🌿 SUMMER ROSE 🌿 2016

Up, up, up the fence,
to the top of a tree,
and over the entry path.
Five petalled beauty;

Rosa "Eddie's Jewel"
one of the largest climbing roses blooming
electric-red-turning-to-hot-pink, hybridized
in British Columbia in 1962.
Angel's Rose, rules this day of 25 May 2016.
Unenhanced photo from the rose-enhanced
Island of Shaw.

PUMPKIN SEEDS

1. JACK-BE-LITTLE

Jack-Be-Little pumpkins
Unenhanced photo from Shaw Island.
2015.

Cucurbita pepo "Jack-Be-Little"
aka–– "JBL"

Plant 1"-2" deep in a mound 2-3 ft apart in May-June in Northern states with rich soil of compost and manure. They are big feeders.
This vine can grow on a trellis or fence or in large pots to hang down from your deck.
Place straw or cardboard under each pumpkin as they are growing. 
Keep soil moist but not wet. 
Harvest: when fruits are completely orange and the stem has dried and turned brown. Cut stem near the vine with a sharp knife. Be careful not to break the stem; never lift a pumpkin by the stem. Great for decorating color, then when you are tired of all the orange in your life––roast them! Yes, they are edible. Invited to roast in the oven with seeds removed last winter, they were sweet and delicious. A pleasant surprise.

Days to maturity: 90-100.

Yield: 8-20 fruit per plant.

For more reading on the culture of pumpkins see this site

Mini-pumpkin "Jack-Be-Little" seeds
available, while they last, at
the Gatehouse, Reefnet Bay Road, Shaw Island
Spring 2017.

2. JACK TEMPLE's Gourds. 
Jack, former caretaker of the UW Preserve on island. Remember the large garden he and Bess tended? These seeds are from his crop growing along the driveway, in his Seattle garden. 
Same culture as the mini pumpkins listed above.
Gourds are used mainly for interior decoration, but they are edible.

Jack's Gourds.
Just prior to seed extraction winter 2015.
The yellow one is an antique fish cork.
Thank you, Cecily T., for the
handcrafted porcelain platter. 

Sold out.

🌿 ORANGE HONEYSUCKLE 🌿

"If you look the right way, 
you can see the whole world is a garden." 
Frances Hodgson Burnett

Lonicera ciliosa
Happy growing along the road
next to the Gatehouse, Reefnet Bay Road.
Photograph of this native courtesy of Billie K
visiting Shaw Island, WA.
May 2016.

🌿 Shaw Island seeds at the roadside stand 🌿

"Shaw Island Double Lilac Alba"
A late blooming variety that has been planted 
around the island for decades.
Glassybaby "Regal."
Bouquet for island gardener MLC
Anno twenty-eight April two thousand and sixteen.

What a treat to enjoy the native hot-shot orange honeysuckle (Lonicera ciliosa) blooming within feet of the roadside shed today as the place was swept out for another spring. It is time to share fresh seeds of island botanicals, packed, labeled, and stuffed in their handmade wrappers. The seeds are favorite flowers, a few herbs, and a few natives, with some being added through the season. All are chosen for being good-natured, dependable country flowers, grown down through the last century snuggled in the back corner woods and meadows of Shaw Island. 
      Thank you for the friendly notes that were left recently. No one scolded, but it's now true, like the gardens of Shaw Island, I'm out of dormancy.
      Happy gardening.  

🌿 YELLOW ISLAND WILDFLOWERS 🌿 2016.

The Fawn Lilies deserve a prize this year.

Photographs courtesy of Joanne.
By rowboat from Shaw to Yellow Island, WA.
Anno eight April twenty sixteen.

Back on Shaw Island
Corinne found this beauty, Fritillaria lanceolata
(Chocolate Lily) to photograph at the home of a friend. 
Scott Atkinson (Wild Plants of the San Juan Islands)
says that this specimen is common in the archipelago.
April 2016.

🌿 CALYPSO bulbosa (Fairy slipper) 🌿

CALYPSO BULBOSA
Shaw Island
Three April two thousand and sixteen.
This alert person behind the hand,
found a colony of Calypso, the
most I have ever seen in one location.

"Passing through a heavily shaded, coniferous forest during May [but in early April in 2016,] the watchful traveler will sometimes be rewarded by coming upon a classic orchid of bewitching elegance, so delicate as it grows alone on a bed of heavy humus or fern moss. Nature's artistry is hard to miss in the perfect design––a nodding head with five rosy-purplish tepals (modified petals) above a little face, that has a pink upper lip, a white lower one flushed with pink, and a blood red-streaked throat that seems as if it were hand-painted. If that isn't enough, the heads often have a pleasing, unusual fragrance. Calypso, Atlas' daughter in Greek mythology, was a sea nymph, often concealed below the waves, and here her name honors the lovely charms and inconspicuous nature of our orchid. The roots grow in association with certain fungi and, thus, attempts to transplant are futile; plants also can not tolerate picking or other disturbances. This species was formerly believed to be rare in our area, but naturalists in Washington have now found that it is widespread. The San Juans are particularly blessed, with impressive colonies present on many islands, such as Jones, Sucia, Lopez, Orcas, and many others."

      No one can say it better than these two authors:

Wild Plants of the San Juan Islands. Atkinson, Scott and Fred Sharpe. Seattle, The Mountaineers. 1985.
      How's that for the start of April on Shaw Island.

      If you'd like to be knocked over with some photographic art visit this PNW site to view the wild Calypso orchid captured by a master.Pacific Northwest Orchids
      Artist Joan Baez includes the Calypso in her song "If I knew"

🌿 HAPPY EASTER 🌿

The sweet "Fawn Lily" (Erythronium oregonum) is blooming now on the Biological Preserve. 
      The first orchids of the year to bloom are Calypso bulbosa, now budding-out on Fidalgo Island. Don't miss enjoying the gems with such an early spring now upon us in 2016. Please see this incredible photographic record of native orchids in bloom.

Have a great Easter weekend.
Antique litho postcard.

🌿 In the Spring ・・・ 🌿

"In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours." 

Mark Twain.

Helleborus argutifolius
Blooming on Shaw Island
anno twenty March twenty sixteen
Glassybabys, Frog Hunting, Jade & Pollen.