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Monday, June 27, 2016

Thermidaceae

The late bloomers are all about in shades of pink, lavender, purple and white. I'm going woth what I read on the PBS site for this family, although it sounds like they could debate it out to liliacea, alliaceae or hyacinthaceae.
Brodiaea californica and Triteleia laxa blooming side by side in the nursery
Brodiaea elegans growing at one of our local river parks, this site is under about 10' of water anytime the Willamette River gets above 16' on the Salem gauge so you know it doesn't mind saturated soils all winter.. 
Triteleia peduncularis 
This is one of my favorites for sure, makes quite a show when so much else is senescing down and the summer bulbs haven't kicked in yet.

I've been working on some irrigation stuff around the nursery this week and I have to get this goat pen down soon, but keep an eye out because I have the bulb catalog on the horizon.  I'll be collecting some seed again and offering that and I stumbled into a collection of interesting carnivorous plants that I may offer some propagules up as well.


Sunny, warm, temperatures in the 80's all week.

Cheers,
Mark

Friday, June 24, 2016

Traveling a bit

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” Mark Twain



I've been out on a bit of a summer solstice adventure this past week. Ran across some Calochortus to share. Eastern Oregon is a fantastic high desert, cut occasionally by deep canyons and snowmelt fed rivers that hold great fishing. 
Calochortus longebarbatus in the Painted Hills of the John Day Fossil beds

The habitat above Burnt Ranch on the John Day, open bunch grass, and very dry Juniper/Sage land.

Calochortus argillosus is pretty much all that is left blooming in the greenhouse now, this Central Californian coastal species is always putting on a show in June. All the references say it grows in hard clay soils, but I've grown it in my standard moo doo and pumice mix and it increases well.


This hot spring and fairly advanced entry into summer has me thinking that the catalog will be out a bit earlier this year, I'm hoping to start harvest mid July sometime, so keep an eye on here and I'll post updates as I get closer. 

Rain, 70 degrees, but warmer this weekend

Cheers,

Mark

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Who wrote Holden Caulfield?

You are probably wondering where this guy went....well, I'm feeling a little like J.D. Salinger and thinking to myself, I guess I'm that guy that sometimes just disappears into the woods and doesn't want to commit 100% to the hermit kimgdom, but honestly sometimes sees the reality, day to day, however ho hum, hum drum, churning out a living 8 hours a day, behind a paper work cloud a bum rap that needs escaping reality.

This wonderful yucca is something to come home to though....floating in a mist of sweet peas, it's actually one of the finest perennial  plants I ever grew from seed. A hippie from Bozeman, Montana brought me the seed from his spring break trip to some Utah desert slope in 1999. I was living in Montana at the time and I kept the seed in an envelope for two years until i finally germinated it in Oregon.

It's with me 15 years later a stalwart in my life, it's prickly and it could cut you, but once a year it sends out white velvet spires of cascading bells.

I have no idea what the species is...if you live in Utah or you know this plant will you tell me what it is?

97 degrees in June, Al Gore was right.

Cheers,
Mark