Christmastime Flowers - Puget Sound, Washington, USA

Christmastime flowers - Puget Sound, Washington, USA

Christmastime flowers. Several of the flowers shown above are true winter flowers, while others are long-blooming holdovers from Fall. After preparing this post, it’s clear that separate posts on each flower would be of interest to readers. Will work on that! The winter flowers include:

yellow Winter jasmine (see write-up in post to follow) - Jasminum nudiflorum

shrubby wallflower Cheers(TM) Florange - Erysimum linifolium ‘Balcherflora’ PPAF. This is a floriferous plant, very showy and even fragrant in its prime, but becomes quite “leggy” as the season progresses. Hope to try some of the other orange-flowered cultivars to compare.

shrubby wallflower Cheers (TM) ‘Mighty Mauve’ - Erysimum linifolium ‘Balchermauve’ PPAF. This variety grows like a fuller, more compact ‘Bowles Mauve’, which is still a desirable, reliable standby. Even though Mighty Mauve and Florange are in the same Cheers (TM) “series”, they grow very differently. This mauve form is very full, and does not get leggy. Blooms all year.

Christmas rose - Helleborus niger ‘Jacob’ - a member of the Gold Collection (R) Hellebores, technically named ‘HGC Jacob’. This is the earliest, most reliable Christmas rose in my experience. Starts blooming by Thanksgiving (late November in USA), right on through the winter, sending up a succession of bright white flowers. It stays in a compact low mound of shiny dark green foliage. Will do fine in a pot for a couple years, but would prefer to go into the ground in the spring. In Pacific Northwest, this species of Hellebore can be planted up close to foundation, as this provides lime which it likes and also good winter drainage.

Pin Snowdrift winter heather - Erica carnea ‘Pink Snowdrift’. This is the low, ground-covering winter heather species. ‘Pink Snowdrift’ doesn’t actually turn pink until later in the season, and unfortunately, I’ve not found it to be as floriferous and long-blooming as the white ‘Snowdrift’.

Big Sur manzanita - Arctostaphylos edmundsii ‘Big Sur’ from the Central California Coast, but hardy up here, over 900 miles to the north, thanks to the moderating effect of Puget Sound. Great 2x4 tall groundcover, with very early-blooming white bell flowers. This plant is in heavy bud, but there are a few tiny white bells open on stems down toward the ground. These flowers are hugely important for early pollinizer insects, and hummingbirds.

Holdover flowers from Fall - these would all be gone if there had been 20-25 Farenheit weather this season. But that hasn’t happened yet.

Early Bird black-eyed susan - Rudbeckia fulgida 'Early Bird Gold' PP #20,286. This is a more compact, longer-blooming close cousin of R. fulgida var. sullivantti ‘Goldsturm’, found in a field of the latter at Dupont Nursery in Louisiana. Early Bird starts blooming earlier, and continues sending up stalks of new flowers clear until hard freezes. The flowers aren’t as showy this time of year, but are startling and useful for any late bumblebees. We planted both Early Bird and Goldsturm, and after 3 growing seasons, this is the one I’m keeping. Goldsturm is too tall and vigorously expanding for our small back garden. This is so easy share with friends - producing nice offshoots with good roots.

Moonshine yarrow - Achillea x ‘Moonshine’. This beauty is a hybrid from England formed by crossing the native wildflower yarrow (Achillea millefolium) with Egyptian yarrow (Achillea aegyptiaca x taygetea). Fabulous dense silvery foliage and incredible displays of chrome yellow flower heads! This is a vigorous plant that blooms early to late summer, then sends up a smaller flowering in the Fall. 2x3′. We brought this particular plant from our former garden in Bothell as two twigs. It started growing in September, when we planted it, and expanded to a full-sized plant the following spring. Would not be without this!

A wonderful Calibrachoa hybrid - Superbells (R) Blue Moon Punch (TM) that is growing with lime green foliaged ‘Lime Marmalade’ heuchera hybrid in a tall turquoise pot. Petunias will bloom here through several degrees of frost.

Waterfall trailing Serbian bellflower -  PP#13161 Campanula poscharskyana ‘Blue Waterfall’. This is an amazingly compact and floriferous form of the sometimes skraggly Serbian bellflower. Profuse early-mid summer flowering, followed by a re-blooming in early fall. But this wintertime shoot of flowers is a surprise. The foliage is evergreen. It really wants to grow upward against a wall, but is easily coaxed into cascading over the side of this turquoise pot.

Here's a closeup of the landscaping project just completed. Viridis weeping Japanese maple with tassel ferns, Acorus Ogon, Scarletta leucothoe fontanesia, Daphne x transatlantica Eternal Fragrance, Erica carnea Golden Starlet (groundcover winter-blooming), a single Sundance Mexican mockorange, and Rhaphiolepis umbellata Gulf Green to anchor either side of the front porch steps. More later.

Cornwall - Poppy Cottage Garden near Saint Mawes and Veryan, Roseland Peninsula - The photo I use as a wallpaper while reading Charles Reeza’s “The Gardener”

http://poppycottage.garden/

PHOTO: https://www.greatbritishgardens.co.uk/images/galleries/poppy_cottage/poppycott.JPG

Still learning how to post multiple photos from phone, and keep them right side up. So far, the only way I've figured out is one per Post.

Pacific Coast Hybrids (PCH) iris. Hybrids between several "grass irises" native to the Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington. This group of native iris species are largely evergreen and grow only 8"-1ft tall, with narrow leaves - not as narrow as grass though! More like Siberian iris. And they interbreed quite willingly creating a kaleidoscope of colors and ruffly flattish forms. Have lost the tags for these two, and thought they were different (imagine that! Me buying two of the same plant! LOL).

Theae are truly blue on the lavender side.

The individual flowers do not last long, but the plant keeps sending up stalks of one or two flowers for several weeks.

These iris actually prefer dryish soil and not very rich. Wonderful plants! Will share photos of others as they bloom.

Atlantic poppy - Papaver atlanticum - a wonderful, cheery, long-blooming small scale poppy for the front of a border. It is a clump former, with leaves coming up about 8-12" and flower stalks 2-3 ft. Always well-behaved. This bright peachy orange poppy keeps on sending up flowers on single stalks for months. The individual flowers fade and wither in a couple days in warm sunny weather, but linger longer in cool misty weather. The bushy clump of grayish fuzzy foliage stays evergreen in our climate. Fully flowered segments of the clump with turn brown and need removal in late fall. And I keep dead-heading the flower stalks. They go to seed quickly so even when trimmed frequently, enough seeds get scattered around to provide babies to share with friends. Easy to gfow from seed. Not sure about dividing. Never tried that. PS this started blooming with a few flowers in mud-April.