Happy Solstice!

"Christians stole Christmas from the Pagans and Capitalism stole it from the Christians"

Author Unkown. 

I love the Winter Solstice, I actually love all the celestial events, I swear the older I get the more poignant they feel. Like every passing year the marking of the longest night seems to take on more meaning and significance. I'm not sure I can say why but every year I feel this and the longest day have some deeper spiritual meaning. Before this devolves into seasons greetings and mushy, sappy writing about getting older and such, I just really do want to say Happy Solstice! After tonight spring will be just a little bit closer!

Of course at Illahe Rare Bulbs we don't really need to have spring to enjoy flowers, here we have something in bloom every month of the year, and this year is no exception. The hoop petticoats are up and blooming like clockwork. Every year I tell myself I'm going to mass produce those babies and have pots of them ready for sale at Christmas time, unlike the paperwhites these don't need forcing and just bloom reliably every year starting at the Winter Solstice and staying around through the new year to offer a little winter cheer. 

Narcissus cantabricus ssp. cantabricus var. folisosus
hails from Southern Spain and into North Africa

The Hoop petticoat that doesn't need forcing to bloom reliably at the darkest time of the year. 

I think one of these days I will make up pots of this for sale at the winter season! It's always curious why this isn't that good of seller during the dormant season sales. I guess I should push the fact that it blooms at Christmas as a better sales point. 

This will probably be the last post of 2019. I'm celebrating the Christmas holiday with
family then off on the botanical adventure of a lifetime! Traveling Chile via a 4x4 looking for alpines and bulbs with my good friend Jane McGary. I will keep you posted on that adventure!

A solid 2" of rain fell this week as a Pineapple express hit the valley. Temps in the 60's felt a bit surreal for the later part of December.

If you don't hear from me before, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years!

Mark

Surviving December

“I heard a bird sing in the dark of December. A magical thing. And sweet to remember. We are nearer to Spring than we were in September. I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.” 
Oliver Herford

Here we are, all surviving December or trying to at least. It can be a difficult and stressful month that is for sure. We just got past the time of Thankfulness and survived family and glutony at the table. Now we have to survive shopping chaos, mass commercialism and the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, the expectations of Christmas or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa. For me it's always a tough time when the days turn darker and the nights get longer. I long for spring and the return of the sun, the flowers and the green chlorophyll pumping through the leaves again.

Narcissus romieuxii proves we have a flower at Illahe every month. While none of the potted specimens are blooming I found this little seedling survivng in the gap between the ground cloth and the greenhouse foundation board. Surviving December and even thriving. 

But there is one place I can go that brings joy despite the season. The open ocean for me provides a great escape from everything and always puts a smile on my face. Ling cod fishing off the Central Oregon Coast in December.

I should have been a sailor......I think I feel most at home on the ocean. The problems you face are really only those that concern your immediate survival, and the barren wilderness is actually a true wilderness; there are no roads here and the course you choose is any one you wish. I was happy to get out on my boat for one last trip before the end of the year. Even managed to boat a gigantic lingcod, my biggest ever. I sent her back to spawn in the depths of the rocky reefs off Oregon's central coast and huge smile came across my face and for a moment there was  not a worry or care the world. 

I'm off for a botanical adventure in Chile immediately after Christmas so I thought I would get a blog post off before we enter the home stretch of the holiday season. I'm busy prepping for that trip and the holiday and since there isn't a whole lot happening in my floral kingdom besides that stray Narcissus and some giant Christmas Amaryllis blooming in the living room. 

The weather has returned to what I would call a normal Willamette Valley winter, grey overcast skies, occasional fog, rain, and sun. Temps with highs in the low 50's and lows in the high 30's. 

Cheers, 

Mark

Growing from Seeds

"Since a hundred million dollars in New York and twenty-two fish-hooks on the border of the Arctic Circle represent the same financial supremacy, a man in straitened circumstances is a fool to stay in New York when he can buy ten cents' worth of fish-hooks and emigrate"

Mark Twain

I've been following a thread on the Pacific Bulb Society regarding seed propagation of Fritillaria with some interest. I do try to sow quite a lot of seed every year, and I've learned a few things about it over the years. So the other day I was cleaning up the greenhouse and noted some,  2nd year pots of Iris planifolia, Fritillaria lusitanica, and Crocus cartrwhightianus 'Marcel' open pollinated,  I had long given up on had some nice seedlings popping up. I do always try to save seed pots for two years and I have had some make it three and finally germinate but usually by that time there are so many weeds it's often hard to keep 3 year old seed flats productive in that sense. 

A mix of seed pots that were sown in the fall of 2018 but didn't germinate until November of 2019

 

I usually treat all seeds the same, sowing them as soon as they come in. Sometimes that is early fall, if you are buying from collectors,  sometimes as in the case of the exchanges it can be midwinter. I use a couple different mixes for seeds, in the past I stayed primarily with a gritty mix, heavy on pumice and with a small amount of peat and usually an organic like compost or shredded leaf mulch. Lately I've been having fine results from using a soiless mix, like Pro Gro HP, with added perlite or pumice to increase the drainage. I sow into either square quart pots or 4" depending on the amount of seed and then I cover lightly with a crushed grit like quartzite, available as a turkey/chicken grit. I water them in good and set them outside of the greenhouse on the groundcloth area to get whatever the weather can throw at them. If I get pots that are germinating right away I'll move them into the greenhouse to better control the amount of moisture they get. At that point I'll keep them just barely moist. Often Fritillaria seeds especially seem to follow a pretty natural cycle of germinating when the weather first begins to warm in the spring, so often by late March the seed pots will be showing good germination from a November/December sowing. I think the best advice is just not to throw out pots that don't germinate the first winter/spring. I'll let the seed pots go bone dry through the summer and often as can be seen in the above pic they will germinate as soon as the pots get cool and wet again in the following fall. 

The garden work is pretty well wrapped up for the season, just in time for the Turkey day. The greenhouse is nice and clean and with the weather forecasted to be down into the 20's throughout the Holiday week the tender bulbs have been moved into a climate controlled area. Should see the coldest temps of the season coming up this week with forecasted lows possibly hitting into the high teens and maybe some snow in the forecast. 

Happy Holidays to all, 

Mark

The Holiday Season Approaches

"If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." 

Henry David Thoreau

 Since it's an off season in the garden and greenhouse, I could totally dive off a cliff into political discourse here but I won't. I will however say that we should impeach him and lock him up and I don't have a problem with anyone knowing my political convictions or positions. I will not say much more than that and get back to plants now. 

This is a glass lantern slide box that has the develop before October 1931 date on it. Jack Poff, Mrs. Berry's old gardener gave this to me as a going away present when I left the garden for other ventures.

I attended a wonderful Talk on Glass Lantern Slides showing some of the rock gardens of Portland in the prime days, Gardens like Elk Rock and Lilla Leach and the M. Loyd Frank Estate were featured, absolutely stunning. The detail in the slides is remarkable given that they are hand painted sometimes with such detail as would require a single hair brush! 

This is the slide, I think it's Primula matthioli but it's unmarked, I'm guessing it must have been Mrs. Berry's as she was a noted primrose collector. I wonder if she hand colored this herself perhaps as it was noted in the talk that it was mostly women how did the coloring, often to a standardized color chart so that plants could be identified and compared even if a different artist had painted it. If you are in the Portland area and get the chance to see Suzanne Bishop of the Portland Garden Club do her talk on the subject of Glass Lantern Slides you must make every opportunity to go.

The gardening work for the fall is pretty much complete, the greenhouse cleaned up and plants tucked away for the winters rest. I have a growing batch of tender bulbs I've been playing with and unfortunately have to move them into the house if temperatures are forecasted to get down into the 20's. But a small price to pay I suppose for the hopeful reward of interesting flowers of the Southern Hemisphere. Patiently waiting for the Hoop Petticoat Narcissus to pop into bloom now that the autumn bloomers have finished up. 

The above was really just filler for the weather report, which has been strange to say the least, the last few weeks of October and into the first two of November we had almost zero rain. November is normally our rainiest month and this year has been very strange to see so little falling from the sky. I had a big tree removed by the North Driveway and replanted the area with some evergreens to give a screening effect and noted that I had to water several times, a very unusual task for fall planting season in the Pacific Northwest. Temps in the 50's today with fog and a forecast of drizzle coming this afternoon. 

Cheers, 

Mark

Winter is knocking at the door

"Winter is an etching, Spring a watercolor, Summer an oil painting

And fall is a mosaic of them all. "

Stanley Horowitz

This is a daphne I got from Rick lupp about a decade ago, it's been doing it's thing for a long time in my scrubby medditeranean border, which is really just an overgrown herb garden. Funny it had its best bloom ever this fall. Harbinger of something to come?

Oxalis hirta
I started collecting the South Africans again, because I love them, I just hope I can get them through the winter

Oxalis hirta
This seems like a good color form of this wonderful little South African species. This year is a hardiness test as I think we are going to be much colder then the last few. 

This has been an interesting fall, we had some early frost but it wasn't very hard, this evening's forecast shows lows down in the high 20's and this week has temps down into the mid 20's which always means a few degrees colder for me up here at 620' ( the salem airport where the weather forecasts are closer to 230')

I'm buttoning up the greenhouse and putting frost blankets down on the South African stuff tonight but long term I think I need to add a little heated section that I can at least take the edge off of a hard frost with. Most of the autumn bloomers have finished up now and a few of the winter growers are throwing up leaves but for the most part is pretty quiet in the garden. The leaf show has been great this season with a nice long week of clear cold weather we got to see some fantastic fall colors.

Cold and clear is the forecast this week and I'm sure we will see the lowest lows of the year.

cheers,

Mark

The First Frost.......well almost

So the weather folks were talking about frost all weekend and into the week, there was this big cold front moving in that they swore if it had been December we would have had snow here for sure. Well it did snow in the mountains and I'll say it did seem early for snow up there and even in Bend. I brought in plants to the greenhouse, tucked away the tropicals from the patio, put out some blankets on a few things, and scrambled to get the rest of the tomatoes into the pantry. 

On Tuesday we had a little bit of ice on the windshield and and the roof, but it really hadn't settled onto the lawn even and you certainly couldn't call it a hard frost at all. But the harbingers of an early winter and possibly a harder one then we have seen in a good while certainly to seem to be blowing in with that crisp north wind that has prevailed the better part of 4 days now. 

Crocus cartwrightianus 'Marcel'

The autumn crocus bloom continues unabated, although the lack of sunshine the last few days have had most of them closed up.

47 and Raining now, more rain in the forecast the next few days,

Mark

The First Day Of Autumn

“Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile."

John Howard Bryant

Colchicum in the rock garden

Crocus cartwhrightianus 'Marcel'

Well it's the first day of Autumn, and the saffron is blooming. So the summer I guess I am free to summarize now, it was a wetter then normal summer, and September was the same. I think it was much more humid on the average than it has been in a long time. It should be interesting to see what the winter has in store!

Mark 

End of the Season Thank You!

"If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning, and if it's your job to to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first." Mark Twain



Illahe is now finished shipping for the 2019 Season, a big thank you to all the great customers who ordered, we wish you a garden full of fantastic flowers in the years ahead!

Now back to blogging about the bulbs.

Biarum tenuifolium ssp. abbreviatum

From Italy to Sardinia, and to Western Greece, this little aroid makes a wonderful display in late summer/early fall as it sends up it's 3" tall flowers right at soil level. Great in the rock garden or a trough with its diminutive size you just have to remember that it's there when the leaves die back in summer. These are fast reproducing, making many offsets and if you crowd them in a pot makes a fantastic show display if your club does a fall flower show.

The summer in a nutshell was more mild then the last few it seems, not as much frequent days over 90, but also more humid with shots of rain coming consistently about every 2-3 weeks.

Cheers,

Mark

Harvest update

Well despite some obvious setbacks in life the last few weeks, we have managed to start digging up some bulbs. Anya has been busy the last few days and with any luck we will have a good handle on what’s going in the catalog by midweek. If you are one of the followers waiting for first dibs on something I’d say with out a huge vote of confidence that the catalog will be out by the end of the week. Early next week at the latest.

We have definitely dig up a few treasures this year for sure and while it’s been an unusual summer, slightly more mild then the last few and with markedly more humidity. It does seem the autumn bloomers are already throwing up some flowers. I had planned to go light on the fall bloomers but have run across some that are excess so expect to see some flowers in the bags if you order from the late summer/fall blooming group.

Cheers,

Mark

The Hardest Goodbye

The only flowers this blog entry contain are the ones that were laid on my sweet pup's grave this week. The Catalog is coming, I expect it to be out in the next week or so so stay tuned. This is a Eulogy. 

The Keta Years, 2009-2019.

I’ve come to realize that life is pretty much just a repeating series of loving something until it’s gone from your life forever. I got to love  this little leaky, stinky black lab for a good run and  take some solace in the fact that she had one hell of an adventurous life. Not all that many dogs have been 5 miles off the Pacific Ocean in a dory boat, 8,000’ up in the cascades to chase cross country skiers, run the Deschutes river from Mack’s Canyon to the mouth 4 Times, or drifted and motored over 200 miles on the John Day River, swam in the Rivers of olympic national park and navigated the Santiam and willamette in a Jet sled. She was lucky to live an unchained life in a nursery filled with flowers and she always knew when the sugar snap peas and raspberries were ready for harvest as I’d catch her grazing around the farm. She was a present under the Christmas tree to my then 6 year old daughter who has now grown into a woman. She spent some of her later years trying to catch camas pocket gophers in the Cherry Orchard, a feat that she was never really successful at, but I always appreciated her effort and when the cat would actually get one, it was Keta who would steal it and bring it to me. She had a way of getting on people’s nerves, especially on a beach filled with sticks as I don’t think anything in life brought her more joy then a well flung stick and a long swim to retrieve it and she would force you to throw the stick. But mostly she was always there for me, tail wagging at the end of a long day, ready to jump in the bed of the pickup for a trip to the swimming hole or just lay in the shade on the patio while I strummed a guitar. I’m so thankful for that one last run down the John Day with her in Project Mayhem, and I could tell the end was coming soon when she couldn’t jump up on the cooler or fly over the gunwale like I’d seen her do million times before. I guess I thought she was gonna stay that perpetual puppy she was at heart forever and I didn’t realize 10 years had gone by in the blink of an eye. And while life may be just that endless repeating cycle of loving something until it’s gone, I think it’s dogs that teach us what loving really means. Love is unconditional and endless for a dog and while she may have been small for a lab, her heart was definitely two sizes too big. Love you Keta, aka stanky, aka little bits, aka bitty dog. Thanks for all the adventures and memories, say hello to Skip, Scooter and Lola for me.  

Goodbye Little Bits you were such a good friend. 

Calochortus clavatus ssp. clavatus

"The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a priveleged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name."  Mark Twain

Calochortus clavatus ssp. clavatus

Well summer has a way of just flying by sometimes, and this one has been no exception. It seems like I've been burning the candle at both ends and here 4th of July came and went without a post. There are  bulbs are still blooming and this one from the chapparrel of Southern California lends some wonderful mid summer color. I was reading some of T.B Patterson's work on Phylogeny and it was interesting to learn that Calochortus is sister to Tricyrtis as he puts it. Tricyrtis being one of my favorites for a long time as well. His work on breaking out the different habitat types associated with the Mariposas, Cat's Ears, Star Tulips and Fairy Lanterns is fascinating as well. 

This species has always delighted me it almost reminds me of a Tigridia, It's also a great drought tolerant choice if you are working on water wise gardening. I've grown it under cover though so I'm not sure how much rain it can tolerate through a wet season, but maybe I'll give it a shot in a chapperral section I'm working on at Illahe. 

Like I mentioned summer seems to be Marching relentlessly on, no matter how much I wish it would slow down and give me a breather. I've had a few folks inquire about when the catalog is coming out, I'll be honest and say I'm not quite sure yet. I don't think I'm going to focus as much on the fall bloomers this year so It might push a bit later into August this year. I'll be sure to post the updates here when I get it figured out though so stay tuned!

The temps have been wonderfully mild lately, highs in the 70's, and lows in the 50's, quite pleasant really.

Mark

Calochortus vestae

“One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.” Aristotle

Calochortus vestae

Well the onslaught of Calochortus blooms continue. I need to work on my photography techniques for sure. Never has a plant so challenged me. Apologies for a one underexposed and one overexposed shot. I guess the perfect one is somewhere in between and you'll have to use your imagination.

Calochortus vestae

This species, aka the Coast Range Mariposa, Or the Goddess Mariposa,  hails from the land of my relatives, Occupying clay soils throughout Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties of California. This on is a show stopper for sure. As  you can't walk past it without sneaking a peak into the wonderfully marked inner portions. An easy increaser and a fast grower from seed, this really should be in anyones garden, especially those with Clay Soils, who want a great early summer show stopper that is very drought tolerant.

An early summer heat wave is approaching as we speak, noting that temps are supposed to peak in the mid 90's this week. More shots of the Mariposa's are coming.

Cheers,

Mark

Calochortus obispoensis

"The finest clothing is made of a persons own skin, but of course society demands something more than this" Mark Twain

Well  I have been a little bit busy for a bit apparently, Just noticed that i'm not likely to break any blogging records this year. There are however bulbs blooming and occasionally I have gotten around to taking pictures of them. Restoring historic gardens has had me pretty busy this spring. I would come home and a Calochortus that had been open all day was just closing up for the evening and I'd miss it and the same thing would happen the next day. I finally got an evening to myself and was able to get around and shoot some photo's.

Calochortus obispoensis is not the easiest plant to photograph
But neither are any of the Calochortus for that matter, you either have to do the straight down from the top shot, the eagle view or try to capture the sometimes less than stunning side view.

Calochortus obispoensis

Hailing from of all places San Luis Obispo County California and said to mostly occur on ultramafic soils. The San Luis Mariposa lily is a beautiful little flower. Said to be rare in the wild and difficult in cultivation. I've given it a basic mix of composted cow manure, pumice and a sandy loam topsoil. This mix seems to compact down more than the 50/50 cow manure and pumice mix that I use, as the fines in the topsoil fill the pore space readily, however it does a good job of holding a balanced moisture level, especially for species that appreciate growing in clay. 

The weather has been that typical Oregon mix of sun and showers and relatively mild temps but I hear we are headed for a heat wave. Temps are supposed to hit the 90's next week for an early start to the summer proper. 

Cheers, 

Mark

Calochortus invenustus

Can someone please explain disjunct population dynamics to me? Like how does a species end up growing in the Bay area, and also in the far South of California with a population appearing for some reason in the Bodie Hills of Nevada? Yet not having a contiguous range even though the habitat of sagebrush, chaparral and fir woodlands  extend throughout the region. Is it a predation thing? Maybe a soil/fungal interaction that doesn't exist throughout?  A soil type? Rock underlying base? I could spend a lot of time hypothesizing but for some reason no one puts any money behind research into something I find so fascinating.

Calochortus invenustus
Sony A6300, Nikor 105mm Macro at 2.8 iso 100,  on a tripod in the greenhouse. 

Or at least i'm assuming this is actually invenustus, with the strange population dynamics, and this form having unusually blue anthers as well as a blue shaft on it's trifid stigma. This one is said to be somewhat intractable in cultivation and hard to grow outside of it's native range. Ha! outside of it's strangely disjunct native range? I guess if you can recreate the conditions of the  bay area, and San Diego and a low range in Mono County complete with ghost towns and abandoned gold mines then  you can probably grow this flower.

For some reason they call it the the plain mariposa but it is anything but.

I am really excited to be able to photograph these with a great lens finally, I picked up a smoking deal on a dirt cheap 30mm F3.5 sony lens that I'm gonna use for the backpacking I plan to do into the wildlands at somepoint and If all goes according to my well laid plans, I'm gonna pick up that 90mm F2.8 macro Sony makes and then I'm gonna start taking the best pics ever!

Cheers,

Mark

The Rock Garden at Illahe

 Just back from a super fun trip to see some great friends married right on the shores of Lake Tahoe, it was sunny, the snow capped mountains rimming the lake with it's turquoise glow. It was hard to leave.

The Penstemon collection is going off and P. barrettiae is the king among them. 

The rock garden is coming into its own, and I'm still learning photography so somehow I ended up with an unintended vignette.

So just a few shots for the posterity sake of it, mostly I wanted to make a comment on the weather, it hasn't rained in 3 weeks, and look how fine the rock garden is doing, It's all about plant selection when you factor in climate change and an increasing concern about drought and water usage. 

The Calochortus are just starting to bloom so let the fun picture taking begin!

Cheers, 

Mark

Airports and blog entrys

I'm sitting in the Portland Airport writing this blog post and I suddenly realized how awesome it would be to be a traveling botanical blogger. Pretty much fly around the world and take flower photographs and write about them. Waiting for flights would give one plenty of time to post process the images. And the flight would allow plenty of time for writing about them.

Columbines in the rock garden

 I think I mentioned I was able to borrow a high quality lens from a friend of mine and I've been having a wonderful time shooting some high quality photo's. I really wish I had invested in good equipment a few years ago now. These shots were taken with a 105mm Macro lens, shot at about 8:30 at night using a tripod. I ended up taking a pretty long shutter speed, and stopped all the way down to the lens value of 2.8.

Columbines in the rock garden

 I'm super greatful for the loaner lens because now I think I know what I want to get, i'm saving for the sony 90mm macro, I originally thought I was going to want to go with a wider focal point lens but after seeing what you can do in low light because of the increased focal length I think it really makes sense to increase it a bit. I figure if I ever end up doing the travel thing, having the ability to do some handheld stuff and in low light seems very necessary for the changeable conditions encountered during travel.

Fritillaria biflora var. ineziana

The last of the Fritillaria are starting in now and the above is the final one to start into bloom. The calochorthus will be along shortly and I'm super excited to get some high quality photo's of these species with the borrowed lens or perhaps I will strike it big in Reno and I'll be able to get that Sony lens.

So I'm off to a wedding of two very special friends in lake tahoe this weekend, I left the camera at home but maybe I'll run into something photo worthy.

I can't not mention the weather, It hasn't rained for three straight weeks and if it does hit 89 degrees today it will break a record, things are very, very dry and the plants haven't had a chance to harden off the new growth so everything is flagging. Expect to see a remarkbly dry and painfully hot summer. Fingers crossed the weather gods are just bluffing this time.

Signing off from coach class row 9 seat D.

Mark

The Fragrant Fritillaria

I've always thought it was a little bit of an odd name, as the form I have doesn't seem to have much of an odor that I can detect. This one will always be special to me as it hails from the area of my roots, The San Francisco Bay area. One can only imagine what it must have been like when Richard Henry Dana was doing his Two Years Before the mast and he wrote that now famous description of an unspoiled entrance of the Golden Gate. It was 1836 and as he described the rolling grasslands of the Marin Headlands, with huge herds of deer one can almost picture them grazing on masses of Fritillaria of a few different species. Fritillaria liliacea certainly would have covered the open meadows and grasslands of they bay area back then. In Dana's description of the habitat, he points out that a Russian Whaler was the only other human existence in the bay as the Natives lived a days' paddle up the river. It's hard to imagine San Francisco Bay with nothing but herds of deer to dot the skyline.

This is one of the last of the Fritillaria to bloom for the season, F. affinis is still going strong and F. agrestis has all but finished.

Fritillaria acmopetala is still going in the raised beds

The rock garden is starting into bloom, Lewisia cotyledon and Viola tricolor making a show. I've been really enjoying taking pictures this year the new camera has really made a difference and thanks to some great friends, I was able to borrow a really nice Nikon 105mm Macro lens and an adapter to use it on the Sony. Not auto focus but it takes some sharp images. 

The weather has been wonderful, despite a stiff North wind that has blown through the weekend, the days were pleasant and I got a huge amount of yard work done, the burn pile is gone, the late pruning done, mulch spread and the annual flower planting started. Interesting enough, there was a light frost on the ground on Saturday morning, while the thermometer on the porch read 35 degrees. It didn't seem to bother the African Daisies I had planted out the day before. 

Mark

The Peacock

I couldn't find a good quote on rarity.........and I wish I was clever enough to come up with one, but at least tonight the words aren't coming. 

This plant is really hard to photograph, like I shot probably 30 to 40 takes to get a decent photo, I'm not sure exactly what it is, the intricacy of the standards and falls maybe making the focus not want to hit maybe? Those of you who have been around this blog for awhile, know that I've always had a bit of an infatuation with the South African bulb flora and even more so with the irids. I had quite the collection going long ago and that year that we hit 9 degrees in the greenhouse for week straight made sure that I steered way back towards the hardy end of the spectrum as I emptied out pots turned to mush and said goodbye to 7 years of hard work cultivating the collection. But maybe i'm a glutton for punishment or just like to try to push the envelope a bit, but I'm back at it. 

Moraea aristata

This is one of the rarest of the Moraea's, that all too unfortunate tale of habitat loss leading to endangered or imperiled. This one fortunately turns out to be easier to grow in cultivation then it has been to establish protected habitat. Endemic to the Northeastern Cape, but now restricted to a single population critically imperilled through loss of genetic diversity.

I've given it the same treatment as most of the spring blooming winter blooming stuff that I have from Mediteranean climates and it seems to do fine. It does seem to be quite hardy having seen temperatures as low as 20 degrees in a pot.

The sun is back in force! It was wonderfully pleasant today with temperatures into the 60's but boy did the wind blow this afternoon.

Cheers,

Mark

A few different Fritillaria affinis

"The best way out is always through"

Robert Frost

Fritillaria affinis the vancouver island form

Fritillaria affinis the driveway form

I just thought I would throw up a couple shots of the two chocolate lilies that are in bloom right now, It was a good year for the affinis forms as they had so many flowers on. The one out by the driveway is battling it out with the fall blooming colchciums in a bed made of old potting soil pretty much layed directly over a 120 year old gravel base from the highway. See my place is fronted by what they used to call old Salem highway, and if you were around before they built the I-5  you would have had to driven by illahe on your way out of town headed south for Albany, Corvallis or even San Fransisco. Sometimes it amaxes me what these bulbs can do after I coddle and care for them so much, sometimes they absolutely thrive on neglect. 

The sun finally showed up again and it dried out a bit. It's been pleasant and in the 60's for the most part this week. 

Cheers, 

Mark

Erythroniums for days

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.” 

Friedrich Neitzsche

I got to visit the renowked plantswoman Diana Reeck this week to see her work on the Erythronium hybrid selections she has been developing. 

Diana Reeck Showing me the beds she is working on selecting through her various forms of the Walther Blohm hybrids 

Check out that beauty! I'm hoping she has another release to get on the market this year! Stay tuned. 

The weather has been all over the place this week, it was 80 degrees and blue skys and the next day it's 54 and pouring rain. But the nights do seem to be warmer now.

Cheers,
Mark

The Anatolian Fritillary

The Anatolian Fritillaria are in bloom now, this tall, handsome species that grows on rocky, limestone slopes from Turkey, and Cypress down to Palestine. I now have three distinct forms, a very light, the original "dark form" I got from Jane and now a nice selection I'm working on from seed grown from the "dark form"stock. This one is an easy, and tough plant. I've had it flower from seed in as little as 4 years.

Fritillaria acmopetala the lighter form

My second generation of seed grown form of Jane McGary's Fritillaria acmopetala 'Dark Form'

 I think this dark form seed selection is really quite stunning, especially with it's dainty yellow tips, and offset green on velvety purple tepals.

Charles Hervey Grey lists it as being introduced into cultivation from Asia Minor as early as 1834, and says it needs excellent drainage and a hot location. I've found them to be quite adaptable and they don't seem to be picky about where in the garden they want to go.

It rained good yesterday and it was 40 degrees out when I got up this morning, seems dark, chilly and more like late February out then it does mid April.

Cheers,
Mark

Fritillaria messanensis ssp. gracilis

It's been a little while since I've done a species feature post, so here we go:

Fritillaria messanensis ssp. gracilis

Listed as endemic to the Dinarides, the mountain range that separates the Balkan peninsula from the Adriatic sea. Rising a total of 8,839' above the Adriatic sea this range extends from Italy, through Bosnia, Slovenia, Serbia, Kosovo and into Albania.

This species seems to be highly variable with the illahe form lacking a greenish/yellow stripe through the center of the tepal that I have seen on some pictures. The habitat is listed as open meadows and light woodlands, I have seen pictures of it listed as a characteristic habitat that showed it growing in very rocky, almost scree like conditions. Most sources listed it as an easy plant for the open garden, it does increase well in pots as I can attest. 

Rod Leeds in his Plantfinders guide to early bulbs, states that it "grows in rocky places in open woods over limestone" Charles Hervey Grey does not list the ssp. but states that F. messanensis should be grown "on a Sunny, well drained slope" where it will flower in April and May. Mr. Leeds does go onto point out that it seems tolerant of semi-shady conditions, which he finds unusual as it's not typical in it's native habitat. 

I found it coming up in my old potting soil piles, so it does seem to do fine without the protection of a greenhouse or the coddling of a pot. 

The Rain has been consistent with only one dry day this week, The willamette river is up and over it's banks in a few spots, with Corvallis and Eugene getting a dose of flooding in the lowlands. It's not like me to complain about the rain, but a dry day every now and then would be much appreciated if at least to be able to get the lawn mowed. 

Cheers, 

Mark

Bought the Bullet

"You don't take a photograph, you make it"
                                                                           Ansel Adams

Illahe From the Rock Garden.

                                                                   

I finally did, I saved up enough pieces of paper, and I took the plunge, I bought a camera, a halfway decent camera. I think this is going to help me put into cyberspace what I think I'm seeing in front of me everyday. Or at least a more realistic interpretation of what it is that I think I'm seeing. The sony A6300 was what I went with because after all Blue Collar dictates that even if you wish you didn't have to,  you still have to live within your means, But I must say for a "Starter" Decent camera, I think it does a stand up job. Makes me wonder what I'm capable of with a superstar rig in my hands! Like old Ansel said, you gotta make something .

I think I'm going to spend some serious time to photo document the collection in portrait style now that I have the decent camera to do it. I know everyone wants to see a huge pot of Frits doing the showy thing. But to really appreciate them  single flower with all the detail captured seems to really stand out to me. 

Fritillaria are so structurally significant in form, and what color even is that?????
 These shots are with the kit lens a 16 to 50mm. I don't love the focus range on this lens, I feel like I want to get closer.  But i'm probably going to try to save more pieces of paper for a really good macro lens. I know you can do a lot of great plant photography without one, but personally I really love the intricate, up close details of flowers. There is an entirely new world visible when you take a closer look. 

Joseph Halda's Iris bucharica collection at dusk on a April evening. The best thing about the A6300 is it's compact size, I think if I ever win the lottery I'm gonna travel and do some serious botanical exploration. This camera offers the travel requisite size requirement. 

So in true disclaimer fashion, All of these pictures were taken on a brand new, straight out of the box Sony A6300 with the kit 16 to 50mm lens, in a one hour window on the same nigth , nothing fancy about it really, and no post processing whatsoever, I just loaded them onto the blog. I have read that no good photographer doesn't post process the images, but It's a little like the music I make, I spent a lot of time just playing a guitar straight through an amp with no effects so you only hear the product of your fingers and your brain. Not that adding to the mix is a bad thing, i'm just pointing out that these are organic and raw photo's straight out of my new decent camera. Probably soon I'll learn how to use effects and make digital corrections but for now, what you see is what you get. 

Beautiful Oregon Spring mix of wet, rainy, misty, drizzle, coupled with downpours, soakers, and squalls. Once or twice the sun came out. I have the sulphur duster on the ready as the humidity has been over 100% for like 3 weeks in a row now. Hopefully a little dry weather will let me get the cover crop on the veg garden, and some tillage on the new berry rows I'm planning for this season. 

Here is to many better photo's! Finally I feel a little better equipped. 

Cheers, 

Mark