A Quick Trip to the NorthWest Flower & Garden Show

Be still, my beating heart…

lub-dub!

lub-DUB!

LUB-dub!

LUB-DUB!            Designed by Robin Stockwell of Succulent Gardens

It's garden show season!  

Do you feel like this in early spring?  I sure do.

Anna, William, Gina, and I kicked off the garden season by attending the North West Flower & Garden Show in Seattle, Washington.  We piled into Anna's car before dawn and only stopped for coffee, laughing all the way North to our destination.

A view of Seattle out of the Skywalk.  

Stepping into the showroom, the smell of Spring overpowered me.  I felt my pupils dilate with plant lust and I felt my early spring fever rush through me.  Then I saw display gardens that I wasn't allowed to walk through. What?!?  I've been spoiled all these years by the Yard, Garden, and Patio Show in Portland and didn't even know it.  

As I made my way through the crowds, laughing with my group, I took pictures and imagined what Mr. Barnaby would do to these scenes if they were in my garden.

Mr. Barnaby would prune the hanging foliage from the container on the left because tidiness matters.

Can't you just imagine Mr. Barnaby making himself at home in the middle of this romantic picnic for two?  

Mr. Barnaby loves to sit on patio chairs and floss his teeth with ornamental grasses.

Mr. Barnaby would love this setup.  A dane sized wading pool and a couch to sleep on in front of a fire.

So even a dane owner can pick up a few gardening ideas at the gardening show.  I was enthralled with the vendors.  The art and the plant shopping were fantastic.  Next time that I attend, I'll bring a bigger budget for plants and art.

To read more about our adventure and see amusing pictures of our group, read Anna's fun post here.  I was too busy laughing to remember to take pictures of us.  Shame on me!  We returned home the same day, despite losing our car in the car garage, and my voice was scratchy from laughing all day long.    

Wordless Wednesday: Tetrapanax papyrifer 'Steroidal Giant'

Tetrapanax papyrifer 'Steroidal Giant'

The new sprouts emerging on the naked stems of the Tetrapanax papyrifer 'Steroidal Giant' look like praying hands to me.  Do they to you?

Pomeranians and Puddles

You just never know what you're going to find out in your garden.  Some days it's water droplets on newly emerging shoots.

But, yesterday, I was out photographing my front garden and sighing over the bare dirt when I looked down and saw an adorable pomeranian at my feet.  She appeared out of nowhere and didn't have a collar or tags.  When I looked around to find her human, she wandered out into the street.  I jumped out and grabbed her up from the oncoming traffic.  Silly girl.

One of the Crony Brothers came out to check on all the ruckus and chatted with me.  We both went and knocked on a few neighbors doors to see if anyone knew her.  She received plenty of pets and coos, but no owner.  I ran inside and dug out Barnaby's old puppy collar and leash while the Crony Brother stood on the sidewalk holding her.  

Cars slowed down, people waved, but no frantically searching owner arrived to rescue her.  I thought for a moment that maybe she was going to be The Crony Brothers' new sidekick, but no.  She's currently waiting for her family to find her at the SW Washington Humane Society.  I've posted signs, posted an ad on Craigslist and the neighborhood website, and one of my new friends is waiting to make her acquaintance, if she isn't picked up in the next 3 days.  

I just never know what is going to happen and who I'm going to meet in my garden.  Have you ever found a lost pet in your garden?

Mr. Barnaby and My Garden

Mr. Barnaby, my 170 pound Great Dane, helps me tend my garden and take garden pictures.  And when we've completed our chores, he collapses on the patio furniture with a fir cone or 'hides' in plain sight in his favorite spot in the back garden.  He has a weakness for golden japanese forest grass, Hakonechloa macro 'Aureola', and keeps it trimmed to a nice stubble.   I really wish that he would develop a taste for dandelions or bittercress.

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A dane in the life of my garden.

Saxon Holt's garden blogger photo contest titled, Gardening Gone Wild Picture This Photo Contest, is focusing on photos from 2014 that tell a story. This is my submission.  I had so much fun digging through last years photos, giggling at all of Mr. Barnaby's shenanigans. I took this shot from my picnic table as an afterthought while sipping a cup of tea.  

What story do you see in this shot? And what caption would you give it?  

Invasion of the Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs

We have some overwintering house guests in our attic crawlspace and I'm on a full fledged killing spree.  Whenever I see one, I squish it violently under my shoe or flush it.  I'm an equal opportunity Brown Marmorated Stink Bug murderer. I'm on high alert because they eat over 400 different species of plants including my edibles and overwintering females will lay their 30 light green eggs this spring…in my garden.

A Brown Marmorated Stink Bug leaving footprints in my fresh paint. 

Last October, when I started painting our pergola, a large group or aggregate of Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs gathered on the South side of our house and all over the pergola.  There were hundreds of them, if not a thousand, frolicking in our back garden.  They crowded around our screened vents under the eaves and  skittered all over the pergola as I painted it a lovely shade of gray purple called Supernova that I've seen my talented friend, Anna, use.  And whenever I flicked a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug out of the way of my paint brush, it would fly in a big loop and smack me in the head like a big bully.  Then I'd curse.  We fell into a nice rhythm of flick, smack, curse as I painted the three coats.  A stranger suggested that I should have just painted over them to add texture to the project.  Can you imagine that?    

Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs looking for a way inside.

As a WSU Master Gardener volunteer I have answered countless questions about the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug and how to identify them from our beneficial native stink bugs.  In fact, we saw so many of them in the MG answer clinic that I wood-burned wooden spoons with them as a gag gift for a couple of fellow garden friends.  I don't find these spoons nearly as amusing since the bugs took up residence here.

The trick to identifying a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, Halyomorpha hales, is to look at the shoulders, they should be smooth and the legs and antenna have dark and light bands.  Look at this WSU Extension Fact Sheet for more detailed identification information.  Once you have identified it as a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, smash or drown it.  No known pesticides are known to work effectively against them.  And hormone traps do work, but who wants to attract more of these bugs into their garden?  I sure don't. The bugs' natural predators are currently being studied to make sure they wouldn't decimate the populations of our beneficial native stink bugs.

Look before you wipe!

The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug first arrived in Pennsylvania from Asia in 1998.  It has spread through our country devouring apples, berries, peaches, tomatoes, grapes, and  soybeans and causing major financial harm to farms.  This year could be the year that they start to harm Washington's wine grapes.  These bugs can fly up to 40 miles in a day and catch rides with cars and trains.  Our local orchard, Joe's Place Farms, lost almost half of their Granny Smith Apple crop last summer to the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug.  

On an encouraging note, some orchardists have found some success using a product called Surround which is a kaolin clay powder that cherry growers in Hood River use.  You can order it online in quantities for a home gardener.  In the meantime, I'm going to smash or drown the Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs that I find, while carefully protecting the native stink bugs that eat other pests that attack my garden.  

Do you have problems with Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs in your garden?