FOLIAGE

"Lamb's Ears"
Stachys byzantina
"Helen von Stein"
Gatehouse garden, Shaw Island, WA.
16 July 2022.

"One of the most exciting things about planning a garden is the many and varied ways there are to play with color––from the blending of great masses of color to high-lighting the gemlike gloss of a single blossom.

Even more subtle is the palette provided by the tones of the foliage. Plants have leaves not only in every imaginable shade of green, but in shades of red, purple, blue, gray––even white.

Breadseed poppy pods
Papaver somniferum
after the drama queens 
were finished with 
 the Fourth of July.
Shaw Island, WA.

When you see its full design possibilities, foliage becomes much more than something that sprouts out of the stalk below the flowers, and the color scheme of your garden is not limited to a sea of green with bright spots of color in it. You can have a garden with almost no green at all––or with no flowers."

Barbara Damroach. Theme Gardens.

Formosa Lillies
with backdrop of 
glaucous Abies needles.
Shaw Island, WA.
                  

 

JULY = = = = = THE MONTH OF THE ROSE

"In the garden

mystery glows

the secret is hidden

in the rose."

Farid Ud-din Attar

 

ROSA GLAUCA
known for the beautiful
blue-green foliage and no black spot.
Photographed on Shaw Island 
end of June 2022.
Seeds are available at the 
Gatehouse Seed Shed,
Reefnet Bay Road,
Shaw Island, WA.
This species rose germinates easily 
from seed and will often
self-seed to supply "littles" 
 to share with friends.
This plant is on the 
Elizabeth Miller Library's
(U of W, Seattle, WA.) 
Great Plant Picks.
Click this link for the 
outstanding qualities.
Great Plant Picks

GATEHOUSE BIRDS ==== JULY first 2022

 "Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as 

universal as a bird?"  David Attenborough

Plant a few foxgloves and poppies which are not deer food, encourage the native Ocean Spray, Salmonberry, and Elderberry bushes, put out a dish of clean water –– these colorful birds that have occurred in the last month to feed, nest, sing, and fly about the Gatehouse woodland garden will stop over to visit you. All true.

American Robin

American Crow

American Goldfinch

Anna's Hummingbird

Barn Swallow

Bewick's Wren

Black-headed Grosbeak

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Brown-headed Cowbird

Brown Creeper

Canada Goose

Cedar Waxwing

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Chipping Sparrow

Cliff Swallow

Common Raven

Common Yellowthroat

Dark-eyed Junco

Eastern Barred Owl

European Starling

Great Blue Heron

Hairy Woodpecker

House Wren

House Finch

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Orange-crowned Warbler

Pacific-slope Flycatcher

Purple Finch

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Red Crossbill

Rock Pigeon

Savannah Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Spotted Towhee

Swainson's Thrush

Tree Swallow

Warbling Vireo

Western Tanager

White-crowned Sparrow

Wilson's Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler