🎄 MERRY CHRISTMAS CAMELLIA 🎄

Camellia sasanqua
'Showa-No-Sakae'
A gift from gardener Gwendolyn Yansen.
🎄 Blooming Twenty-five December 2017 🎄

🌿 COMING IN 🌿

"From December to March, 

there are for many of us,

three gardens––the garden outdoors, 

the garden of pots and bowls in the house, 

and the garden of the mind's eye."

Kathryn S. White 

The outside temperature today in the USDA
hardiness zone 8-b of Shaw Island, 
 is a wonderful 50°F but some garden pots are 
 inside on the Douglas fir shelf in the sun,
reserved for their winter quarters. 
 Glassybaby "Elf" snuggles with pots of
"Christmas Cactus" (Schlumbergera) on the left,
a small genus of 6 species native to Brazil.
 On the right is the common "Asparagus Fern"
(Asparagus aethiopicus) native to S. Africa.
She prefers to live potbound while helping to
clean the indoor winter air. Easy going, 
but likes humidity of wet gravel under her pot
to enhance her complexion. Propagation of
the latter is by division with a handsaw or
by planting the seeds in spring.

Anno thirteen December 2017.

🌿 SHAW ISLAND TREES Down 🌿

Aged Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata)
lost in the wind off Broken Point,
Shaw Island, WA.

Fallen grandfather Serviceberry or Saskatoon berry
(Amelanchier alnifolia), Midway Road, Shaw Island, WA.
This is the tree species with golden leaves lighting the
way like little sundrops along Blind Bay Rd to the landing
all the way into December, when we need them the most.
Her dried berries were used in making pemmican.
Thank you to Aho'i and Maggie for the jar of special
South Island Saskatoons jam from Cobble Hill, BC.

Yet another Douglas fir looking healthy
on the exterior, but rotten on the interior–– the Squaw Bay Rd
culprit that beat up the transmission power lines & the
sleep schedule for many Opalco crew;
Sunday 26 Nov. 2017.

"The future, once we reach middle age, always seems daunting and it'll never take the course you expect it to anyway. Live for the here and now, then, if here and now seems good.
       Let all planning ahead be for your plants; a year ahead for annuals, two years ahead for biennials [such as the strong, beautiful Shaw Island Foxgloves], an indefinite number of years ahead for the trees. Never take the 'I shan't see it' attitude. By exercising a little vision you will come to realize that the tree, which has a possible future, perhaps a great one, may be more important than yourself nearing your end. So it's worth thinking more about the tree and giving it a good start in life in the right position than about yourself, except in so far it is a great delight to see the tree responding and developing under your sympathetic treatment."Christopher Lloyd, The Adventurous Gardener.

Anno one December 2017
Here comes Neil just in time to fill in some slack
with a new Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum.)
The giant Sequoia is the world's largest living thing by volume.
The oldest known giant Sequoia, based on ring count, is
3,500 years. This tree is a very popular ornamental tree and is
successfully grown in the PNW, SE Australia, New Zealand,
central-southern Chile, west and southern Europe and
going strong on Shaw Island, San Juan archipelago.
Shaw Island has lost many large trees in the last year,
let's be planting!

🌿 🌿 DRY AND HAPPY FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Hope this harvest season has been good to you.
A bounty of fresh seeds has been collected
around this island
of Shaw for the Gatehouse shed.
The packets have been moved into screwcap jars for
protection from moisture.
There are herbs and a selection
of flower seed packages at the roadside shed for
late autumn or early spring broadcasting.
The handmade packets are green thoughts
for stocking stuffers in December.
Happy Holidays.

🌿 SHAW ISLAND'S LEAVES OF NOVEMBER 🌿

"Even if something is left undone,
everyone must take time to sit still
and watch the leaves turn."
Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985)

Author of  A Southern Garden––one of the undisputed
 classics in American garden writing. She also wrote
 Little Bulbs
Gardens in Winter
Gardening for Love
A Garden of One's Own and
Through the Garden Gate.
Horticulture magazine has a beautiful tribute to her;

click here

🌿 LILY AND COMPANY 🌿

Angel's Rosemary Blue Lagoon
Corinne's Grime's Golden apples
Cherie's "Tiger Lilies"
English Torquay Pottery pitcher.
Anno sixteen October 2017,
Shaw Island harvest trio,
"blooming where they were planted."

🌿 Wordless Wednesday

"Few plants carry such a cargo of atmosphere.
Ferns are the embodiment of green thoughts
in a green shade."
Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening.
With thanks to savvy gardeners, sailors, and Shaw Island 
Gatehouse support crew, Aho'i & Maggie of Olympia, WA.
Shaw Island Maidenhair ferns 4 October 2017.

🌿 ASIAN TIGERS–––HIDDEN DRAGON 🌿

Lilium lancifolium 'Splendens'
These Asian Lilies (aka 'Tiger Lilies')
first reached U.S. gardens in 1804.
The ones reaching up to taunt the Dragon
are the first 'Tiger Lilies' at the Gatehouse,
Reefnet Bay Road, Shaw Island.
Anno thirteen September two thousand and seventeen.