The Seed Producers

"Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds." Norman Vincent Peale


I have been lucky in my life to have met a few of the amazing seed collectors like Ratko and Halda, who enriched our gardens. But I have also been lucky to have met some amazing seed producers as well. Today we toured Heritage Seedlings amazing native seed production facility in the rich soil at the headwaters of the Little Pudding River outside of Mcleay.

Lynda Boyer is an amazing seed grower, producing some very high quality native seed for restoration projects around the valley. The tour of her production fields was knowledge filled to say the least. 

You have to look closely but this is an actual seed production block of Calochortus tolmei. Pretty cool to see little rows of plants all lined up producing copious seed pods

Kinda made me think of the possibilities of row cropping a few of the illahe Rare bulb selections for mass production!

Amy Bartow literally wrote the book on native seed production, I mean literally and it's called the "Native Seed Production Manual for the Pacific Northwest". Some years ago she gave a group of Chemeketa Community College students a tour of the Corvallis Plant Material Center NRCS production facility, amazing tools and technology combined with grass roots farming knowledge makes for a pretty spectacular operation.

My hats off to the seed producers, the ones who work hard to bring us the material that starts our gardens, our restoration plots, our wetlands, and prairies would be long gone if it weren't for them. 

Sunny, warm, bulbs senescing for the season, veggies and bedding flowers coming on strong. 

Cheers, 

Mark

Renaming the name

 "The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm’s way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another."

Douglas Adams-The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

I could have chosen a lot of different quotes since I was in the mood for some Douglas Adams, and he has written so many brilliant things. Of course that quote was written in 1979, and here we are 39 years later and one of the dirtiest, foulest, ethic's lacking Attorney's one could imagine sits at the head of the EPA, the same agency he sued 14 times to ease regulations on pollution. He is straight up funded by the oil conglomerate, and responsible for selling out our clean water and our land. When you can't drink the water and you can't swim in the lake, and your lungs choke from the poison gasses in the air. When the cancer is everywhere because the plastic oozes from every landfill, and the sun can't penetrate the smog and the grass no longer grows green anywhere, is it then that you will realize that money is nothing without a life to spend it?

Just a thought, if work to you is just a paycheck, go do something else. Leave the seat in an environmental stewardship role to the ones who have a passion for it. Otherwise, you are just another Scott Pruitt, setting us all back decades and sucking the life from the planet.

Fritillaria biflora 'Grayana', or is it  now Fritillaria biflora var. ineziana? They seem to be always renaming the name.

This Beauty is a rare one, impacted no doubt by the march of man on his quest towards total domination of the earth, left with only a small fraction of habitat, it may not be long before it's gone from the wild. Sure does good in the garden though, one of the latest of the California Fritillaria's to bloom, this one sometime is still going as June comes rolling around.

The Rock Garden at Illahe Nursery and Gardens on a late spring evening.

Absolutely stellar weekend weather, it hit 80 degrees, but still cooling off wonderfully at night. Looks like a good weather week ahead.

Cheers, 

Mark

Onions and Inspiration

"The mediocre teacher tells.
 The good teacher explains. 
The superior teacher demonstrates. 
The great teacher inspires."
 William Arthur Ward

Allium unifolium 'Wayne Roderick'
Much has been written about Wayne Roderick, if you don't know who he was then you should google it. I won't repeat the many accolades here but I wanted to nod to the inspiration he provided many, including myself. I never met him, but I followed his work intently, I've been to Tilden Park many times and I have a passion for many of the Fine California Native plants he championed. I was thinking about how many of these legendary, plantsfolk are fading away as the "greatest generation" have hit the golden years and gone beyond. I wonder who will fill there shoes, who will spread the botanical knowledge and interest in the information age. I will always think of Jack Poff, the aged gardener for Rae Selling Berry who taught me so many propagation tips and tricks that you can't learn from a book. I hope I can spread some of that knowledge around. Because at the end of it all, you may or may not be remembered for things you did. You may have a statute built for you, or you may even have a plant named for you. But many of these things can fade or find the bulldozer or be lost to antiquity. But as long as people pass the knowledge on, that is a legacy that will hold forever.

Camassia  cusickii 

This was my seed collection from the Wallowa Mt's many years ago now. It's been such a good doer you'll likely see it on the catalog list this year. I know the color is a little pale, and some might say washed out, but those tall, sweet foxtail like flower spikes are really quite resplendent. 

Headed for 80 degree weather this weekend, I caught two bee swarms this week, and I'm getting a new motor put on my boat! If this isn't the Dolce Vita, I don't know what is?

Cheers, 

Mark