🌿Summer Snowflake blooming on Shaw Island 🌿

Summer Snowflakes
(Leucojum aestivum)
Blooming this day of
5 April 2020
Gatehouse Garden,
on Shaw Island, WA.

The so-called summer snowflake, Leucojum aestivum 'Gravetye Giant' is in full bloom by early April, and may run on into May. The common name is a misnomer because it blooms in spring, and has gone dormant by summer. It is deer resistant, and a great naturalizer for Z 4-8. 
      In spring, leafless stems that are up to 36" in height bear up to 8-bell shaped, slightly chocolate-scented, white flowers. 'Gravetye Giant' is a standout of this genus because of its vigor. It is a more robust, taller, and heavier bloomer. The summer snowflake prefers to not dry out completely in summer while dormant. It never flops, according to Christopher Lloyd.
      The Elizabeth Miller Library includes this bulb on their list of Great Plant Picks. Best of all, gardener Gwen Yansen, one of the first to grow this plant on Shaw Island, had fat clumps of Leucojum in her perennial flower beds and was generous about sharing to those friends without. 

ONE MARCH 2020

"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, American writer.

Early Rhododendrons
coming out party,
this day of One MARCH 2020
on Shaw Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.

🌿 THE SEEDS ARE IN 🌿

"Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron, and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies."  S.K. Penman.

A glass of red?
The Crocosmia x 'Lucifer' seeds
complete the seed harvest for 2019.
There will be a few packets protected 
from the high humidity housed in labeled jars
at the Gatehouse shed this winter.
Stop by Reefnet Bay Road 
and pick up a favorite to send 
to a gardening friend.

Crocosmia x 'Lucifer'
First the seeds,
then in a year or two come these
beautiful flowers.
They will self-seed even without
our guidance but not invasively.
The photograph is taken at a sun-filled
border at Angel's island garden;
many stalks of ripe seeds have been
lovingly shared by her, over many years.

🌿 WILD DOUGLAS ASTER 🌿

Douglas Aster
(Symphyotrichum subspicatum)

Anno 25 August 2019
A native flower growing on Shaw Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Author photograph.

Native Douglas Aster

One of the best native flowers to grow for a food source for a large number of pollinators. Can be cast out in the fall.

Life Cycle: Perennial
Hardiness Zone: 5-9

Habit: c. 3'-4' x 2', other places. (Only about 2' in height on Shaw Island, partly hidden in thick grass.) Laden with lilac-purple daisy-like flowers from July to October.

Soil: Prefers moist but also quite drought tolerant.

Germination: Seeds germinate easily and can be direct sown in fall or spring or started in flats in the spring and then transplanted.

TOLERATES: Shaw Island Deer!
For light conditions, this Aster will take full sun or partial shade areas subjected to salt or saline soils, areas that receive occasional floods and gardens that are blasted with cold winters.

Native: from the Aleutian Islands to northern California.

Notes: This is a late-season bloomer providing essential nectar to insects at a time when many other flowering plants are shutting down for winter. 
      Food source for a large number of butterfly and moth species, including the northern crescent, the field crescent, the painted lady, and the Isabella tiger moth (a.k.a. 'Wooly Bears'). The nectar-rich flowers attract hefty numbers of late-season bees, including bumblebees, leafcutter bees, and skippers. Also good for a rain garden.*

*Rain Garden: is a depressed area in the landscape that collects rainwater from a roof, driveway, or street, and also a place to let it sink into the ground. Planted with grasses and flowering perennials, rain gardens can be a cost-effective and beautiful way to reduce runoff from your property. Rain gardens can also provide food and shelter for butterflies and songbirds. 

Douglas Aster seeds
(Symphyotrichum subspicatum)
Before being cleaned for packets.
Native to Shaw Island,
Center of the San Juan Archipelago, Washington.
Photographed 12 September 2019.
Photograph by author.

For instructions on building a rain garden CLICK HERE.

People interested in food for pollinators
visiting their orchard and garden,
there are a few packets of native Douglas Aster
seeds now included at Gatehouse Seeds,
Reef Net Bay, Shaw Island, WA.

🌿 DEER RESISTANT PLANTINGS 2019 🌿

An antique stand from a pioneer
Shaw Island farm.
Carex comans 'Frosted Curls"
or New Zealand Hair Sedge.
A little shimmery this day at the
Shaw Island Gatehouse.
There are no seeds for sale but
young starts are often available free
for visitors on open days of Market Camp,
Squaw Bay Road, Shaw Island.
The island deer do not touch this.

Carex 'Frosted Curls' is hardy to -10° (USDA Z 6b). It will take full sun or part shade. Effective when planted on a slope, in containers, or in rock gardens, where its foliage can cascade. Evergreen with winter interest.

🌿 SUMMER IS HERE 🌿

A bouquet of fragrant Western Azalea
(Rhododendron occidentale)
happy in an old Chinese teapot
with a Mideke porcelain dish.
The is one of only two species of
Rhododendrons native to the west coast of N. America,
ranging from N. California up to S. Washington.
Picked anno twenty-one June 2019.
Shaw Island, WA. USDA zone 8b. 

One report claims this Rhododendron is tricky to propagate by cuttings but there will be lots of seeds to harvest in late summer for Gatehouse packets. There is no pre-treatment necessary, an unheated greenhouse and humusy soil would be handy. 

🌿 Little Sparks from Bowles' Golden Grass

These seeds are back at the Gatehouse since the grass is stunning in the garden after a long, gray winter & early spring. The golden leaves are trying hard to shine out and cover up a rotting Alder stump. One of my favorite domestic grasses.

It is featured in a spring 2023 issue of the luscious British magazine Gardens Illustrated.

Bowles' Golden Grass
(Milium effusum 'Aureum')
A colorful grass worth knowing.
Click image to enlarge and view
the thin spray of dainty seeds
bringing magic to the garden.

Photo was taken in the evening
rain of 20 May 2019.
Save the seeds to sprinkle around
in the shadier places in your woodland
garden or snip the stems into a bag,
if you wish to control the numbers.
 for some strange reason.
Deer resistant and pathetically easy.
Back on the rack at the
Shaw Island Gatehouse,
Reefnet Bay Road, 
San Juan Archipelago, WA.

Botanical name: Milium effusum ‘Aureum’
Native Region: Garden origin. Prefers open woodland.
Zone Range: 6-9
Type: Perennial grass.
Bloom Description: As the season progresses tiny golden, bead-like flowers on thin stems gracefully create a delicate sparkle of gold.
Maintenance: Easy.
Tolerates: Deer.

Notes:
Most grasses and grass-like plants require full sun, but this semi-evergreen grass is the exception to the rule. The bonus is that the delicate chartreuse leaves will brighten a shady corner in any garden. Sow seeds in fall or spring, by just broadcasting out where you would like to see them germinate in situ. Best grown in partial but will take full shade. Self-seeds freely, but is very easy to control.
If it gets messy looking in the heat of high summer, just use scissors to snip back the delicate foliage.
This grass comes true from seed propagation.

RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM.)

The common name "Bowles Golden Grass" is to honor E. A. Bowles, a British horticulturist, plantsman, and garden writer who introduced this variety into cultivation. It was considered one of his best finds when he introduced this yellow form of wood millet.

"E. A. Bowles, (1865-1954) 
Edward Augustus (Gus or Gussie) Bowles, known professionally as E. A. Bowles, was a British horticulturist, plantsman, and garden writer. He developed an important garden at Myddelton House, his lifelong home in Enfield, Middlesex and his name has been preserved in many varieties of plants.
 E. A. Bowles was born at his family's home, Myddelton House. He was of Huguenot descent through his maternal great-grandmother and his father, Henry Carrington Bowles was Chairman of the New River Company, which until 1904 controlled the artificial waterway that flowed past Myddelton, bringing water to London from the River Lea. 

      Through his elder brother Henry, Bowles was the great uncle of Andrew Parker Bowles (born 1939), whose first wife, Camilla Shand, became Duchess of Cornwall on her marriage to Charles, Prince of Wales in 2005.

 
      Bowles gave his name to upwards of forty varieties of plants, and there are others that originated with him. For example, he named a Hellebore 'Gerrard Parker' after a local art master, Crocus tommasinianus 'Bobbo' after the boy who first spotted it, and Rosmarinus officinalis 'Miss Jessopp's Upright' after a gardening neighbor.

 Erysimum 'Bowles' Mauve' was among "200 plants for 200 years" chosen by the RHS to mark its bicentenary in 2004 and, to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the Chelsea Flower Show in 2013 was shortlisted (from among introductions between 1973-83) as one of ten "plants of the centenary".
 Other significant introductions included Viola 'Bowles' Black', cotton lavender 'Edward Bowles' (Santolina pinnata subsp. neopolitana). Vita Sackville-West cites the yellow and brown Crocus chrysanthus 'E.A. Bowles' as among the first bulbs to flower in her garden at Sissinghurst, while another spring plant, the slow-growing Muscari 'Bowles's Peacock', is commended by Richard Hobbs, holder of the British National Plant Collection of Muscari. 


      E. A. Bowles brought into cultivation several other yellow-leaved grasses and sedges. He also introduced a golden form of the wood sedge, Luzula sylvatica 'Aurea' and found Carex elata 'Aurea' on Wicken Fen, one of his favourite hunting grounds. 
      It has been described by another doyen of plantsmen, Christopher Lloyd, as "a plant to treasure, its colour changing in unexpected ways". 


      In 1908 Bowles was elected to the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), whose grounds at Wisley, Surrey, now contain a memorial garden to him. Bowles received the society's highest award, the Victoria Medal of Honour, in 1916 and was a Vice-President from 1926 until his death almost thirty years later. RHS colleagues knew him as 'Bowley'.
"

🌿 HELLO CALYPSO 🌿

Calypso bulbosa
Native to Shaw Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.
This photo was captured at c. 200' elevation by Thea Lengyel,
hiking friend, one island to the east of Shaw,
on Point Colville, Lopez Island, this day of 14 April 2019.
The area is part of the San Juan Island National Monument,
administered by the Department of the Interior's
Bureau of Land Management. The proclamation to
protect this land as a natural area
was signed by President Obama
in March of 2013.
Dogs must be on a leash.

"The goddess daughter of Atlas was Calypso, whose name means concealment, with reference to this lovely flower's habit of hiding among the mosses of the forest floor, in the shade––essential to its existence––of high forest trees. 'Bulbosa,' of course, refers to the oval white pseudo-bulb (corm) from which grow the single, strikingly parallel-veined, ovate leaf, and the 6-inch delicate scape carrying its solitary nodding and lovely blossom. The blossom, in the windless air of the forest, delights the wanderer with its heavenly fragrance––fresh, spicy, and utterly distinctive. It is a perfume to be mentioned in the same breath with that of the Twinflower, a perfume more subtle and refined even than that of the Rein-orchid.

      The tiny 'bulb' is most tenuously fixed to the forest duff by a few thread-like fibers, which are broken with fatal effects, by the most careful attempts to pinch off the enchanting flower-stem. Further, the bulb grows only in association with certain species of fungi, so that it is virtually impossible to transplant it successfully––as many thousands of admirers can ruefully report. One must need come reverently to its native haunts, there to admire it, and go blithely away––happy in the knowledge that others may come to enjoy it. 

      An unusual feature of this sole member of its genus in North America, is the appearance in late summer of the distinctive leaf, which persists through the rough weather of fall and winter, until the plump flower bud appears and is pushed upward by the lengthening scape, from March to June according to latitude and elevation. After the flower has withered the leaf slowly shrivels, and during the early summer months, the plant is almost undetectable.

      Especially on southern Vancouver Island [B.C.,] one occasionally finds the form ALBA, ethereally lovely and glistening white. When shape and proportion, colour and perfume are all considered, this must rank as one of the most enchantingly lovely of all our native plants. 

      On May 4 1792, Archibald Menzies, naturalist with Captain George Vancouver, was anchored near the present site of Port Discovery, WA, and making a landing and excursion into the forest'... met with vast abundance of that rare plant the Cypropedium bulbosom/ which was now in full bloom & grew about the roots of the Pine trees in very spongy soil & dry situations.' Menzies' Journal of Vancouver's Voyage. 1792."

Professor Lewis J. Clark.

Wild Flowers of the Pacific Northwest

from Alaska to Northern California. pp. 53-54.

Never will seeds or bulbs of this native be for sale at the Gatehouse but we can enjoy them on treks through the woods.