More Wildflowers at Mt Hood

As promised, I am posting more wildflower photos from our trip to Mt Hood.

Trilliums:

Cornus canadensis (Bunchberry or Perennial Dogwood):

Adiantum aleuticum (Western Maidenhair Fern):

Other native wildflowers:

And finally, one of the kids at the fishing dock at Trillium Lake was pulling up salamanders by the bucketful, using only a line with a worm attached to it.  I couldn't resist to pull one out to get a better look and a photo:

It seems that this may be a species of Taricha, or Western Newt.  Apparently they produce toxins, including in their skin, but I didn't feel anything.  It was adorable.  I would have picked it up even if it irritated my skin.

For more lovely mosaics this week, visit Little Red House.

More Garden Glimpses : Late May 2008

One of the many rewards of gardening is the continual surprises. Such as this daylily, which came along with a small masterwort plant (gift from the garden of a friend of my mother-in-law), and which bloomed for the first time this year. I'm glad I resisted the urge to pull it out last year, when it showed up as a few blades of what looked almost like grass.

Then there is this gorgeous tri-colour honeysuckle, which is full of blooms this year. I received it as a tiny shoot in a plant trade about 2 years ago, and had no idea what colour to expect. What a lovely surprise to see this wonderful mix of pink, white and yellow!

Of course, not all surprises are welcome ones. I try not to even think about the Carex pendula which has seeded itself all over my entire upper garden and down the hillside. It is coming up by the thousands, and if I don't find them in the first year, they get pretty hard to pull the second year, and pretty hopeless for me after that. I received a tiny shoot in a plant trade one year, gave it what turned out to be an ideal spot in the moist side of my garden, and it grew to a monster with a base maybe 4' wide within 2 or 3 years. At that point, it had flowered, but seemed to only have a few offspring. However, I began to fear the size and growth of this thing, and being not very impressed by its looks, I asked a neighbour help me remove it last year (over-filling a wheelbarrow to haul it away to add beside his pond). It seems that right after that, the ground exploded with seedlings, and I've been pulling and shovelling ever since, with no sign yet of any hope of completely removing it from my garden. I'm afraid to ask him yet if he's noticed any seedlings. I can only hope it is not so successful in his garden!

Speaking of unpleasant surprises, I opened the barbeque last week, to get it ready for the BBQ season, and found this weird ball of garden clippings inside:

My first thought was that someone had played a joke on us, cramming that in there. But when my husband went to clean it out, and found the BBQ full of droppings, we realized that a mouse had made a nest there during the winter. Good thing I didn't open it until Spring! What a creepy thought, those little guys scampering up & down the barbeque without our noticing.

Anyhow, back to some more pleasant images. I can never seem to get enough of this Cornus canadensis (Bunchberry). I hope it will survive and thrive in my garden:

I can't help adding another photo of my white tree peony:

I also can't get enough of this Campanula glomerata, so here goes with another photo:

I don't know the name of this orange flower, but the yellow version of it grows wild in the neighbourhood ditches and lakeside parks (and along my East fence, near the ravine).

My son painted this birdhouse last year (the rainbow colours was his idea), when he was 6 years old. We finally set it up outside. I was ecstatic to find a chickadee checking it out within a couple of days (probably looking to find out if it was a feeder).

The espalier apple tree is bearing small fruits now, so I thinned out each clump, from the 3 or 4 fruits...

...down to 1 fruit each (in some cases, I've left 2, to see which one will be stronger).

This lupine is a cheery pink colour. I have a few of them in the garden, but wish I had a few more. I should plant some of the seeds I gathered in previous years:

Garden Glimpses : Late May 2008

Here goes for a few garden glimpses... As always, click the photo for a larger view.
I saw my first hummingbird a few days ago, and it was checking out the Weigela, which is fully in bloom:

This year the Genista pilosa (creeping broom) "Vancouver Gold" is spectacular, completely covered in bright yellow (shown here with a seedling of my treasured Geranium "Victor Reiter" peeking through):

I found this bumblebee sleeping on a geranium flower, so I was able to sneak in a bit closer than usual for a photo:

This one was not so sleepy, but I still managed (after a few tries) to catch a reasonable shot of him also:

The ants on my peonies bring back fond memories of my childhood, watching the ants on my mom's peonies:

This Menyanthes trifoliata (Bog bean) is a delightful addition to my garden, in a very wet spot in my garden (at a junction of two underground drain pipes). I pulled a small piece of it from Bunsen Lake during a canoeing trip last summer, and happily it not only survived the winter (dropping its leaves so it looked like a small green twig), but is flowering this Spring:

I love the foliage of the Petasites frigidus, so much so that I have allowed it to take over an increasingly larger area of the hillside on the moist and shady side of our garden:

And of course, who could not love the foliage of the Stachys byzantina (Lamb's ear)? All the kids who come to the garden are delighted by these leaves (or at least I'm always delighted to pick a few leaves to share with them).

I'm always delighted by my espalier fruit trees, and I will need to thin out the fruit to let it ripen fully, but in the meantime I am pleased to see so many tiny fruits, here on the asian pear:

...and here on the apple:


This tree peony flower is so delicate. I had 5 flowers this year.

I love how this little Japanese maple cascades gently down the concrete wall.

I am pleased to finally receive flowers for the first time on my Cornus canadensis (Bunchberry):

This is also the first time my lilac tree is in bloom (since I bought it in bloom, some 2 or 3 years ago now), and it is not only a pretty double flower, but also wonderfully fragrant:

This Sempervivum (Hen and Chicks) is nestled (almost smothered) by the Sedum growing around it, forming a richly textured ground cover. The small seedling in the top left is a Masterwort:

What pleasing texture and colour on these epimedium leaves (with again more Geranium "Victor Reiter" peeking from behind - this time a green variant; about half the offspring seem to come up with the burgundy foliage, and half with just green, but the flowers are always the same purple).

When the Campanula glomerata is in full bloom, it is stunning. So far I have this one "teaser" bloom, and the remainder is in bud:

Garden Glimpses : Early May 2008

Here are a few more recent garden photos (click any photo for a larger image)... Sometimes an accidental pairing can have a pleasing effect, like these tulips blooming among the greenery of an iris. Oh yeah, I planned it that way. ;-)

I believe this is the first time I've seen this rhodo in bloom. Nice.

This is also the first time I have flowers on my Cornus canadensis (Bunchberry, a perennial dogwood groundcover). I'm very pleased, I was worried last year I would lose my few shoots, but it looks as if it's now established.

If dandelion were not so successful here, it would make an ideal flower. Deep-rooted, and such cheery yellow flowers. Look at this one among the rockery, I wished I didn't need to dig it out:

But sadly, I have dandelions by the dozen this year, as well as thousands of Carex pendula, which I am digging out by the wheelbarrow-full. My soil is a very rich garden mix (many, many truckloads of it were brought in to form a garden on top of the impenetrable clay beneath), so everything that lands in it, grows like crazy. If my weeds were edible, many of them would be "entree-sized".

The fruit trees are loaded in blossoms this year. Looking at the other fruit trees in the neighbourhood, it looks like it will be good year for fruit trees, all around. Here is my young bartlett pear tree, showing great promise this year:


Here is my Rainier cherry, about one week ago, in full blossom:

Golden Ears Park Pics

We went for a hike in Golden Ears Park today, and got a few nice photos from the trip (click any of them for a closer view). The first three photos are from the Spirea Nature Trail, which led us through (over) a bog, where we could see tadpoles with small legs developing, some beautiful blue dragonflies, lily pads (the leaves sticking awkwardly into the air, as the water level is quite low this time of year), and bog beans. Then through a forest where the forest floor was completely lined in moss. Quite magical:

One of the neat products of our wet rainforest weather in the Vancouver area, is the trees with moss draped over the branches (sometimes with ferns growing on them, too) found in many of the parks. I like to call them "spooky trees" because they would look quite frightening at night:

I was delighted to see many Cornus canadensis or Bunchberry (a type of low-growing rhizomous perennial dogwood). Too bad there were none with flowers or fruits. But they are still delightful.

We also hiked to the North Beach area, where a number of people were camping or enjoying the beach for the day. I tried my hand at building a small rock man or inukshuk:

Near the beach, my husband noticed a small snake, most likely a garter snake, black with yellow stripes. As I stopped to see it (the photo didn't turn out well), I spotted this beautiful little lizard. I still question if it could be a native species, it looks like something more suited to the Utah desert than a Pacific Northwest lakeshore. I'm glad I had nothing to carry him home in, or I would have been too tempted. What a little beauty:

When I got too close, he darted into the rocks, but then peeked back at us from between the rocks. I was sad to go, I would have liked to watch him longer. Can anyone identify the species? I would be very curious to know more about him: