A Mushroom Forest

Summer has given way to Fall, and Winter feels right around the corner.  Each morning I awake to a little less light, a little more dark.  The dampness is beginning to permeate the soil and the air, and I find that I am dragging my feet about going to work.  It's warm in the house and cold outside.

But I am always glad for the fresh air and glad for a job that forces me outside, even when it's cold and rainy.  The garden offers treasures to find in every season, and in the damp, cool of these Fall days, it is the mushroom forests that appear--seemingly overnight--that catch my eye.

I still haven't learned which are good for eating, so I stay away from harvesting.  But I'm hoping to someday learn this art.  First, my curiosity is endless when it comes to plants, and it pains me that I don't know the edible from the non-edible of the mushroom world.  I know most of the edible plants and berries that are native to our region, so mushrooms are the logical next frontier of knowledge for me.  But unlike most of the native plants around here, mushroom harvesting comes with danger.  Eat the wrong one and you could end up in the hospital fighting for your life.  So for now, I enjoy their sudden emergence into the Fall garden landscape, and buy the delicious local mushrooms at the grocery store.

Apple Season

My favorite season has arrived!  I love Fall for the colorful leaves, crisp evenings and abundance of fresh apples.  We live in the apple capitol of the world--or at least that is what any Washington State tourism brochure will tell you.  And any road trip through Central Washington makes it pretty clear that we grow a LOT of apples.  The climate of Central Washington, with its 300 days of sunshine and cold winters, is perfect for apple and pear orchards.  Visit the Washington Apple Country site for more information on Washington apples.

Central Washington is also a beautiful destination for a Fall trip.  Every year my family goes to Lake Wenatchee State Park, near the Bavarian-styled town of Leavenworth, for one last camping trip.  The park is nearly deserted, the air is crisp and cold, and the fall colors are spectacular.  We spend our evenings playing games at our campsite, huddled around a roaring campfire. Our days, on the other other hand, are filled with bratwurst and beer lunches at the Octoberfest celebration in Leavenworth, and hikes around Lake Wenatchee.  It's a perfect balance of too much good food, too much good beer and too much relaxing.  Definitely something to look forward to every year!

Crisp nights make for beautiful fall colors

Our trip also includes a visit to our favorite fruit stand, Prey's Fruit Barn.  The barn is filled with apples, pumpkins, pears and locally made treats.  The girls spend time at the apple sample area, tasting slices of sweet and juicy apples to help us decide which varieties to buy.  This year we bought four boxes:  one each of Jonagold, Fuji, Golden Delicious and Honeycrisp. We now get to enjoy unlimited apple eating for a few weeks, and when I get to it, homemade applesauce to eat all winter.

A Tiny Tree Frog

A little green tree frog hidden in the rhododendron

Sometimes the best garden art is the kind that surprises you.  The kind that you hear before you see, and at first can't even find.  I love the daily unfolding of life in the garden--creatures and plants working together, and me joining in the melee as both an observer and a natural force of my own.

And then, the discovery of a tiny tree frog hidden by its color, but adding its voice to the garden.  Nature once again providing the best garden art.

A Goat-proof Rabbit Hutch

Most rabbits live safe lives inside rabbit hutches.  They might be bored, but they definitely don't have to compete for food.  Our rabbit, on the other hand, lives a free life.  He is able to come and go into his hutch at will, and has a large yard to hop around.  The downside is that he shares his life with goats who are obsessed with eating his food.

We had refurbished his old hutch (time and again...) to be as goat-proof as possible; but even still, with four masters of destruction (the goats) working away on the hutch, it was falling apart. When the roof nearly collapsed, replacing the rabbit hutch moved to the top of our list. Brian and Sophie used the last few days of summer to design and build a goat-proof rabbit hutch--not necessarily something most rabbit owners need to consider!

So what does a goat-proof rabbit hutch look like?  A completely enclosed home with hidden access. The goats are totally locked out.  The rabbit door is actually a hole in the floor of the hutch that he comes up through.  And it took nearly 8 hours for Parsley's pea-sized brain to figure out how to do this. We used treat lures, a ramp, and even picked him up and put him inside to show him the "door" in the floor of his new home.  

He is quite pleased with himself now.  He is able to eat his food in peace, while the goats look longingly through the wire mesh, unable to find a way to his food.  And we are able to fill his food dish through a latched opening in the top of the hutch.  So far, the new hutch has confounded the goats.

Perhaps the best upside to the new hutch is that it is lower to the ground, and little Sweet Pea (the African Pygmy) finally has a perch that she can jump onto.  Her short little legs have kept her from being able to access the high places our other goats love, and it's nice to see her have a little accomplishment in her life.

Sweet Pea--our tiny African pygmy goat

A Verbena View

Verbena bonariensis

One of the benefits of my untidy garden, is having plants that pop up where I least expect them.  I love the "self-seeders"; and you really only get them if you practice some garden neglect.  Half of the color in my garden comes from plants that have seeded themselves.  And yes, there are times when they run a little rampant (the yellow Welsh poppies are a good example of this!), and need some reining in.  But I am usually quite happy with the robust, colorful plants who put themselves where they feel most comfortable, and joyfully bloom away.

The foliage of this verbena is almost non-existent.  The plant is light and airy, with purple flowers perched high atop green stalks.  They almost float above the garden.

And there is a certain type of white butterfly who loves this plant.  It seems that almost every flower stalk has a butterfly on it, or fluttering nearby.  I never get tired of watching them.  Luckily I have several verbenas near the deck where I can watch the interplay of white butterfly and purple flower.

When the weather turns and we are forced indoors by winter cold and rain, I will think back to summer days like this.  Sitting on our sun-soaked deck with a glass of iced tea, surrounded by birds, butterflies and blooms.

Crocosmia--Late Summer Sunshine

Crocosmia naturalized on a hillside

Crocosmia is a plant that captures colors straight from the sun, and brings them to the late summer garden.   The tiny bulbs naturalize easily on slopes or fringe areas of the garden.  And once established, they need no extra water.  For some reason, they are blooming really profusely this year.  I can only guess that they have liked our cooler than normal summer weather.  But whatever the reason, they are definitely catching my eye right now.

Bright yellow centers glow in the sunlight

The foliage is sword-shaped, and almost resembles a clump of grass.  In the spring, the new shoots emerge pale-green, and are a welcome sight after a long winter.

Crocosmia comes in shades of yellow, orange and red

This is a plant that is very easy to divide and is common to a lot of Northwest gardens.  It's readily available in all of the nurseries, but if you have a friend who loves to garden, chances are they would be happy to share a few crocosmia bulbs.

Hibiscus in Seattle?

It is sad to watch a plant suffer.  And plants which are clearly out of their eco-system, are especially sad cases.  I have a plant that is in need of Plant Amnesty--a one way ticket to Honolulu to be precise.

My very unhappy hibiscus plant

My plant's journey through suffering began last May.  It was a birthday gift to me from a good friend who loves plants as much as I do.  And when it was given to me, it was stunning.  It's leaves were thick and glossy, and it was covered in beautiful golden yellow Hawaii blossoms.  No doubt it was started in a nice warm nursery, coddled with simulated south pacific island air.  I've never had a hibiscus before, but I was excited about creating a tropical container for our summer patio.  My plan was to combine the hibiscus with some other tropical looking plants--maybe an interesting coleus, with a lime-green sweet potato vine and some bright pink impatiens.

My enthusiasm waned however, after I did a bit of research on this plant family.  I found out that hibiscus' like temperatures in the range of 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit.  In May, we were a long way from that type of warmth!  And so I began the work of trying to keep the little hibiscus happy until summer appeared.  I kept it in its little plastic pot in a sunny spot in our dining room.  And when the temperature got warm enough outside, I moved it to a warm spot on our deck.  If you've seen any weather data about Seattle this year, you will find that up until August, my plant's outside time could be measured in hours, not days.

Finally....a bloom!

My plan of a tropical container ended as I watched the hibiscus shrink to about half its size.  It was withering away! I focused instead on trying to keep it happy.  I misted it with water, I put it in the warmest parts of the garden, and finally last week it bloomed again!  Such a sunny flower, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort.  The plant is still clearly miserable, and summer--what summer we had--is on its way out. This was just not the summer for hibiscus in Seattle.

Because I am still harboring fantasies about tropical plants, I may try to overwinter the hibiscus in the dining room and try again for next year.  But if the plant keeps shrinking, this may not end well.  Unless of course Plant Amnesty steps in and saves my little hibiscus with a one-way ticket to Hawaii.