. Luckily, we and all our friends greatly enjoyed eating the pods raw. The red, oval radishes (incorrectly labeled French Breakfast) germinated readily and grew to a delicious third of an inch long, then stopped growing and turned woody. Nothing would get them going again. A friend mentioned that radishes must never dry out, but these seemed to need more than unfailing moisture. I suspect the problem was lack of available nutrients in still-cold soil.

Early summer transplants of Red Russian kale are still producing to this day, and the worst challenge they ever faced was from aphids. September transplants of black Italian kale yielded periodic crops all winter (for yummy pasta with greens, oil and garlic) and are clearly poised to make a forest of tender sprouts as the weather warms. I had less luck with chard, which suffered a nasty attack of leaf-mining borers in late summer and fall. I thought the leaves might outgrow the borers with ample liquid food and water, but that didn’t work. The only fix appeared to be a floating row cover.

Broccoli planted in late summer just didn’t grow much. I think that brassicas (excepting kale) need more soil fertility than my old raised beds provided, even with a generous allowance of balanced fertilizer at planting time. This year I’ll try manure before planting in addition to fertilizer, and maybe some Azomite. I suspect my long experience growing perennials in fertile clay-loam spoiled me, and I simply cannot conceive of the amount of fertilizer a veggie may require. Fertility early In the year while soils are cold is a common problem for organic gardeners. Some kind of liquid fertilizer is the best remedy for that.

Totally fresh salad greens, year-round if possible, are a high priority for me. One of my happiest discoveries last year was Sylvetta Wild Arugula (also from Territorial) which is somewhat like the kind you get in European restaurants. It was slow to germinate and slow to grow. But it was also slow to bolt, and although quite peppery it never became inedibly hot in summer as common rocket can. (That common rocket, self sown in fall, seems to be the one to grow through the winter, though.)

I’ve been eating corn salad (also known as mache) all winter. I sowed some seed last spring, and the plants promptly bolted. But the prolific seeds they yielded germinated wildly as the weather cooled in fall, and the plants continued to grow steadily without protection. I like to mix the little mache plants with the lushest rosettes I can find of that annoying weed, little bittercress, which equals mache for cold hardiness and is just beginning to bloom. Some people find it too strong, but I like it in moderation. But as my husband could tell you, we like our salads rugged.

Survive and Thrive

The Good Earth Home and Garden Show is coming up in Eugene this month. One of the scheduled speakers is Carol Deppe, Corvallis plant breeder, expert gardener and an authority on duck keeping. Deppe will also be signing her latest book, The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-reliance in Uncertain Times, published by Chelsea Green. This exciting book could hardly be more timely. The uncertain times of the title extend from personal adversity to the shared uncertainties that now confront all of us.
Widespread financial insecurity. An industrial food supply that denies us proper nourishment. Global climate change that promises shortages of food and water and an increase in ‘natural’ disasters.

Not surprisingly, people are increasingly interested in growing some of their own food - it’s a way of exercising some level of control in our lives. Maybe it just means having something in the garden to fall back on if we forget to shop for greens, or a bed or two of something special that is prohibitively expensive to buy. A small but growing band of gardeners are producing a substantial portion of their food supply. Whatever our level of gardening, Deppe points out, most of us still garden for the good times. She wants us to prepare for the challenges that must come sooner or later, including wild weather, special dietary needs, failing strength, and unavailability of inputs (water, fertilizer, fuel, even seed). So diet, health, labor and exercise, tools, soil and fertility, watering and seed saving are all addressed with this very smart author’s characteristic depth and thoughtfulness.

Deppe’s book lays out in great detail how to grow, store and use “the five crops you need to survive and thrive – potatoes, corn, beans, squash and eggs.” Many people could get by without the eggs, but Deppe believes (based on her own experience) a purely vegan diet is not for everyone. Each of these staples gets a chapter to itself. Other crops are discussed in earlier chapters, often with valuable insights you won’t find anywhere else. Chapter notes include references to books that provide more basic gardening know-how.

There’s not much point in growing something if you don’t know how to store it successfully, or get it to the table in a palatable form. Deppe grows several varieties of her staple plant foods, both for flavor variety and because some are good for one thing, some another. Some corn varieties, for instance, are good for polenta, some for baked goods. Why corn, not wheat? Deppe is gluten intolerant and highly allergic to wheat, and she has lots of experience with alternatives, especially corn: “delicious, traditional corn varieties,” that is, not the modern hybrid corn of agribusiness. But she also explains that corn is much easier to grow and harvest than other grains, and gives a higher yield than all crops except potatoes.

Potatoes reign supreme among staple foods for their ease of production, versatility and nutritional value. They are a good source of high quality protein as well as calories, and can be grown in areas too cold and wet to grow grain, and on poorer soils. Remarkably, Deppe grows potatoes without irrigation, and her storage method is about as simple as you could imagine. The chapter on potatoes is one of the most densely useful pieces of gardening literature I’ve ever read, not least for its treatment of potato diseases, how to avoid them how to spot them and what to do about it.

I asked Deppe, by e-mail, why she didn’t include rabbits in her brief discussion of meat animals. She replied giving several reasons in great detail, adding, “I didn't have the room or the personal experience....And The Resilient Gardener was designed to cover certain topics in much greater detail than they are normally covered, not to be yet one more superficial treatment giving just a little bit about everything.” That is the strength of The Resilient Gardener: its wealth of detail of the kind that reflects a lifetime of experience, carefully observed. If sometimes, just sometimes, the level of detail seems a bit over the top, that’s easily forgiven. I’m confident that everyone, beginner or expert, will learn from this book and feel better prepared to carry their gardening to a new level.

A CALL TO ACTION

Once in a while, something you’ve known for a long time suddenly hits home with a force you never felt before. I was loading up some plants at Doak Creek Native Plant Nursery when the nursery’s proprietor, Cynthia Lafferty, handed me something she wanted me to read. It was the cover story in a trade publication from Fourth Corner Nurseries in Bellingham, WA, entitled Gardening for Life. The article was written by Dr. Douglas Tallamy, a professor of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware.

Lafferty had been shocked by some statistics cited in Tallamy’s article, and so was I. Fifty four percent of the land area of lower 48 states is now in towns and suburbs. We’ve connected them with 4 million miles of roads, the paved surface of which, Tallamy says, is “nearly five times the size of New Jersey.” Forty one percent of the remaining land is under some form of agriculture. (That number that is actually shrinking, as suburban sprawl continues at the rate of over 2 million acres a year.) Add up those numbers. That means we have taken over 95% of nature and made it unnatural. Ninety five percent.

Much of the land that’s left is in small fragments and is impacted by humans to some degree, including some of the paltry 2.6% of the lower 48 that’s in designated wilderness. Fragmented land is especially prone to degradation and loss of species, as creatures become more vulnerable to unfamiliar predators and alien plants move in. Alien plants have invaded 100 million acres of land across the United States, an area that is expected to double in the next five years. Alien plants too often out-compete natives, forming monocultures that don’t provide what local wildlife needs to survive.

If you believe that biodiversity matters, these are shocking numbers. Species have been shown to disappear, over time, in direct proportion to habitat loss. No wonder a third or more of birds native to the US are in rapid decline. At this point, a major loss of biodiversity is already under way, especially in the densely developed eastern states. Tallamy says 40% of Delaware’s plant species are rare or extinct, and 41% of its forest birds no longer nest in the state. What Tallamy wants us to understand, though, is that gardeners are in a position to make a real difference. There is ample evidence that wildlife can coexist with humans, if humans are willing to manage their environment to accommodate wildlife.

The entire food chain rests on the photosynthetic ability of plants. Animals either eat plants, or they eat other animals that do. The largest group of animals that convert plant food into animal food is insects. And insects sustain much of the rest of the food chain, including 96% of terrestrial birds. So many animals depend on insects for food that “removing insects from an ecosystem spells its doom,” Tallamy says. Human-dominated landscapes could support far more insects, and more biodiversity, than they do at present. Look at our 40 million acres of mown grass. All the lawns that represents, and most of the plants around them, contribute very little in the way of habitat for insects.

What we need is native plants, and lots of them. Tallamy’s research shows that native trees and other plants support 29 times more biodiversity than non-native ornamentals do. That’s not because those ornamentals are inherently less useful to animals: where those plants are native, they support animal life as well as our own native plants do here. The point is that, with a few exceptions called generalists, the insects within a given ecosystem depend for food on the species with which they evolved. Even the generalists can utilize a greater variety of native plants than non-native. This story is laid out persuasively in Bringing Nature Home, a book authored by Tallamy and published by Timber Press.

Loss of biodiversity through habitat destruction may be as great a threat to humanity as global climate change, and we are not doing a great job of minimizing either. Unlike with climate change, however, the results of individual human efforts to help preserve biodiversity in gardens are readily observable. Native plant gardeners report more insect visitors, more birds, more salamanders, lizards and frogs. Yes, some of their plants get eaten, but that’s the point.

The article by Douglas Tallamy, Gardening for Life, is available on line. Go to http://bringingnaturehome.net and click on About Native Gardening.

Backyard Asparagus

Europeans have a preference for fat, white asparagus spears, usually canned. I prefer mine green, thin and fresh. White asparagus is not a special kind. It has been blanched by piling soil over the emerging shoots. Light turns the spears green. Diameter, in turn, has less to do with variety than with the age of the patch and when the spears are harvested. Early in the season, spears are fatter. I’ve heard that the fattest spears are produced only for a plant’s first few years of productivity, from primary buds. A well prepared bed can be productive for 15 years.

I like to eat asparagus, but until I visited Tom and Victoria Schneider’s garden a few years ago I had not thought very much about how to grow it. It was the end of March, and the Schneiders’ five year old asparagus bed was putting up big, fat spears. Tom Schneider picks all the shoots until they diminish to the thickness of a pencil. That’s almost two months of a delectable gourmet treat, which no doubt makes the initial work and wait worthwhile.

Asparagus is usually planted in the form of dormant crowns, available at garden centers in early spring. But the best time to prepare a new asparagus bed is now, when soils are at their most workable. Our climate is not the best for growing asparagus, since wet winter soil can cause the roots to rot. The plants prefer deep, rich soils that drain well in winter. The surest way to achieve that is to build a raised bed. Steve Solomon, creator of Territorial Seed Co. and author of Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, suggests it should be four feet high and wide, but many gardeners grow asparagus successfully in beds lower and narrower than that.

Books recommend that you plant asparagus on the west or north side of the garden so that it will not shade other crops. Tom Schneider‘s bed is up against a south facing fence. “One of the things I like about that location,” he says, “is that it catches the early spring sun and warmth. Also, after harvesting is over and the ferns are growing, I can rope them up against the fence to keep them out of the path, and out of the more productive areas of the garden.”

Start by building a raised bed, with or without boards, of purchased sandy loam or your own good, weed-free soil. Work in as deeply as you can an inch or two of compost, a pound of dolomite lime and a pound of rock phosphate or bonemeal per 10 feet of row. Cover the new bed with more compost or leaves, and perhaps with a tarpaulin to keep it dry over the winter. Since an asparagus bed is a long term proposition, it should start out free of all perennial weeds and be weeded religiously thereafter.

Recommended planting times vary from February to April, taking into account the condition of the soil. There is no advantage to planting the crowns early in cold, wet soil, because they won’t grow until the soil warms, and they are more susceptible to rot if exposed to cold, wet soil too long. In spring, work in a cup and a half of complete organic fertilizer per ten feet of row. Dig a wide trench no deeper than 5 or 6 inches. (Deeper planting was suggested at one time, but research has shown that the deeper planting reduces the yield.) Space the crowns about a foot apart in the row and spread out the roots. Backfill the trench part way; add more soil as the shoots extend.

The crowns you buy will be a couple of years old, and it will be a couple more before you should harvest anything. Let all the shoots develop into tall, feathery ‘ferns’. By the third year after planting the shoots should be thicker and more numerous, and you can harvest them for about 3 weeks, snapping off the shoots at soil level.
In a wet climate like ours, Shneider and others suggest that the top growth should not be allowed to winter over. Cut down the ferns in November or December and mulch the row heavily with manure or compost. Asparagus will not do well if the pH is less than 6.0, so every few years you will need to add another pound of lime per 10 feet of row, in fall. After the spring harvest, fertilize with 1-2 cups of organic fertilizer per ten row feet. Asparagus is a heavy feeder!

ABUNDANCE

I looked at the Shiro plum tree in our garden, its branches literally encrusted with fruit like some kind of parasitic infection, and thought of Tom Schneider. Tom and his wife Victoria are experienced gardeners with an interesting history. Among other things, they spent 15 years living off the grid in Haida Gwaii (formerly known as Queen Charlotte Islands, BC) where they learned about foraging from the Haida people. I met Schneider one April a few years ago for the purpose of foraging for wild nettles. On the way back we stopped in at the Grassroots Garden on Coburg Road, and shared in a delicious lunch prepared in the outdoor kitchen from Grassroots produce by a young chef named Laura.

More recently, Schneider shared with me some thoughts about serious food gardening; that is, growing food as a substantial contribution to one’s own sustenance. He told me he has come to believe that gardening is “a 1/3-1/3-1/3 effort. Soil preparation and planting is one third of the effort. Watering, weeding, and growing is one third of the effort. But I find many folks when they plant don’t adequately plan for the final third of the effort, which is getting the food they grow from the harvest basket to the plate and fork.”

Schneider asserts that the sheer magnitude of the harvest in the summer and early fall can take the joy out of gardening for new gardeners. ”Before you put a seed in the ground, you need to develop progressive strategies, whether it be for eating fresh, freezing or canning. Or simply finding somewhere to put produce you can’t use today, like a second refrigerator or a root cellar or some other cool space. You need baskets to harvest into, flat surfaces to sort the harvest, maybe space and equipment for canning and drying. And budgeting time for these tasks that will get the food to your plate is essential.” Schneider’s rule of thirds is not just about planting, it’s a way of life.

People vary in their approach to feeding themselves year round. Some put more effort into preserving the summer harvest of fruit and vegetables, while others put more emphasis on always having something growing in their garden beds. Back in August, Schneider pointed out that the period between Aug 15 and the end of September is the most important of the planting season. “What a person does during those six weeks will determine what the garden will produce for the next six months, when fresh stuff is more expensive. Having fresh cilantro at Thanksgiving, and crops to protect with those simple hoops we use (see Head Start, Eugene Weekly, February 11, 2010) depends on not being overwhelmed with the final third of getting the summer's abundance to the table or freezer. Zucchini is cheap now in the Farmers Market or at your local farm stand.”

So perhaps, rather than trying to keep up with zucchini in August, you should have been making space in the garden to sow cilantro or winter chard. And I should have been clearing out a bed for winter salad greens and another bed of kale, instead of fretting about what to do with an overabundance of Shiro plums, which are not my personal favorites. And another thought: should I even keep that plum tree, and spend time picking plums just to give them away? Or would it be better to use the space for a freestone Italian plum I would really enjoy? Surely part of that final third of the effort should assure that you don’t waste precious space and water on things that your family won’t eat.

So plant things you, your family and friends enjoy. Plant only as much as you think you can use and have time to harvest and process. Spread the harvest out by making smaller plantings progressively, or by planting fruit and vegetable crops that mature at different times. Plan an early start by making at least a couple of raised beds that will warm up fast. You can sow peas, radishes and salad greens as early as February, and that space will come available again in time for warm weather crops.
And while most of us will never have an outdoor kitchen like the one at Grassroots Garden, it sure would make harvesting easier and cleaner to have a table and outdoor sink, however primitive, for sorting, trimming and preliminary cleaning. Next to the compost area, perhaps.

All-Americans

Flip through Native Plants for North American Gardens by Allan Armitage and two things quickly become obvious. One, Northwest natives are not very well represented in this book. Two, a surprising number of the border plants we traditionally grow in gardens are native to some part of North America. Aster, coreopsis, phlox, penstemon, echinacea, rudbeckia, tall lobelia, liatris all originate in North America, most of them in the prairies and meadows of eastern NA, where rain can occur at any time of year.

Although many of these plants are moderately drought tolerant, they have not evolved with regularly dry summers. They do not need to complete their yearly growth cycle before mid-summer, as many Willamette Valley natives do. So many of them bloom in summer, even in late summer. No wonder gardeners value them. Many have been subjected to breeding programs in the US and, especially, Europe, with a goal of selecting new colors and plant forms, or bigger or more elaborate flowers and so on. These cultivars have their uses, but gardeners who appreciate the unique qualities and special grace of plants selected by nature herself will tend to prefer the original version.

This natural look is the best argument I can think of for seeking these plants out.
It isn’t easy to come up with a convincing argument for making a garden exclusively of American natives. If you plant things that do not naturally occur in your region, why stop at the boundaries of one continent? But some of the lesser known North American natives, in particular, make charming additions to any perennial garden, and if they originate in places where it routinely rains in the summertime, they’ll adapt well to a conventional watering regime that supports a variety of garden perennials. Here are a few of my personal favorites. All of them should look at home mixed in with Northwest natives that tolerate the same conditions.

Amsonia tabernaemontana (Eastern blue star flower)
Willow leafed amsonia (A. t. var. salicifolia) has narrow leaves, giving the plant a particularly graceful look. It grows to about 2 feet. Amsonias bloom in late spring or early summer, with flowers in a cool, pure blue. The foliage turns gold in autumn. Another species, A. hubrichtii, has even narrower leaves. According to Armitage, this has the best fall color, but it is taller and may need staking.

Gillenia trifoliata (bowman’s root)
This is one of my favorite plants. Reddish, wiry stems and pretty foliage look especially handsome as the plant emerges in the spring. A haze of airy, pinky-white flowers soon follows, hovering about the plant like so many skimpy moths. This graceful plant is a good companion to showier flowers such as lilies, but is not very drought tolerant.

Helenium autumnale (dogtooth daisy)
The wild type, like taller cultivars, can grow to 4 or 5 feet in gardens. In lush conditions, and without a mass of prairie grass to hold it up, it often falls over, and not in a pretty way. It is worth holding out for shorter selections of this plant (such as Wyndley Copper, 30 inches, blooming now). Varieties are available with flowers in yellow, bronze or rusty red and seem to require less water than black eyed Susans (rudbeckia).

Thermopsis villosa (or T. caroliniana) (Carolina false lupine)
This was, for some reason, one of the first plants I put in my Midwestern garden years ago, and I’ve grown it ever since. Think of it as an early blooming, light yellow lupine. It grows to about three feet.

Veronicastrum virginicum (culver’s root)
As the name implies, this is related to veronica, but it is more architectural: whorls of leaves march up tall, stately stems, the tips of which bear white, lavender or pale pink spires of little flowers in summer. Entirely self supporting in sun, and an excellent, carefree addition for the back of a border.

I have grown all these plants in Eugene for several years. They are not particular about soil and all tend to grow productively for years without division. Some may be difficult to find locally, though I purchased all of them, at various times, from retail nurseries in Eugene.

Common Ground

I must thank this year’s BRING Home and Garden Tour for getting me over to the Common Ground Garden. Billed as the first neighborhood garden in Eugene growing on a city street, it all started when Anne and Chris Donahue began growing food on a city right of way next to their yard on the west side of Van Buren Street in SW Eugene. Anne Donahue had been mowing that strip of grass for years when, five or six years ago, an idea came to her. Why not use it to provide food for area residents? Pretty soon there were 11 tomato plants and a 50 foot row of beans growing there. “It seemed a wonderful way to give back to the neighborhood,” she says.

A couple of years back, Carlos Barrera, a member Friendly Neighborhood Famers (FNF), said to Donahue “What about the plot across the street?” “Well, it’s a beautiful spot for a vegetable garden,” she responded, “but I can’t do it.” No time, no energy to spare. Doug Black, also a member of FNF, says there was talk about doing something there for years, but things came to a head after he and Katie Lewis brought a 2009 Green Neighbors Bike tour through the area. “We were standing at Annie’s looking at that big, gaping unpaved right of way across the street,” Black says. Donahue remembers him telling the crowd “One day we’ll have a community garden on that site.”

By September, Donahue was resigned to the fact that the garden had to happen. But she worried about where the energy would come from, and whether there would be enough people to take it on. Enter Robin Scott. In 2008, she had set up an online social netwoking site to organize urban farmers in the Friendly Neighborhood (http://www.eugenefriendlyfarmers.ning.com/). Now she used that site to ask, “Who wants to share this vision for a Friendly Neighborhood garden?” In response, at least a dozen people showed up for a first meeting, took a look at the site and said “Lets do it.”

“I was thrilled,” Donahue says. “We envisioned the garden and talked about a name.” It was Black who suggested ‘Common Ground’. The group hired a tractor service to haul out concrete debris and till up the grassy area with amendments, and in October there was a work party to measure out some beds . By June of this year, those beds were producing beets, chard, cauliflower, garlic, broccoli, kale, spinach, lettuce, bushels of snap peas and more.

Progress was helped by a city neighborhood matching grant that went to buy tools and the ICOSA hut (a pentagonal-shape dome shelter made from salvaged materials) built recently by Resurrected Refuse Action Team (http://www.rractionteam.com/). Carlos Barrera installed the recycled kiosk, used for posting upcoming tasks and long range plans, and a bench he built from snow boards he found in a dumpster. A bike rack is coming soon, along with raised beds close to the street for alter-abled access

Donahue, who volunteers her time to help create the Common Ground Garden, told me: “After that first meeting I presented our idea to the city, asking may we do this? Can we put in for a grant?” The City was enthusiastic. In fact it was an initiative the City of Eugene would like to encourage more of. Because of the success of Common Ground Garden, Donahue says, we can expect to see more neighborhood gardens growing throughout Eugene: on a professional level, Donahue, the City of Eugene Compost Specialist, looks to replicate the model and provide assistance for projects of this type.

Friendly Neighborhood Farmers (FNF) has about 375 members; the special interest group for the Common Ground Garden numbers 40. Scott and Black now co-administer the website, thanks to which, Scott says, “we are able to tap into a larger audience, including younger people and others who wouldn’t necessarily come to a neighborhood meeting.”

Black, who serves on the Neighborhood Leaders Council Committee on Sustainability, is really excited about the venture. “This is a win win win win win. It’s building empowerment and community cohesion. It mitigates climate change, since anything you grow at home doesn’t have to be shipped here, consuming energy. It makes people more self sufficient. Fifty percent of the kids in nearby schools use the school lunch program (a measure of economic insecurity), and some of them help out here. This is priceless social capital, for a fairly minimal investment”.

Work parties at the Common Ground Garden are 10-12 AM on the first two Saturdays of each month, and 2-4PM on the second two Sundays. Come and work, leave with produce.

POWER PLANT

Red hot pokers are not what they used to be.

I’ve been growing perennials for years, and I’ve learned a thing or two about what I like. Leaves matter. Texture and form are as important as flower color. I can live without plants that require feats of engineering to keep them upright, and I appreciate plants that flourish for several years without division, while keeping more or less to their allotted space. Attracting hummingbirds is a nice bonus. Kniphofias, or, as they are inelegantly called, red hot pokers, fill all or most of these requirements, and their distinctive flower spikes packed tight with tubular flowers contribute a special energy to perennial groupings. Foliage varies from stiff, arching sword shapes to narrow and grass like. The tidiest growers also look splendid growing among low shrubs and conifers.

Flowers go in and out of fashion. Kniphofias, like canna lilies, are enjoying a revival, and many varieties are available if you hunt for them. The blazing red and yellow bi-colors of classic red hot pokers - or torch lilies, if you prefer - are still around, but you can also find pure light yellow, cream, chartreuse and coral red ‘pokers’ ranging in height from 15 inches to 4 feet. Taller knifophia varieties combine well with dahlia, phygelius, rudbeckia and yarrow. Those that bloom in late summer are great with asters and ornamental grasses. I like to plant the smallest varieties near the edge of the border, among lower growing plants like heuchera and hardy geranium, where the whole plant can be admired.

Among my favorite kniphofias are: ‘Primrose Beauty’ (three-foot spikes in cool, light yellow, blooms mid to late summer); ‘Sunningdale Yellow’ (a little taller, blooms in early summer, in a color that leans slightly towards gold); and ‘Shining Scepter’(also early, a stunning, luminous light orange). All these look fabulous with blue or purple flowers. Try early bloomers with salvia ‘May Night’ or emerging from a froth of catmint.

‘Coral’ was the name attached to my earliest-blooming poker, but I have never been able to confirm a cultivar by this name, so perhaps it was merely a descriptive. This one grows about two feet tall, with narrow leaves and a prolific crop of spikes. It is typical of hybrids from Kniphofia triangularis, including many with flowers in soft shades of coral, apricot and cream. ‘Nancy's Red’ is a small, graceful poker with narrow foliage and flowers of deep coral red, blooming in late July. I like to see it in front of Aster x frikartii or the small shrub caryopteris (bluebeard).

A nameless favorite that blooms quite early in light coral was one of three pastel shades that that I selected from seed grown plants of the strain ‘Flamenco’. Advertisements for Flamenco always seem to stress their brilliant reds and yellows, but they seem to cover the entire range of kniphofia shades, including many pastels. If you have room to raise a number of them from seed you’ll find some lovely things.

All kniphofias bloom best in full sun, with four or five hours of sun being a reasonable minimum. Beyond that, I’ve seen a lot of contradictory information about what kniphofias need. Perhaps that means they are not very fussy. I’ve grown them for years in water-retentive soil that is often wet in winter, though never water-logged. Only ‘Little Maid’, an adorable ivory miniature named by the great British plantswoman Beth Chatto, flatly refused to grow for me. In retentive soil, established kniphofia plants are reasonably drought tolerant. In lighter soil, they’ll need ample water to bloom well. Feed plants each spring and protect them from snails, which can spoil developing flower spikes.

Winter makes a mess of kniphofia leaves. I once asked the O’Byrnes, whose wonderful borders at Northwest Garden Nursery are beautifully kept, when they cut back their kniphofias, Ernie said “We cut them down after a frost knocks them back, or anytime in a mild winter. It doesn’t seem to matter much when we do it.” With that in mind I usually leave mine until the first spring clean-up. Some people shorten the leaves by half in fall and bundle them together over the crown. Be sure to cut off the old leaves before new growth begins in spring.

If you are visiting gardens this summer, watch out for these fabulous South African natives. If you would like to see pictures of many kniphofia species and hybrids, visit http://www.theafricangarden.com/

WOODLAND, ENRICHED

Mother’s Day, 2009 saw Eugene’s first formal tour of local gardens that feature native plants. The tour was organized by the Native Gardening Awareness Program (NGAP), a committee of the Emerald Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Oregon. It was very well attended. NGAP member and tour organizer Mieko Aoki estimated that many of the gardens received well over 500 visitors. On May 9 we will be treated to a second Mother’s Day Native Garden Tour covering nine gardens and featuring a variety of Willamette Valley habitat types. Two gardens, one public, one private, are making a return appearance. The other seven are new.

One of those new gardens sits on a steep, wooded hillside of native oaks and Douglas fir on Shasta View, in Eugene’s south hills. It belongs to Clay Gautier and Gail Baker, who have lived there since 1995. At first glance, the place looks like native woodland, until you realize that no natural woodland could be so rich in species in such a small area. Aside from a raised bed bordering the driveway, it is largely native. The owners have incorporated a number of non-native rhododendrons (which are on a drip irrigation system) and there are places where vigorous native geum is fighting it out with patches of non-native geranium. But as Clay like to say, “on the genus level we are very native!”

Although Gautier and Baker describe the yard as pretty much a weed patch when they acquired it, there were some natives present besides the trees, particularly herbaceous ones: camas, Oregon iris, fawn lily and spring beauty. There was little in the way of native shrubs, except for some baldhip rose, snowberry, madrone and honeysuckle (Lonicera hispida), which is trimmed close to the ground to prevent it climbing the trees. There was also poison oak, which the owners suppressed by repeated manual clipping. They’ve added quantities of evergreen huckleberry, salal, Oregon grape, and vine maple, as well as ocean spray, red flowering currant and two Pacific dogwoods.

There are also several shrubs you encounter less often, among them Viburnum edule; white flowered Ceonothus cuneatus, a species you can see growing on Mt Pisgah; and manzanita (Arctostaphylos columbiana), a little leggy from the shade. The owners have introduced many herbaceous plants, as well. Besides such stars as trillium (both species that are locally native) and houndstongue, there are less conspicuous things like star flower, miners lettuce and pathfinder, and two good groundcovers: strawberry (probably Fragaria vesca) and false lily of the valley (Maianthemum dilatatum).

Camas was blooming when I visited. Since the deer fence was built, it blooms well and has spread. Baker said Gautier (who does most of the gardening) helps it along by shaking the seed pods around. Gautier is no longer adding much, he says, and describes the gardening routine as “mostly a removal process.” Maintenance consists of trimming back plants that get out of scale, and lots of weeding, which he does mostly in early spring. A big component of that is keeping out woody invasives such as English laurel, English hawthorn and blackberry. When I asked if they did any leaf removal, Gautier said that on the contrary, he brings in more leaves! Nothing is fertilized except the rhododendrons.

Not surprisingly, the garden attracts wildlife: newts and frogs, garter snakes and alligator lizards, foxes, moles and squirrels. Gautier has even seen a bobcat. Bird visitors include: woodpeckers (downy and pileated,) juncos, nuthatches, grossbeaks, hummingbirds and the occasional tanager.

Not far from the garden on Shasta View, just off Spring Boulevard, is a novel addition for a garden tour: Crescent Ridge is a compact planned development of ten houses clustered near the top of a 2.27 acre site, 50 percent of which is left undisturbed in native vegetation and existing trees. Runoffs from storm drains are designed to flow through the common area in a way to prevent erosion and minimize impact on the city storm water system. Individual home sites are landscaped with native plants.

Dogwood Time

So many dogwoods, so little space. There are about 45 species of cornus, the botanical name for dogwoods. Almost all of them shrubs or trees, ranging in height from a few inches to 75 feet. Many are native to North America; both the smallest and the tallest are native to Pacific Northwest forests. Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) keeps its woody parts below ground, while Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) grows into a soaring tree. Both of them have large white bracts that look like petals. The true flowers are small, and bunched together in a central disc between the bracts. A number of other dogwood species share this feature. Many other dogwoods are well worth growing, but deciduous species with showy bracts are the subject of this column.

Eastern, or flowering, dogwood (Cornus florida) is a slow-growing tree that usually grows 20-25 feet, forming a rounded, low-branching crown. Gardeners love this tree for its modest size, long spring display and a beguiling twiggy, layered. Bracts are normally white, but cultivars with pink or reddish bracts are very popular. This should be the perfect tree for small gardens, and sometimes it is. Unfortunately it is prone to anthracnose, a serious fungal disease that demands regular applications of chemicals for effective control. Adequate water, feeding and good air circulation may help protect it against anthracnose.

The same disease afflicts our Pacific dogwood unless it grows in perfect conditions. It is a taller, narrower tree than Eastern dogwood and less densely twiggy and floriferous. But the bracts are larger, and the tree is very beautiful in bloom. The vigorous selection ‘Colrigo Giant’ has 6 - 8 inch flower heads. Pacific dogwood frequently reblooms in late summer and has red fall color. For some reason, it is more common in and near Portland than in the southern Willamette Valley. We see it at its best at higher elevations, as along the Mckenzie highway.

Unlike the Eastern dogwood, Pacific dogwood dislikes conventional garden conditions with summer irrigation, fertilizer and pruning, and the bark is easily damaged. It prefers very good drainage and minimal summer watering, and should certainly be tried in native gardens. Since it can be difficult to transplant successfully, many professionals suggest establishing very young plants. If at all possible, choose a location for either dogwood that is not too hot but has excellent air circulation. Both are understory trees in nature, but being crowded in by larger trees exacerbates disease.

Cornus ‘Eddie’s White Wonder’, a hybrid between Eastern and Pacific dogwoods, is intermediate in overall shape, has large bracts and blooms more or less with C. nuttallii. It is better adapted to garden conditions than Pacific dogwood, and is said to be somewhat resistant to anthracnose. For dependable disease resistance, though, gardeners turn to Chinese dogwood (Cornus kousa). This one blooms in early summer after the leaves have expanded, and therefore lacks the particular beauty of trees that flower on leafless branches; but Chinese dogwood is lovely in its own way, and has attractive, clean looking foliage. It naturally makes a big, multistemmed shrub, but can be trained to a single trunk.

Although not entirely immune to anthracnose, Chinese dogwood is much more resistant than American ‘flowering’ dogwoods. This resistance apparently carries through in hybrids between Cornus kousa and C. florida. ‘Stella Aurora’ (white ‘flowers’) and ‘Stellar Pink’ are the result of a breeding program at Rutgers University. They grow with a single trunk to 20 feet tall and wide. Bloom is heavy and intermediate in time between the parents. Fall color is said to be brilliant, as is C. kousa.
Cornus ‘Starlight’ is a new Rutgers cross between C. kousa and C. nuttallii. I look forward to seeing this one.

If you don’t have room for any of these trees, there is always tiny, creeping bunchberry (Cornus canadensis). Give it a cool, spongy soil in light shade, and it makes the world’s most elegant ground cover.

Seed, Save, Share

Those peas I planted in a raised bed a few weeks ago were up in less than two weeks, preceded first by radishes, then arugula. Who knows what the weather may do now, and whether they will flourish. At least I had the pleasure of watching the seeds sprout. Seeds I deliberately planted, that is. Germination has always been part of my gardening life, because I appreciate the volunteers (usually decorative, but occasionally edible) that crop up in my gardens. From time to time I have even scattered seed of love-in-a-mist, a poppy or my favorite white foxglove directly from the pod, but somehow that wasn’t quite the same.

The satisfaction in watching veggie seeds germinate got me meditating on the state of the seed industry. A handful of corporations now own the production of half the world’s seed, perhaps more. A few years ago one of those companies, Monsanto, notorious for its ruthless promotion of GMO crops and weed killer, bought up Seminis Vegetable Seeds Inc., the world's largest seed producer. Almost all seed retailers handle Seminis seeds, which include many varieties purchased by organic growers.

This concentration of seed production has had the effect of reducing the range of seed varieties available, squeezing out many of lesser commercial value. Some people say this trend has slowed with the growing enthusiasm for home vegetable gardening. Let’s hope so. There is also the issue of contamination by GMOs. Pollen travels, and organic seed producers and breeders see their businesses threatened by the cultivation of GM alfalfa, beets or kale too close to their land. The USDA argues that contamination by GM genes doesn’t matter, but the current definition of Organic includes freedom from GMOs, and that’s the way most of us want it.

One way to thumb your nose at Monsanto and company is to save your own seeds. Saving and sowing your own is no longer simply a pleasure or a necessity, depending on your circumstances; it has come to feel like a revolutionary act. In reality, not every vegetable gardener is going to save seed. It takes extra ground, extra work, and attention to detail. Except for the easiest, self-pollinating crops, successful seed saving requires isolating crops from one another and, in some cases, from their wild relatives. For the most part you’ll need to stick with open pollinated (OP) seed sources, and you may lose out on some of the vigor and productivity associated with hybrid seed.

There are several practical arguments for saving seed, however, besides economy and subversion. One of the things that gets lost with mega-ownership of seed production is a wealth of varieties naturally selected to succeed in the place where they grow. Then there is taste preference. If you grow your own tomatoes, you’ll favor one that tastes the way you like it. It won’t matter very much to you what it’s shelf life is or whether the skin is tough enough to survive a trip to market. In growing and saving seed from a particularly tasty variety you are helping to perpetuate the line.

For a comprehensive account of seed saving and plant breeding in all its aspects, see Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener’s and Farmer’s Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving by Corvallis author Carol Deppe. (An older, smaller and less ambitious book by Marc Rogers, Saving Seeds, is still a useful introduction to the topic.)

Many people in the Willamette Valley community of gardeners and farmers are deeply concerned about threats to seed and crop diversity and are doing something about it.
The 2010 Spring Propagation Fair will be held March 13, 2010 at Lane Community College Cafeteria, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. This event is a free exchange of vegetable seed and fruit-tree cuttings, called ‘scions’. Grafting help (free) and rootstock (for a small charge) will be available. There will also be workshops. If you can, bring your own seeds, plants, or fruit cuttings to share. Sponsoring organizations include the Eugene Permaculture Guild, the Seed Ambassadors Project, the National Clonal Germplasm Repository and Food Not Lawns.

Head Start

I’m fond of saying that gardening in January is optional. Do it if you feel like it, and if you don’t, there is not much harm done. By February, on the other hand, it’s time to get busy. I like to get a head start on weeding by the middle of the month. I also cut down the brown tops of ornamental grasses, perennials and summer-blooming clematis and tackle a few shrubs that are routinely pruned to stubs in winter, such as red twig dogwoods and summer-flowering spiraea. I leave more tender items until spring is well underway. Especially If it is gray or silver or has aromatic leaves, severe pruning now may discourage it!

February is also a good time to plant bare-root roses, fruit trees and bush fruits. Any woody plant you get in the soil now will benefit from months of root growth in a moist and warming soil. But the condition of your soil, its workability, will really determine how much you can get done this month. Some parts of my new yard are workable after one or two days without rain. Other areas, including some that were in perfect tilth last summer, are saturated with running water and turn to mud when disturbed. Then there are areas of nearly unadulterated clay that will need serious remedial action before they can be worked at all. Only the raised beds in the food garden are completely tractable.

Kale and sprouting broccoli starts I planted late last fall have displayed a little growth spurt in every spell of milder weather, and corn salad seeded in about the same time has grown to the size of a quarter. Clearly these beds will warm up faster than any soil at grade. This raises the question, how early is it worth seeding cool-weather crops like peas and radishes? Nick Routledge, caretaker for FOOD for Lane County Youth Farm and erstwhile nurseryman for the Springfield Transitions Garden, takes a serious interest in extending the gardening season. He points out that Asian greens, mustards and arugula are all strong germinators in cool soils.

Routledge warned that February is the month when inexperienced gardeners tend to seed too early. Hold off on seeding those warmer season crops until March or April. But If a warm spell in February or early March makes you feel like sowing pea seeds directly in the soil, he said, “Do it! You might not get another window for two or three months.” As far as peas go, he added, “when I am pushing the envelope I not only seed directly in the ground when weather and ground allow but also earlier, into cells in the greenhouse. That way we get a jump on the season even if the ground is too cold or wet to seed directly and/or slug pressure in the garden is too intense.” Peas hate bottom heat, according to Routledge, and will germinate just fine in an unheated space.

Here’s the risk you run with early direct seeding: If the weather turns seriously wet and chilly, seeds may rot in the ground before they germinate, good drainage not withstanding. A cloche or cold frame will raise the odds in your favor, both by protecting the soil in a raised bed from excess rain and by trapping some extra warmth. I’m trying the low-cost solution I photographed in Tom and Victoria Schneider’s garden. Plastic, Reemay or shade cloth, depending on seasonal micro-climate needs, is attached with clothes pegs to hoops made of welded wire fencing. The ends are usually left open, but can be covered for extra protection during cold spells. Hoops need to be secured against the wind in winter. The Schneiders tie theirs to stakes set firmly in the ground around the raised bed. The hoops hang flat on a nearby garden fence when not in use.
There will be a free Spring Seeding and Greenhouse Management Workshop at the Youth Farm (705 Flamingo, Springfield) 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., Saturday February 13. An opportunity to meet gardeners and farmers with a great deal of experience to share. For example, here’s more from Routledge: “Some seeds require higher temperatures to germinate than plants need to grow. Most don’t need light to germinate, so stack seed trays next to your woodstove, and move them outside once the seedlings are up.”

EW February 11, 2010

Winter Winners

That cold snap in early December, the harshest since 1991, was tough on many ornamental plants that usually look pretty good all winter here in the southern Willamette Valley. Some evergreen plants we have come to view as hardy, such as camellias and Mexican orange blossom, especially where exposed to morning sun, were quite badly scorched. So it was heartening to discover, on an early January visit to Gossler Farms Nursery (a garden well known for all-season interest) that most staples of the winter garden were looking fine.

In the Gosslers’ cozy office, I asked Roger Gossler the obvious question: If you could choose just one plant to add pep to the winter landsacpe, what would it be? Roger didn’t have to think long before responding, though he picked not one but two: hybrid hamamelis (witch hazel) and Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’. For much of the year, witch hazels don’t look all that exciting, as Roger pointed out. “But when you see one in full bloom in January you just want it so bad.” Fall color is excellent, too.

Many of the 50-odd witch hazels at Gosslers (mostly the Chinese Hamamelis mollis or Asian hybrids (H. x intermedia) were indeed blooming the first week in January, unfurling their skinny but abundant petals in bright yellow, light yellow, coppery orange or crimson, but they don’t all bloom at once. ‘Early Bright’ is perhaps 2 weeks ahead of the main season, Roger says, while the newer introduction ‘Angelly’ is in flower “clear into March.” Different colors are scattered through the planting that lines the main driveway, and Roger loves the way they carry the eye through the garden.

Most hamamelis varieties grow moderately slowly, to 12-15 feet tall in 30 years and about as wide, although the justly popular ‘Arnold Promise’, an upright grower with lots of bright yellow, fragrant flowers and magnificent fall color, may limit itself to 10 feet in width in sun. Witch hazels need very little pruning until they approach maturity, when the Gosslers recommend frequent, light thinning to keep them open and vigorous. If space is at a premium, Roger suggests you cut stems for the house when the shrub is in bloom, to keep a plant about 8 to 10 feet tall.

Roger’s other choice, Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’, is one of those shrubby dogwoods with colorful stems, sporting a vivid blend of yellow, orange and red. Young wood shows the brightest color, so Roger cuts the plants right down to about 8 inches in mid-March, “when the magnolias are blooming.” Even very small gardens can accommodate ‘Midwinter Fire’ when it is pruned this way. Golden fall foliage is the icing on the cake.

After some lengthy chat about witch hazels, I asked what else stands out. What about that pine that turns yellow in winter? (I had noticed a nine or ten foot specimen as I drove to the office.) This lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia ‘Chief Joseph’), discovered in the Wallowa Mountains by a hunter, looks much like any other lodgepole in the summer. About mid-October, depending on the weather, it turns bright yellow in the space of a week, then stays that way until March, when warmer temperatures cause it to green up again.

When I asked Roger’s mother, Marj, if she would contribute a favorite, she indicated a hybrid Asian mahonia (Mahonia x media) just outside the window. Most of the specimens at the nursery had lost their flowers and even showed some foliage burn from the cold, but this one, sheltered from morning sun, was more or less intact and blooming. Many gardeners avoid these magnificent Oregon grape relatives because they look so spiny, but Roger says that they are no problem once you get them in the ground! Their structural drama and fragrant winter bloom (much earlier than Oregon Grape) makes them worth the trouble. Annas hummingbirds love them, too.

You can see all these shrubs and many more outstanding garden plants at the Gosslers’ family run nursery, 1200 Weaver Road, Springfield. It is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday throughout the year. To visit at another time, call ahead (541-746-3922).
A fine book by Roger, Marj and Roger’s brother, Eric Gossler, was published recently by Timber Press. The Gossler Guide to the Best Hardy Shrubs is the culmination of many decades of experience, research and observation, discriminating plant selection and sheer love of plants. It is informative and entertaining and I heartily recommend it.

EW

PERENNIAL VEGGIES

I’ve been reading Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier (published by Chelsea Green). Did you know scarlet runner beans are perennial? I didn’t, even though I grew up eating runner beans and still consider the flat, rough textured pods more delicious than regular green beans. They are evidently useable as shell beans and dry beans as well. The Willamette Valley climate is probably marginal for over-wintering runner beans, but they might survive some of our winters in raised beds. I think I’ll try it, but people who live at the relatively frost-free coast may have more luck.

When Randy and I moved to a new house in September, we were partly escaping an arduously steep and sometimes icy driveway. But we also hope to become less car dependent and a little ‘greener’ in other ways as well: line dry the laundry when practical, generate some solar power, grow a little food, and take advantage of a fresh start to plant more natives, both for the benefit of bugs and birds and to cut down on summer watering.
There are other ways I can be a more responsible gardener. Trucking out yard debris and trucking in compost will be phased out to reduce fossil fuel consumption. That requires making room for a generous utility area for debris storage and composting.

Another way I can save on energy and materials is to stick with existing grades and hardscape features. The east side of our yard, where I am planning to plant natives, includes a formal rectangle of level grass bounded on three sides with concrete. I first considered removing some concrete in order to restore a more natural looking grade, but then it occurred to me this flat area is just the right size for a second food garden. It happens to contain our only outdoor water source and a fig tree that bears really good figs; building garden beds in there would justify leaving both in place.

I have a growing fascination with perennial vegetables. The concept may be novel to many people, since most of our food comes from annual crops. Perennial food plants are, however, mainstays of permaculture gardens, where one goal is to grow as much food as possible with a minimum of inputs, work and soil disturbance. And when you stop and think about it, most of us already eat a few perennials. Think asparagus, rhubarb, and artichokes. Sunchokes, watercress and walking onions are relatively familiar, too, but the bulk of Toensmeyer’s very long list of perennial veggies lie well beyond the average gardener’s consciousness (Atriplex, anyone? Good King Henry?).

Many of those plants originate in the tropics, so they are frost tender. Among the hardier sort, some are unacceptably invasive and some seem to be too much trouble to prepare. Others are just not that good to eat, or may take a lot of getting used to. After winnowing out the ones with significant negatives, we are left with respectable list that’s growable west of the Cascades. Personally, I am most interested in sea-kale, a cabbage relative that I picked on the south coast of England as a child; and in Good King Henry, which produces edible shoots early in the year. Climbing Malabar spinach and New Zealand spinach are probably too tender to over winter in the Valley. No such problem with French sorrel or celery-flavored lovage, though.

Perennial vegetables are a bit more self-sufficient than annual crops because they have larger root systems that go deep in the ground and forage for water and nutrients. And, of course, they entail less annual digging and tilling. Because of that, and because they do need scrupulous weeding, it makes sense to grow them in a seperate garden space from annual vegetables. Perennial herbs like fennel and chives can share the space, along with plants that draw beneficial insects. I’d like to try ‘forcing’ or blanching rhubarb, chicory and sea-kale under black plant pots with a brick on top. Forcing makes shoots a little earlier, more tender and milder tasting . Alas, I don’t own lovely terra cotta forcing pots like those in the picture.

Finding starts or seed of the less familiar perennial vegetables may be a challenge. Sea-kale seems to be available as plants from ForestFarm and as seed from JL Hudson. It is also grown as an ornamental for its cloud of little white flowers, so I can try flower seed sources as well. Good King Henry seeds, unless available at local seed swaps, may require an internet search or even a trip to Europe.

EW December 2009

Necessary Natives

My husband and I recently moved to a new house, and one goal I have for our new garden is to plant a sizable chunk of it with native shrubs and grasses. I look forward to planting vine maple, red flowering currant and mock orange, and perhaps ocean spray or Pacific ninebark. But all these shrubs are deciduous, and I would like some smallish evergreens as well, to keep things interesting in winter. Oregon grape is an obvious candidate, for wildlife value and its assertive leaves. There are already one or two plants of tall Oregon grape (Berberis aquifolium), and a little bit of shade where I can plant long leaf Oregon grape (Berberis nervosa). I’ve just planted my favorite, compact form of tall Oregon grape on a sunny corner, where it will develop great winter color. What else?

At first glance it may seems that, conifers aside, native evergreen shrubs are a little thin on the ground. But I am not going to be a purist about this native business, if that means limiting myself to species found right here in the Southern Willamette Valley. That’s just too strict for my gardener’s heart to contemplate. But if you interpret ‘native’ as indigenous not only to the Willamette Valley but to all of Western Oregon the list of plausible evergreens grows quite long and various. Local nurseries have long sold Oregon wax myrtle and kinnickinnick, which are not valley natives. Including other species from the coast and from the mountains provides the wonderful evergreen huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum), native rhododendron (Rhododendron macrophyllum), coast silk tassel (Garrya elliptica) and even, for those of us with some very free draining soil, manzanita.

Hairy Manzanita (Arctostaphylos columbiana) does belong in the valley, according to my references, but we don’t see it often. There are other less familiar valley and foothill natives, such as buckbrush (Ceonothus cuneatus), an evergreen ceonothus that can grow to 8 feet. Two smaller plants in this category that particularly interest me are coyote brush and Oregon boxwood. Sun-loving coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis) has small, silvery green leaves and fall flowers that are attractive to insects. Deer do not seem to eat it. At four to eight feet this is not always a small shrub, but it seems to tolerate considerable pruning, and the leaf color is appealing. It’s not a common plant in nurseries, but Fern Hill Nursery in Cottage Grove sells it. I’m thinking of making a coyote brush hedge.

Oregon boxwood (Pachistima myrsinites), also called mountain lover (and sometimes spelled paxistima), is common in the mountains and occasional in the foothills. It has little dark green leaves and a dainty way of growing. Last spring I noticed it teaming up with beargrass, right at the edge of the cliff above Tamolitch Pool on the McKenzie River. They made a lively combination that I hope to reproduce just as soon as I can provide a gritty slope in light shade. Oregon box is not always easy to please, but it is well worth trying if you want a native, shade-loving low-growing evergreen (1 to 3 feet). Unfortunately it is difficult to find. ForestFarm in Williams, Oregon lists it but is currently out of stock.

EW November 2009

Late Summer Blues

The last weeks of summer feature three of my favorite blue-flowered plants: a perennial, a sub-shrub and a potentially large bush. Besides their lavender blue flowers and a late blooming time, they have several things in common. All three appreciate good drainage and lots of sunshine, are loved by butterflies and are pretty much deer-resistant. Although they are easy to grow in ordinary garden conditions, they are relatively drought tolerant and adapt well to low-water landscapes.

Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) is a tough perennial in the mint family, native to the prairie states of North America. You can get it from nurseries that specialize in prairie plants but it’s somewhat easier, these days, to find ‘Blue Fortune’, a hybrid between anise hyssop and a similar plant from Asia named Agastache rugosa. Both anise hyssop and ‘Blue Fortune’ grow 2-4 feet tall, and do best in full sun in dryish, well drained soil. Their slowly lengthening, cylindrical spikes are packed with small flowers that open over a long season and look great with rudbeckia, echinacea, tall sedum and grasses. They are hardier than the agastaches called hummingbird mint, which can have trouble with our wet winters.

Blue mist shrub (Caryopteris x clandonensis), also known as bluebeard or blue spiraea, is a small Asian shrub with fragrant grey-green leaves that blooms on new wood. In cold climates, the topgrowth dies back in winter. Even in mild climates it looks best if cut back in spring. Pruning by one half or more as the buds break keeps it tidy and vigorous. Small flowers are produced over a long period along the top few inches of new growth. Two varieties popular for their strong flower color are ‘Longwood Blue’ and ‘Dark Knight’. Both are rather upright plants that can reach 4 feet.

My favorite caryopteris is ‘Heavenly Blue’. It has powder blue flowers and an excellently neat, mounding habit but it has become very difficult to find. I recently read about a new variety with deeper colored flowers named ‘First Choice’. It is said to grow 2-3 feet tall (after pruning) and may turn out to be an acceptable substitute for ‘Heavenly Blue’. Another low-growing variety is ‘Worcester Gold’, named for its yellow foliage. All these compact varieties look best where they are not crowded in by other plants and can show off their shapely hummocks. They look great in gravel gardens with rocks, small grasses and strongly architectural plants such as yucca and New Zealand flax.

And now the big one. Chastetree (Vitex agnus-castus) is an aromatic shrub from the Mediterranean. Like caryopteris it blooms on new growth, and can be pruned quite hard in spring if you need to restrict it growth. In this climate, it is more often grown with minimal pruning as a large bush or small tree and can eventually reach 10 - 15 feet. Vitex leafs out quite late in spring and quickly produces new shoots clad with attractive three-part leaves. Each shoot terminates in a densely packed, tapering pyramid of bloom. Vitex extracts have been used since ancient times to regulate the menstrual cycle and promote female fertility. I just know that pollinators love the flowers of this late bloomer, and our voracious deer have never bothered it.

Back to Nature

This past Mothers Day, at least 500 people attended Eugene’s first native plant garden tour. Organized by the Native Gardening Awareness Program (NGAP, a committee of the Emerald Chapter Native Plant Society of Oregon) the tour gave native plant enthusiasts and curious gardeners an opportunity to visit four public and eight private gardens where native plants play an important role. The private gardens varied greatly in age, setting, style and strategy, making for an interesting tour.

Aryana Ferguson and Bart Johnson’s yard adjoining Tugman Park is about 80% native and relatively mature: the formative “big push” came in 2003. Now salamanders make a home here, hummingbirds abound, chickadees and flickers squabble over who will nest in a snag and a hairstreak butterfly has laid eggs on the checker mallow. The day of the tour, the sunny front yard was ablaze with a pink froth of annual rosy plectritis intermingled with native buttercups, all busy with insect pollinators. I returned at the end of June to talk with the owners about their garden and the makeover experience, and was greeted by a whole new crop of flowers.

These people are pros. Ferguson has worked in resource management for 19 years and currently owns Madrona Consulting, working as project manager for a variety of restoration projects. Johnson, a professor at the University of Oregon, is an ecologist and landscape architect who works to merge ecological function with form and beauty. We talked on a deck overlooking the back yard, where they’ve kept a number of mature non-native plants – trees, mostly, and a few shrubs, which contribute both shade and structure.

When I toured this garden in May I was struck by its use of sedges and grasses, so prevalent in nature but often omitted from native gardens. A central feature of the back yard is a swale designed to take runoff from the roof. Sedges flourish here. Slough sedge (Carex obnupta) seems to be the most satisfactory – it likes semi-shade and stands up well. Uphill from the slough, in dappled shade, is a soft, bluish green lawn consisting mostly of Roemer’s fescue. “We mow every two weeks to keep the fescue from shading itself out” said Johnson, “ and we have to weed out exotic forbs and grasses.” Still, he’s surprised how little work it’s been.

As we toured the garden, Ferguson indicated a taller grass: “California fescue is a good bunch grass, especially in winter, when it looks really pretty,” she said. Johnson commented on big chunks of log scattered here and there among the plantings. “Put out some large wood out for salamanders and snakes. They love it.” We passed a sizable patch of camas (“it seeded in here on its own”) prompting the comment that camas is one of the easier plants to grow. Once it dies down you can mulch over it. Oregon iris is another winner. It is easy to weed around the clumps and, unlike camas, it stays green all summer.

Although their own garden was a radical makeover, Ferguson and Johnson now advise people to start small. “Don’t try to convert everything to natives all at once,” Johnson suggested. “Start from less diversity and add more as you can handle it,” he said, “and plant clumping things you can mulch around, he emphasizes. “The easiest native garden to manage is one of shrubs, sedges and ferns, in shade.” You can’t mulch prairie because you want things to self sow, so weeds are a bigger problem. Establish patches of easy perennials first, and mulch to reduce weeding. Fill in with annuals later.

In their sunny front yard, the couple removed weed cloth, bark mulch and the standard issue landscape shrubs, then sheet mulched with cardboard and two inches of mycorrhizal soil from Lane Forest Products to get a fresh start. Now a mix of prairie species with some from bright woodland, this area is still a work in progress. “We began by throwing out a lot of seed to create high diversity mixes of species,” said Ferguson, “and it didn’t work. We redid it with an effort at an aesthetic people are more used to.” Grasses are allowed only in clumps; perennial forbs are corralled in well-defined groups. “Each year we bring a little more order to it,” she said.

EW July 2009

Scent of the Rogue

One of the highlights of a raft trip down the Rogue River a few years ago was the glorious sight and scent of native azaleas that covered some stretches of the river bank. The azalea was Rhododendron occidentale, a deciduous shrub that occurs in a coast-hugging strip from Santa Cruz county, California to Coos County, Oregon, from sea level to 9000 feet.

Western azalea is one of only three native rhododendron species that are found west of the Rocky Mountains. Pacific rhododendron (Rhododendron macrophyllum) is the most familiar. This big evergreen is plentiful in the coastal forests of Oregon and Washington and on the western slope of the Cascades. It is easy to grow and makes a nice addition to irrigated gardens. Cascade azalea (Rhododendron albiflorum), is hard to cultivate and seems scarce even in its native habitat. I’ve hiked the Cascades for years and have seen it only a handful of times.

The gem among our three rhododendron species is Western azalea. Like many wild plants it is highly variable, growing from three to 15 feet in height and occasionally more. The flowers are generally white with a yellow blotch inside, but they are often tinged with pink or even red, and range in size from a little over an inch across to nearly four inches. This fabulously fragrant shrub has tempted hybridizers for 150 years, primarily in Europe, contributing its perfume to the famous Exbury line of deciduous azaleas and to hybrids such as ‘Irene Koster’.

Over the last century, here in the Northwest, a handful of collectors catalogued, selected and distributed some particularly fine forms of the species itself. Today these plants are relatively hard to find in nurseries, but Greer Gardens lists several varieties.
I have two plants I bought as babies from local plant sales. About ten years on, they are less than three feet high, with modest but shapely flowers just shy of an inch and a half across. One has particularly colorful buds, with a strong pink flush and a distinct line of color along the outside of each petal. This is a striking occidentale feature that comes through in ‘Irene Koster’.

It’s a thrill to encounter Western azalea along the Rogue or in the Siskiyous. It is pretty darn nice in the garden, too, blooming quite late in the rhododendron season when most deciduous azaleas are over. Wild inland and mountain populations grow near streams, rivers and springs, indicating a liking for moisture. But it tolerates periods of dryness between waterings in summer, especially with some shade. It also tolerates soggy soil in winter, and the leaves seem to be less susceptible to the powdery mildew that often disfigures other deciduous azaleas by late summer.

What is an azalea, anyway? Botanically speaking, all azaleas are rhododendrons, so what justifies calling them by another name? There are a number of features that separate azaleas from rhodies, although none seems to be completely reliable. The easiest to grasp is the number of stamens per flower: five in azaleas (occasionally six to ten), and ten or more in rhododendrons. This works most of the time. Interestingly, the Cascade azalea I mentioned earlier is sometimes called ‘white rhododendron’. How many stamens does it have? Ten.

EW June 2009

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ

Lots of people are keeping honeybees these days. That seems like a good idea, since wild honeybees have more or less disappeared. Keeping bees increases the bee population generally and provides pollinators for your own garden (and the possibility of your own honey).

Like most people, I am alarmed by colony collapse disorder, mites and the decline in honeybees. After all, much of the food we eat is dependant, directly or indirectly, on honeybees. Conventional mass production of tree fruit and almonds would be almost impossible without this colony-dwelling bee that can be driven about the country in hefty numbers and put to work wherever bees are needed to pollinate enormous monocultures. No wonder honeybees are stressed out.

Unlike a Central Valley almond grower, however, the average home gardener should be able to get by without the honeybee, which is not native. A healthy population of native pollinators could probably do the job. There are thousands of native bee species in the US, not to mention other types of pollinating insect. Sadly, many of the same factors that hit honeybees affect native bees as well. In fact pollinators of all kinds are disappearing.

One element behind this decline is undoubtedly the loss of pollinator-friendly habitat, through development, conventional agriculture and widespread pesticide application. Native bees are affected too; they are also becoming infected with diseases and parasites spread by honeybees. All the same, non-honeybees out-number honeybees in my garden. Bumblebees have been particularly conspicuous.

Like honeybees, bumblebees are social insects, forming small colonies. Other kinds of native bees (mason bees, for example) are solitary; that is, individual bees don’t interact with one another. There may be many about at the same time, but they don’t cooperate.
The value of native bees in agriculture is beginning to get some attention. Bumblebees, it seems, venture out at lower temperatures than honeybees and even tolerate a bit of rain - valuable traits if you have early-flowering crops to pollinate. And all native bees, adapted to their work by coevolving with the plants they pollinate, can be as much as 100 times as efficient at it.

While many native bees are specialists, visiting only a certain kind of flower, bumblebees and some others are ‘generalists’ that are happy to visit your apples, squash and so on. What can we do to encourage them? Solitary bees lay their eggs in bark crevices and hollow stems, and occasionally in man-made, purpose-built accommodations. Some bees need a certain amount of bare, uncultivated ground (without a thick covering of bark mulch!). Bumblebees nest in cavities in the ground, or beneath planks or inverted plant pots.

Slightly untidy gardens may have the edge here. Pesticides are out of the question, needless cultivation should be avoided, debris piles and weed patches are great. When it come to nectar sources, many of the plants that attract the honeybee also attract native generalists. Lavender and oregano, both from the Mediterranean, are magnets to both. Native plants, however, have been shown to support a larger and more diverse population of native insects, including bees. A quick internet search on ‘plants for pollinators Oregon’ will yield a wealth of information.

EW May 2009