This winter that we are about to happily leave behind brought a cold spell that was a good reminder that USDA hardiness zones are all about low temperatures. The lowest lows set the limit for what perennials we can grow outside and unprotected. Those of us who dream of zone 9 or zone 10 will often fall victim to fits of irrationally aspirational planting. We know about the Fraser Valley freezes. We just experienced one from late December to early January. On December 27 our high was 23°F and our low was 17°F. Too cold. But we keep planting marginally hardy plants anyway. Why? Don’t ask why.
The Australian tea trees (Melaleuca alternifolia), manuka (Leptospermum scoparium), olives (Olea europea), Chilean guavas (Ugni molinae), mastic trees (Pistacea lentiscus) and surely some herbaceous perennials, have suffered. It will take several months at least to fully assess the damage. The tea trees might grow back from the stumps but not the manuka. All three specimens were young and too small to withstand the cold. Some of the foliage on the Chilean guavas turned brown. In fact the smaller ones, newly planted west of Cascara Circle…fingers crossed that they survived at all. We did get a blanket of snow but not a thick enough blanket to provide much insulation. Such are the heartbreaks of adventurous planting in zone 8b.
Today is the vernal equinox here in the northern hemisphere and the autumnal equinox in the southern hemisphere. Day and night are equal length today but our northern days will continue growing longer until summer solstice. If there is a soul in the Pacific Northwest who is not wishing for longer, sunnier, warmer days, please keep it to yourself. A squall yesterday brought sudden high winds, cold rain and hail, hopefully the last roar of the March lion. Today the sky is clear (for Seattle) and the brisk air delightfully fresh.
As the weather has slowly warmed, some stubborn seeds have finally germinated.
Blackthorn or sloe (Prunus spinosa) seedlings in the unheated garden shed. They were planted on 2/12/20. This picture was taken on 1/20/22, so they went through two warm seasons and almost three cold seasons before emerging.
Here they are a month later. Behind them are seedlings of western sand cherry (Prunus pumila var. besseyi) which were started on 5/3/21 (that’s when the seeds arrived). They got a warm period followed by cold, with seedlings emerging in January.
The slowly warming, oscillating temperatures of March and April trigger some seeds to sprout…or something does. Who can say for sure. Seeds are a never-ending mystery. Consider the Judean date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) started in Israel in 2005 from 2,000-year-old seeds. The earth is resilient.
Oh, but that winter was a trial. Cold damage can take months to show for some plants. With others the damage is obvious early.
Manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) sapling didn’t make it through the cold weather.
Australian tea trees (Melaleuca alternifolia) looking quite dead in front of the yew (Taxus baccata). I’m hopeful that they will sprout from the base. I have since cut them to the ground in anticipation of a flush of new growth. Time will tell.
But spring is here and the buds are swelling and breaking and in some cases, flowering.
Masuri berry (Coriaria nepalensis) coming out of dormancy.
Nanking cherry (Prunus tomentosa) flowering abundantly. A few warm days next week should bring out more pollinators.
Spike winter hazel (Corylopsis spicata) flowers in section E/F border…
…and the whole shrub. It puts out a lot of growth from the base each summer so you can let it get thick or cut the new growth back to keep it more open like this.
Utah honeysuckle (Lonicera utahensis) in Cascara Circle is an upright shrub. It has an unfortunate tendency to flower in early winter. After those flowers come to nothing, it flowers again in late winter/early spring. This photo is from March 18.
The next time you pass some tall Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) in flower, bother to bend over and take a whiff. Experience the delicate scent of April in the northwest. It grows all over the garden’s borders. The genus Mahonia is widespread from North to Central America but also eastern Asia. Here are a couple links to medical studies of tall Oregon grape and its Asian relatives, also a link about the PubMed search engine, in case you enjoy reading about current studies on the medicinal uses of plants. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12916091/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26387740/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/about/
Scurvy grass (Cochlearia officinalis) in section A was started from seed and put on a lot of vegetative growth last year. This year it is flowering and going to seed. As a biennial, that’s the end of its life cycle so I’ll need to start more seeds soon.
Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) has flowered. Hopefully it will produce fruit this year. It didn’t last year, probably because its tap root hadn’t stored enough energy. It’s still a young plant.
Billberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) in section A. This one and its companions were started from seed last year so they’re still quite small. But so far so good.
Rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) have been munching on the daylilies (Hemerocallis citrina in this photo) in the garden’s border areas. They don’t do much long-lasting damage because they stop eating after the foliage gets a bit tougher or maybe as more plants leaf out and there is more to eat. All is well, either way.
One or more Cooper’s hawks (Accipiter cooperii) have been loudly sharing their mating calls for the last couple weeks. They sound a bit like red-shafted flickers (Colaptes auratus) with their staccato kek-kek-kek, but if you follow the sound at this time of year you are likely to find a Cooper’s hawk. There is at least one in or nearby the garden every day lately. Apologies for the fuzzy 16x zoom on my cheap camera.
Pandemic cabin fever spurred me to hit the road south in early March. I needed that so badly.
Right place, right time. While visiting the central coast of California, I encountered the wild California peony (Paeonia californica) which is similar to our native Brown’s peony (Paeonia brownii). These two western species are North America’s only native peonies. Some had not yet flowered, others had already flowered but this one was just breaking into bloom. The boiled leaves were sometimes eaten by native people of central and southern coastal California to Baja.
Cherimoya (Annona cherimola) fruit slowly ripening in the pleasant weather of the California central coast. Who wouldn’t want to be growing cherimoyas in Seattle if we could? But paw paws (Asimina triloba), their close relatives from up north will have to do. Paw paws are delicious.
And of course, citrus trees are everywhere in California. Look at that mandarin orange tree (Citrus reticulata) with ripe fruit in March. Yes, March.
fresh sweet mandarins
cherimoyas ripening
central coast in March
See you in the garden.