Halle’s Smooooth Words o’ Wisdom

This picture, shot at a private local garden, will be used for fundraising efforts as part of The Berry Botanic Garden’s 30th anniversary celebration this spring.

Last weekend I needed to transplant some Blue Fountain bamboo(Fargesia nitida) from a smallish container to a slightly larger one. The terra cotta one near the upper righthand corner received the new bamboo.

I prepped the pot with a bit of styrofoam to make it a tad lighter when filled with bamboo and potting soil.

Pulling the root-bound clump from its home was a bit of a chore.

Talk about root-bound!

We’ll see in the next month or so how well the clump has taken to its more spacious home. It should be fine.

This is a non-invasive clumping bamboo. After 2 years in the new pot I will have to find a home for it in the ground somewhere around here.

I went Chanterelle picking again recently. Fortunately the skies weren’t puking rain as they were the last time out. When it’s November in Western Oregon the temptation to stumble through the woods with my orbs glued to the ground is too hard to resist. Plus we’ve eaten up all our stash and need more for a Thanksgiving Chanterelle cream soup. We’re making a recipie out of Karen Brooks’ book, Oregon’s Cuisine of the Rain: From Lush Farm Foods to Regional Recipies. According to the Book the Chanterelle soup recipie is from Portland’s venerable restaurant Genoa.

The following photographs are in chronological order.

These are the waterlogged bits I pitched after cleaning. The first time I visited this spot I parked the car, opened the door and found a similar pile at my feet. I knew that I’d come to the right place.

This pack was my high school book bag and is still going strong after over 20 years.

I dug up, transplanted and gave away a bunch of black bamboo this weekend. Johnny Phyllostachys nigra. I will never tangle with bamboo without one of Doug King’s bamboo slammers which is a heavy-duty two-part pry bar with a sharp three edged blade at the bottom.

This is a picture I shot today of a Cornus alba ‘Elegantissima’(variegated red twig dogwood) leaf from our garden:

Fall is definitely here. I’m amazed at how closely this digital file resembles the actual leaf. It almost looks like the leaf was flatbed scanned. It wasn’t. The colors are true(at least on my monitor!) and this is a plant that I don’t usually expect to have interesting Fall color. Let’s hope winter arrives soon and that the snowpack is deep and lasts a long time!

today i finished up things in the taylor st. garden before new tenants move in july 1. primarily i finished the tea house floor and added a bit of edging to the tea house and a long neglected end of a river rock pathway:

after 3 years in the ground the espaliered pear tree is starting to show some fruit. next year should be huge!

for the first 2 years i destroyed any signs of fruit in order to focus growth on the roots.

the day’s highlight was peering into a robin’s nest 6 feet off the ground within a italian cypress tree. the cool shade of bluish green reminds me of turquoise.

soon we’ll be putting fresh raspberries in our cereal each morning:

The rose is Gertrude Jekyll, an all-time smeller, while the name of the clematis escapes me. The two are quite a pair together.

More often than not roses are more trouble than they are worth in this humble gardener’s opinion. Rosa ‘Pat Austin’ is another story:

aphids are showing up. it’s that time of year. they’re actually pretty easy to manage unless you have a large scale infestation. our garden is dinky so it’s impossible to have anything large scale. no dinosaur food here. who would have thunk that texans dig gunnera? friends at edelweiss perennials have been vexed by some aphid herds this year. one plant aphids adore is omphalodes capadocica ’starry eyes’:

they haven’t yet found the omphalodes here but they have found some rose buds:

unless they’re really bad, which fortunately i’ve yet to experience, i don’t use soap, pepper spray or anything other than forefingers, thumbs and fine hose spray to thin aphid herds. here’s a picture of the same rose buds minus critters:

minus all but one anyway. if you look in the lower right hand portion of the ‘after’ picture you’ll notice a backside view of one plump aphid clinging to the underside of a rose leaf. impressive indeed!

we have humming birds hanging out in our garden. it’s taken a year or so to lure them here. chilean glory flower(eccremocarpus scaber) did the trick. it’s an annual and this year overwintered probably due to our unusually mild oregon winter.

this unusual trillium is native to japan. the capture was made in late february 2005 outside of portland, oregon. the species normally blooms red(i’ll have to search for a picture of the red one and post it later) though 1 in 100 blooms yellow. two friends have a small corner of their magnificent woodland garden where 5 or so yellow trillium kurabayashis reside. 5 or so yellow kurabayashis they grew from seed!