hellebore rising

Hellebore rising, summoning its demons and expelling the evil eye. It's that rebirth time of year, and the budding camellias and rhodedendrons mean good things are to come. The crocus greens and native chives are bursting from the lawn, and I'm praying the ongoing night frosts will trick my very late-planted scented daffodils into blooming properly and in a timely fashion.

I snapped a few shots of the diseased stump of the red cedar that recently met its demise on my strip. There was no saving it. The other photo shows the healthier red cedar stump for comparison. I am told that it would have become as weak as the other one in just a short time. Can you tell I still feel bad about this? We talked to our neighbor, who fully supported the chop-down, and said he'd been trying to get the larger (and healthy) spruce under his power lines removed by the city. Apparently, they told him that there are no inappropriate trees. I guess they haven't read their own website.


This weekend, I journeyed down to our wonderful regional garden store in Cottage Grove, Territorial Seed, which is not only a store but a research and development farm for northwest plants. Our climate and soils are so unusual here that varietals are really important for a successful vegetable garden. I bought Aquadulce fava beans as a mulch crop to fix nitrogen (and some snacking) and two peas (Sandy and Oregon Giant) for more of the same. The Sandy variety grows buckets of pea tendrils, one of my favorite Chinese stirfries. I also picked up some tiny cucumbers (Cool Breeze) for cornichons and Japanese long skinny cucumbers (Orient Wonder), and some French-style bush beans (Maxibel).

Time to kill the moss and plant grass seed, oh yes it is.