"We’ll read in the autumn evenings; we’ll read many books, and a beautiful new world will open up before us.... "

“We just philosophize, complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It's so clear, you see, that if we're to begin living in the present, we must first of all redeem our past and then be done with it forever. And the only way we can redeem our past is by suffering and by giving ourselves over to exceptional labor, to steadfast and endless labor.”
                                    Anton Chekov-The Cherry Orchard

Oh, the parallels of this story to my life, the property on which Illahe sits is an old cherry orchard, I have a daughter named Anya and she is a virtuous and strong young woman much like the character in the play. The perpetual and endless labor of working the land. Clawing one finger hold at a time toward the top of the lower middle class........maybe some parallels are lost there, the aristocratic land holdings and such. I'm happy  to be much more the serf that bought the cherry orchard type. But I don't want to cut it down just yet. Too many harvests left in this lifetime. 

There was a small interest in the Carnivorous plants I was selling last year, I think I'll offer a few more of those again. I still have some nice Darlingtonia californica that I thought would be way more popular but really you all need to buy more of these so I can justify the water usage. On the non bulbous front I'll have some more of the Epipactus to sell as well.

Anya and I have been busy with the harvest, We setup in the shade of the cherry trees and thank the gods for some cooler weather! That's a stroke of luck I wasn't counting on, since it's been such a hot summer. 

Keep checking back because the list is coming soon!

Cheers, 

Mark Akimoff

Other plants on the list

For some years I have had a passion for carnivorous plants. I have a growing collection and have been propagating some of it so I think I'll offer a few different ones up for sale this year. They will come packed in moist peat moss with the pitchers cut back for space saving.

Except I do have some smaller Darlingtonia californica that I csn ship without cutting back. This form is very stoloniferous, practically spilling out of the large fiberglass water trough it grows in.

This being the first year I'll offer a few amd see what the interest level is. 

Cheers,

Mark

Two of my favorite natives.

These are two of my favorite natives. Both are relatively uncommon and I would dare to say rarely encountered.

Darlingtonia californica to me brings back great memories of backpacking deep into the Kalmiopsis wilderness and seeing it growing in boggy seeps or along frigid snow melt springs with its stolons winding through the bluish green serpentine rocks next to Cyprepedium californica both in bloom at the same time.

Peaonia brownii is a great plant that means a lot to me. The man who was a great mentor to me in growing alpines, rock garden plants and natives, Jack Poff, first showed it to me somewhere up near Bird Creek Meadows in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. I collected seeds a few months later. Jack has since gone plant hunting in the big meadows in the sky and our frequent trips out to Flag Point, the Gorge and Indian Heaven are memories now from a decade a decade and a half ago. 

Such great memories and some amazing plants.

Finally the rain is ending and we are looking at at run of sunshine. Temps into the 60's.

Cheers, Mark