HAPPY HOLIDAYS

At Christmas I no more
desire a rose than wish a
snow in May's newfangled
mirth. But like of each thing
that in season grows.
William Shakespeare

Growing on Shaw Island on this day of
22 December 2018.
Thank you, everyone, for the seed shed support,
the clay art in this photo, and all
the handwritten notes left this past year.

🌿 ONE DECEMBER 2018 🌿

Camellia sasanqua
Growing on Shaw Island
this day of One December 2018.

'Happiness held is the seed;

Happiness shared is the flower.'

John Harrigan

🌿 Shaw Island Grower of Fruit, Vegetables, and TURKEYS 🌿 Marian Lutz

Happy Turkey Day
Vintage postcard dated 1914.

This piece was originally posted for Thanksgiving 2015 but our island has some new residents in the last three years so let us view Marion and Angel's antique oven stuffed with one fat turkey over again for 2018.

"Marian (1897-1981) and Herman Lutz were pretty much dependent on agriculture like everyone else. They raised almost everything they needed on their 250 acres and sold the excess to buy staples. They canned fruit and vegetables and meat for year-round sustenance.
      Thanksgiving was a neighborhood affair. Marian called it a waste of time to have a holiday by yourself. Each family would bring a specialty to whichever house was large enough to accommodate them all.

Angel's restored wood cookstove;
in the Bryant kitchen on the
former Lutz farm, Shaw Island.
Suspected to be Marian Lutz's
turkey cooker many years ago.
Photo 2015,
by Debbie Maxie, Coastal Mission©

      

When Marian was raising turkeys, a turkey was her specialty. That meant getting up at 5:30 a.m. to start the big bird in the wood cookstove because dinner was at midday. There were no electric lights to brighten an evening feast or light the way home.
      After some years of farming on Shaw, Marian's husband left one day. She said that he had a lot of curiosity about other places, and she never saw him again. But she loved the island farm and stayed on and ran it with the help of her daughter and her neighbors. She said she would never have made it without good neighbors within a half a mile or so whom she could call on when she got into a jam."
      Text from news clipping of unknown publisher and date; suspected to be the Friday Harbor Journal. Saved by long-time FHJ subscriber, historian, gardener,  and Shaw Island booster, Gwendolyn Yansen, and shared with this writer/1998.

OCTOBER on Shaw Island

Japanese Maple "Polly"
(Acer palmatum)
A grown-up maple tree from Polly Robertson,
a part-time resident who mailed up a box of
her seedlings to contribute to the first
fundraising plant sale on Shaw Island.
A talented gardener with a generous heart.
Over $1,000 was raised to landscape
the garden of the Community Building
in the mid-1980s.
Photo anno twenty-five October 2018
Shaw Island, San Juan County, WA.

In October, a maple tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp.

Even on cloudy days, its presence helps to dispel the gloom.

           John Burroughs.

And yes, in the roadside shed one can find a selection of mylar-wrapped packets of island-grown seeds, at rest inside screw-topped jars for protection from the high humidity upon us this season. One packet is 3.75" x 5.25" so will easily fit within a Christmas card envelope. Hey, that is an idea.

THEY COULD BE WITH US 'TIL FROST

"Nasturtiums, who colored you,

you wonderful, glowing thing?

You must have been fashioned 

out of summer sunsets."

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Offspring of Mary Lou's Nasturtiums
enjoying a visit with Angel's Asters
this day 26 September 2018.
Photo courtesy of Shaw Island grower, Angel.

Tropaeolum majus
There are many varieties. The trailing one Mary Lou shared
from her hothouse liked to climb & stretch to let us know she
was keen to grow and self-seed. But never invasively.
Mary Lou's parent flowers from four years ago can be seen HERE
New seeds are for sale in handmade packets
at the Gatehouse, Squaw Bay Road, Shaw Island.

from themicrogardener.com

      

HEAD OF THE CLASS

FLOWERING TOBACCO
Nicotiana sylvestris 'Only the Lonely.’
Blooming in mid-July at the Gatehouse garden,
Shaw Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.
At this writing, at least 4' tall, fragrant,
and winning the trial for DEER RESISTANCE
in this fall season when faithful Foxgloves
 have finished with their bloom cycle.
Don't tell me white flowers are boring.
Second generation now blooming
at this garden on Reefnet Bay Road,
Shaw Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Save the packet in the fridge for early
spring broadcasting.
Photo from the Gatehouse garden July 2019.

Botanical name: Nicotiana sylvestris 'Only the Lonely'

Life Cycle: Tender perennial.

Native Growing Region: Northwestern Argentina

Zone: Winter hardy USDA 7 to 10

Bloom Time: Depending on the weather, sometimes from June until frost.

Flower: Showy clusters of pendant white flowers that look like a burst of fireworks. Most fragrant in the evening.

Spread: 1-2'

Foliage: Dramatic. Huge chartreuse to green leaves. Larger in the shade.

Maintenance: Low. Easy, "throw and grow."

Description: Awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM.) The stems and root systems are strong enough that the plants can lean at severe angles without requiring a stake, some say, but this 5 footer has a slender stake to 
support her lifestyle.

Tolerates: Shaw Island deer! Rutgers Agricultural Station has rated this plant as RARELY touched by deer. There are hundreds of island deer who do actually leave this plant unmolested.

Degree of difficulty: EASY.

Garden uses: Good for fresh flower arrangements. Use in masses at the back of the annual or mixed border as a stunning backdrop for smaller plants, as a tall accent plant, or in a large mixed container. It is right at home in a cottage garden and is natural for a moon garden.

Notes: This species self-seeds readily but the seedlings are easy to identify and pull if unwanted. Volunteer plants are not a problem in cold climates. Thrives in all types of soils with moderate moisture but prefers rich soils.

The genus name honors Jean Nicot (1530-1600) the French ambassador to
Lisbon who introduced tobacco to France. The specific epithet means forest-loving.

Uses: Cultivated as an ornamental plant. All parts of Nicotiana sylvestris can cause discomfort or irritation if consumed, according to Wikipedia.

Sowing: It is easily grown from seed, either sown indoors 6-8 weeks before the last frost or sown directly in the garden after the last frost. Surface sow the seeds and barely cover, as they need light to germinate. Germination should take place between 1.5-3 weeks.

Quote:

"I could not live comfortably without flowering tobacco. The best flowering tobacco by far is Nicotiana sylvestris, the woodland tobacco from Argentina. A fine plant either for the mixed border or for pot culture on decks or patios, it rises in a pyramid as much as five feet above its enormous pale green lower leaves. Its pure white, long tubular blossoms are pyrotechnic, exploding in a circle in tiered whorls at the top of sturdy branching stems. Its delicious scent grows stronger at night when the somewhat drooping flowers lift upward to greet the moths that are their pollinators."

Allen Lacy, The Inviting Garden. New York, Henry Hold and Co. 1998.

FLOWERING TOBACCO
Nicotiana sylvestris
The minuscule seeds are harvested, sifted, & packed
in glassine paper for sale at 
Gatehouse Seeds, Reefnet Bay Road,
Shaw Island, San Juan Archipelago, Washington.

❖ AN ISLAND ROSE GIVING UP HER SEEDS ❖

Species Rose
Rosa glauca
Shaw Island garden
June 2012.

Botanical and common name: Rosa glauca

Type: Deciduous shrub.

Active Range: South & Central Europe to Caucasus.

Zone: 6-9

Height: 6-8ft.

Bloom time: May to June.

Bloom Description: Soft pink.

Water: medium.

Maintenance: Easy.

Attracts: birds, butterflies.

Fruit: Showy

Disease resistance: excellent against black spot and mildew.

Culture: 
This rose self-seeds, but not as a pest. Best grown in organically rich, medium moisture, well-draining loam. Best foliage color may be in part shade. At least this is one rose that will tolerate part shade. Water deeply and regularly (avoid overhead.)

Noteworthy characteristics—Rosa glauca is a species rose that is grown in gardens today for its attractive glaucous purple foliage and tiny, soft pink flowers. Many gardeners consider the foliage to be the best ornamental feature. Flowers are followed by abundant orange-red hips that ripen in the fall & usually persist well into winter. Reddish-violet canes have very few thorns.

Garden uses–– Excellent as a specimen or in small groups. Place at the rear of a perennial border. Naturalize in open woodland or shade gardens, shrub borders, hedges.

Introduced in 1789.

The Elizabeth C. Miller Library at the University of Washington includes Rosa glauca on their Great Plant Picks list and recommends Rosa glauca for every garden. 

Rosa glauca with her vibrant autumn hips,
fresh cuttings in the vase above.
Shaw Island Gatehouse 24 September 2018

Seed packets of Rosa glauca
are now for sale at the Gatehouse shed,
Squaw Bay Road, Shaw Island.
These self-seed under a parent plant
so that means this species is
very easy to sow and grow.

☆ HAPPY 4th 2018 ☆

AULD FRASER
1946 and going strong.
Thanks Bill
for the nice view from the Gatehouse Seed Shed!
4th July Parade 2018.

🌿 June Blooms from Shaw Island 🌿

Paeonia 'Eve Shaw'
Once growing on Broken Point, Shaw Island, WA,
by the late great gardener, Eve.
This bouquet for seedster-cyclist Rachel, 10 June '18.

🌿 June in the Woods 🌿

Digitalis purpurea
Making seeds for next year,
Shaw Island Gatehouse
Reefnet Bay Road,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Anno One June two thousand and eighteen

"I wonder what it would be like to live in a world 
where it was always June."

L.M. Montgomery.

Digitalis purpurea and
Rhododendron 'Blue Frost'
Shaw Island Gatehouse Garden
Foxglove seeds are the easiest to germinate,
a true 'throw and grow" enjoying a touch of shade
and some damp soil. Watch out for slugs.
Anno one June 2018

🌿 MAY ONE 🌿 2018

Clematis montana 'rubens'
over the deer-gate entry into Angel's garden.
Anno 10 May 2018
Shaw Island, WA.

In 1987, the well-known Seattle-based gardening columnist, Ann Lovejoy, came to Shaw Island for those keen to hear about her new book The Year in Bloom; Sasquatch Books, spring 1987. A book of instruction for gardeners of all abilities to celebrate one of the most ideal growing climates on earth (zone 8b for most of this wonderful rock.)
      One reviewer stated, "This is the book that inspired me to create a real garden. This is the best book that Lovejoy has written [out of c. 18] to actually communicate the fun of gardening and to help with plant selections if you live in the northwest."
      One gardener in the Shaw Island community just told me it was the words of Ann that inspired her to plant Clematis montana––the essay from the month of March pages 41-44, with thanks to Ann, is included below:
"The Clematis (KLEM-a-tis is preferred) family album is a fat one with over 200 species and many hybrids represented in dazzling array, dominated by the florid summer-blooming beauties with enormous blossoms and a relatively short but spectacular season. They are all lovely, if perhaps a bit obvious, but I have a preference for some of the less insistent members of the clan. One of the really rewarding ones is Clematis montana, a strong and splendid deciduous vine that deserves a place of prominence. Nursery people tell me that it is not a good seller because gardeners want the larger-flowered kinds. I feel sure that once seen, this early bloomer would be in demand. It is perfectly true that the flowers are not showboats, but C. montana and several other seldom-seen species Clematis have charms and strengths which make them as good or better choices for most gardens than the big, flashy hybrids that hog the limelight.
      My vine is now in full bloom, a great glory of pale blossoms. It has built up to this performance over the past month and will continue well into May with a light spangling of flowers all summer [?] Just now one can hardly see the leaves for the closely packed flowers. These look a bit like dogwood with their four rounded petals. This is a flower to savor and appreciate at close hand, a few floating in a flat bowl or tucked with a sprig of leaves into a bud vase for inspiration.  

Clematis montana
May Day on the boatshop,
Shaw Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.

    
      The leaves are a definite point in its favor, a good strong green with a matte finish rippled and veined giving an interesting light-catching texture, faintly hairy, which gives a silvery glimmer to the edges and undersides as they move in the wind.
      A beauty of this vine is that of the seedheads left by the passing flowers. As petals fall, long strands of silky floss emerge, furry beards which function like dandelion fuzz, parachutes to transport the tiny seeds. These persist a long time and can make a striking winter feature on vines grown in a sheltered corner out of the wind. 
      If potted up, these Chineses natives are very strong growers and will throw their arms in happy flowering trails over an arbor, a fence or a trellis. Since they bloom on old wood, any pruning or shaping should be done just after the spring show is past. They will stand being cut back quite heavily but like to have a full summer to recover. All Clematis like to have a cool root-run but want to grow into the sun.
      Give new Clematis a deeply dug bed, adding compost, lots of peat moss, and some sand or gravel to the soil to make a rich but fast-draining medium for the roots. Where the soil is acid, as it generally is throughout the maritime Northwest, add a good handful of lime, incorporating it well so it can be taken up by the roots. Plant deeply so the roots are several inches below the surface, but not so deeply that you bury the crown. Water well, and keep it adequately supplied with water for its first season, and you will probably not have to think much about this plant again, except to admire its billowing blossoms next spring.
      Above all, this species Clematis is healthy, sturdy, and easy to please. They seem resistant to the dreaded Clematis wilt that loves to cut the lusher beauties down overnight. A Clematis for practically every season, for sheer ease, abundance, and beauty, nothing can top the spring beauty of the Clematis montana."
Lovejoy, Ann. The Year in Bloom, Gardening for all Seasons in the PNW. Seattle. Sasquatch. 1987. Author signed copy from the Gatehouse collection.

According to Christopher Lloyd who wrote a monograph on the genus, titled Clematis, "the montana group is easily recognized. It stands apart from the rest in appearances, and its members are all so vigorous that they may be set the popular task of climbing into and draping quite large trees.
      Clematis montana is white. You don't have to call it montana alba or anything of that sort: it is white by definition. the gardening public is often unaware of this and think that, if they order a C. montana, it will be pink..." 

All this to say that there are Clematis 'Helsingborg' seed packets installed at the Gatehouse, Reefnet Bay Road, Shaw Island. Others coming soon.

🌿 Shaw Island Petals Leaving Town 🌿

Flowering Cherry
Shaw Island ferry landing
Anno fifteen April 2018

"It is the spectrum, not the color, that makes color worth having, and it is the cycle, not the instant, that makes the day worth living."  
      
Henry Mitchell. One of America's most beloved garden writers who wrote for the Washington Post for almost 25 years and could rattle off the Latin names of 3,000 plants.  

🌿 APRIL ONE 🌿

Narcissus Van Sion
A new Gatehouse planting of a Shaw Island heritage
daffodil blooming on time for Easter;
 Squaw Bay Rd.
There will be bulbs for sale again next door at
Market Camp in the autumn.

APRIL 

After so long

hardly anyone remembers: 

April's air

is colder than November's

But April is like 

a pitcher warming up:

gradually the ball 

starts to hop.

Ed Rosemann

🌿 SHAW ISLAND'S SPECIAL PRIMROSE 🌿

Primrose Quaker's Bonnet
(Primula vulgaris flora-plena)
A long-lived primrose compared to the hybrids of today.
A true Heirloom that dates to at least 1835 in an Irish
garden and maybe 100 years later on Shaw Island
where it was grown & shared by gardening pioneer women
Eunice Biendl Copper and Elsie Crawford Wood.
There will be some potted starts for sale at the
Shaw School fundraiser 21 April 2018.
No Quaker's Bonnet seeds for sale at the Gatehouse;
instead, try hard not to be a cheapskate,
buy a potted start and support the scholars
planning a field trip to Washington, DC.

🌿 WILDFLOWERS WILL BE MARCHING IN 🌿

(L-R) Shaw Island brothers
J. "Lee" and Eber Bruns,
Picking wildflower Easter bouquets of
Erythronium oregonum ("White Fawn Lily.")
The bulbs love the rocky, coastal bluffs,
thickets, and woods of Shaw Island.
Seeds of Erythronium not offered
for sale at the Gatehouse;
please leave these flowers untouched
for others to enjoy.
Photo c. 1920.

It was long ago that well-known women, Elizabeth V. Dodd and Harriet G. Tusler completed their monograph Wild Flowering Plants on Coon, McConnell, Reef, and Yellow Islands. It was released in the spring of 1959.
      The compilers of the list of 177 flowering plants said that seven of the plants listed under 33 families are found only on Coon Island, ten on Reef and forty on Yellow Island.
      "Tib" Dodd has identified the plants on Yellow Island, Mrs. Tusler has identified the flowering plants on Coon Island, where she lives, McConnell and Reef Islands.
      Included in the published work is a description of the Islands covered as follows: "Coon, McConnell, Reef and Yellow Islands belong to the Wasp Island group of the San Juan Archipelago. They lie within a few hundred yards of each other about ten miles from the Canadian border in the northwest corner of Washington State. The three acres of Coon Island are mostly wooded with considerable underbrush. There is open grassy point facing N.E., N.W. and S.W. and some small grassy slopes on the south side of the Island. The thirty-one acres of McConnell Island are heavily wooded with some open fields, several grassy points and a small open, swamp area near the hightide line on the north side. The seventeen acres of Reef Island are heavily wooded with much underbrush with a few small areas of open fields.
      The eleven acres of Yellow Island are mostly arid and open, there is a wooded section on the top of the island a few small groups of trees on other parts of the island. the rest is mostly open fields and grassy points. This island is exposed to all winds while the other three islands are more sheltered, especially Coon."     
      Included in the bibliography are eight books used in identifying the plants and in conclusion there are two pages of line drawings picturing Hawkweed, Willow Herb, Cudweed, Wood Rose, Deerhead Orchid, Giant Adder's Tongue, English Plantain, Dog Fennel, Indian Pipe, Everlasting, One Flowered Cancer Root and Nipple-Wort.
      The Orcas Island Historical Society contemplates the compilation of a Herbarium of Orcas Island flora. A start on this work may begin this spring and will be continued over a period of years.
Above text from the Orcas Islander. April 1959.
        When you boat over to Yellow Island this spring to see the wildflowers, remember it was on that gem of an island that Tib lived and did some of her botanizing. Tib and her husband Lewis were friends of Shaw Island.   

❤️ SAY IT WITH SEEDS ❤️

HAPPY HEART DAY

The most top viewed post ever for
Nichols Garden Nursery, Albany, OR.l

🌿 JANUARY–––the BEST PART OF THE YEAR 🌿

Chinese Witch Hazel
(Hamamelis japonica arborea)
blooming on Shaw Island
anno twenty January 2018.

Anyone who thinks gardening
begins in the spring and ends in the fall
 is missing the best part of the whole year;
for gardening begins in January 
with the dream!
Josephine Nuese

🌿 WINTER SOWING TRICK for Summer 2018 🌿

Fresh seeds wrapped in handmade packets.
For an early seed sowing trick listed below,
there are some packets of seeds kept dry
inside two large jars at the Gatehouse Seed Shed,
Reefnet Bay Road,
Shaw Island, USDA Zone 8b. Stop by.

Listed here is a great winter-seed-sowing trick for your upcoming summer garden. With some recycled milk or water jugs to act as mini-greenhouses, cozy beds can be made for seeds to germinate and harden off at their leisure, outside! Of course, Shaw Island seeds are healthy, happy, and most agreeable. 
Here's a link here