The weather has been chilly and very damp since I declared the end of my Winter hibernation. Not the kind of weather to draw me into the garden. I look at the mounds of pine needles that need to be removed from the emerging plants but after a few minutes outside with a rake, I quickly return to the warmth of the living room and my pile of gardening books on the coffee table.
Yesterday though, I was able to indulge my gardening fantasies and stay toasty-warm by attending the first garden show of the season: The Yard Garden and Patio Show in the Oregon Convention Center.
The show is a fine mix of display gardens and outdoor vignettes; plant vendors, garden art sellers, and random purveyors of stuff, not necessarily garden-related. There’s even a wine pavilion which showcases smaller local wineries; a welcome non-gardening addition to the show. It’s amazing how thirsty you get wandering around a convention center!
We made it to the show in time for a 1pm talk by Richie Stefen, curator for the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle. Richie’s talk “Creativity in the Shade Garden”, provided just the right amount of inspiration for new projects and plants to try in the shade this year. On my new iPhone, I started a list of must-have plants for the year:
- Pachyphragma macrophyllum, a white flowering plant which grows up to 1 foot, related to mustard flower
- Cyclamen coum: A hardy cyclamen in a wider variety of colors with silver mottled on the green leaves
- Blechnum “Penna Marina”: A coppery bronze groundcover fern which tolerates dry shade. Not widely available.
- Blechnum chilense: A tough and leathery looking, spreading deer fern.
- Vancouveria “Coppertone”: Similar to the native species but as the name suggests, with copper edged leaves.
- Paeonia mloko: Apparently, this will grow in open shade.
With phone in hand, hubby and I checked out the plant vendors.
Cyclamen coum was an easy one to track down and so I came away with two tiny plants; one with predominantly silver leaves, the other with silver mottling on dark green leaves. Both are labeled Cyclamen coum.
No luck finding any of the other plants. Guess I’ll just have to go to more garden shows and plants sales 😉
And then, the Hydrangea Plus stall just sucked me in. Not that I necessarily have room for another thirsty hydrangea but, I just had to look. You know how this is. Before I knew it, I had a tiny Hydrangea japonica “Coeurulea” in one hand and my credit card in the other.
I should have stopped with the hydrangea. The attractive red and purple flowers of Fushia glasloviana caught my eye and soon the cyclamen and hydrangea had company in my bag.
It turns out that although it was labeled “Hardy Fushia”, a Google search reveals it’s only hardy to zone 9b, a zone unheard of in Oregon. Oh well! I guess I’ll be fussing over this plant if it’s to survive here in zone 8b!
Next up: Northwest Flower and Garden Show next weekend in Seattle.
In the Trees 