3 Jan
With thanks to my cousin Marilyn’s cousin Patrick in France. Wow!! He sent them to her because she was having surgery and he wanted her to have something to cry about! Interesting sense of humor. I just love the photos and the amazing ingenuity of the unknown artist who created these masterpieces. I did another post of these a few years ago. Most of these are all new.
1 Jan
I really did mean to publish this when I took it back in October. But life was too busy then and I just never got around to it. But it’s a nice image of the entrance to our house and I wanted to put it into the blog, so here it is, a bit late but still beautiful.
From the left the plants here are: the Coral Bark Maple (Acer palmatum Sango-Kaku), turning its lovely golden fall colors here. It’s only about 7 1/2 years old and has grown really fast. I trained it to be narrow at the bottom so we could still walk past it to the steps and into the garden to its right. It forms a nice arch to enter beneath.
Next to it is a cultivar of the Austrian Black Pine called an Oregon Green Pine. It’s been here for 8 years and is expected to get twice its present size. It has beautiful white candles on it in the spring. It forms the other half of the arch to walk under to get into the garden.
The tree in the back is a Korean Butterfly Maple (Acer tschonoskii ssp. Koreanum). It’s only been here for 3 1/2 years and has grown about 8 feet in that time. It turns this beautiful reddish orange fall color and is the first tree to change color. It’s also the first tree to leaf out in the spring and the first to lose it leaves in the fall as well. Balance I guess.
Below it is a gray green Pfitzer Juniper (Juniperus chinensis “pfitzeriana”). It’s one that Louie planted over 30 years ago. It’d be huge now but I keep it cut back so we can walk the path and drive into the driveway. Louie wants to dynamite it but I’ve got him to hold off so far with some selective pruning. They do get large tho, and it’s going to be a constant chore as time goes on.
Above the juniper is a hedge of Pyramidal Arborvitae (Thuja occidentals “Pyrimadalis”). Louie planted these over 30 years ago as well and they were only in gallon cans then. They form a dense screen across the front of the garden so that it’s very private inside it all. It’s a peaceful place to hang out in any time in the year.
The ones at the far right are a line of Heavenly Bamboo (Nandina domestica “Moyer’s Red”). They’re interspersed with Oregon grape across the front of the garden and were some of the first plants I planted here in 2008. The nandinas turn this amazing purple red in the fall and winter and you can see the colors from way down the block as you drive towards us. They have brilliant red berries on them in winter but they aren’t edible, even by the birds. Go figure…
That’s the entrance to our home. We hope to see you coming up the walk one of these days to visit. You’ll be very welcome here. Cheers!
1 Jan
This is a Mahonia x media “Charity” and it’s a haven for the hummingbirds. In the middle of Winter it’s hard for the little guys to find good food, but this is one place they can always get it. It’s not uncommon to see several of them at one time on this bush. Later on the flowers will turn into blue berries that are treats for other birds. All in all it’s a good plant for the bird lovers among us, tho it’s not so friendly to people. It lives along a path to the greenhouse with the ferns and you have to be careful or it’ll stick you badly. Still it’s so beautiful that it’s worth the risk. It grows pretty fast too. It’s been in the yard for about 6 years and is 8′ tall. It’s in the Berberidaceae family, and is related to the barberries, various Oregon grapes and the nandinas. It’s a cool family with lots of colorful plants and many of them have good food for the birds as well. Check it out and enjoy!
Gardening in Greenwood 