If You Lived Here...

...you'd understand why my garden is minus a gardener. It's not that I've crossed over to the dark side so much as I've become a zealous devotee of the wild side.

Every spring, sometimes as early as March, anyone listening can hear the call of the flora as it breaks bud along the Columbia Gorge. After twelve years living in the NW, that call's become deafening.

According to the field book I'm packing these days, Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest, we've got FORTY-ONE distinct species and varieties of penstemon, and that's not counting the scads of varieties sold and grown in NW gardens. (Portland area's Joy Creek Nursery offers almost fifty). So forgive me if I don't stick my neck out and i.d. this one, which is out by the gazillions amidst the balsamroot in the upper meadows of the Tom McCall Preserve.

Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

It didn't used to be this way. Time was, nothing could get me out of the garden come spring, particularly when I was gardening in D.C. where the race was on to finish everything before the weather turned like a rabid dog.

But as gentle NW rains continue to fall on my garden, lulling me into a false sense of of calm re: planting and mulching for the summer to come, I am nobody's gardener. Instead, I am a grateful witness to a miraculous if fragile world.

Here's an overview of that balsamroot -- rioting here with lupine -- on the relatively steep hike to the top of the Preserve. We've got eight species in the NW; this one's Balsamorhiza deltoidea

Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Of course not all the flowers in the Columbia Gorge are so bold and gregarious. Because of the continued wet and cold, a number of species remain reluctant to bear their souls.

A bashful monkshood (it is, isn't it? I thought delphinium, but it's too robust), one of hundreds now shuddering at the top of Multnomah Falls, waiting for the right moment to unfold. Now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure this is the native monkshood. Damn! Guess I'll have to climb back up after work today, just to be sure.

Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

4:00 PM ET | 05-28-2008 | permalink

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Dirt Nerd's Gotta Pea

Dirt Nerd gardens above 5,000 feet in Boulder County, Colorado. "In this dry climate," he says, "seeing a rain drop stick around makes my day."

photo credit: Dirt Nerd

The lead story this morning in the Talking Plants world (I didn't hear from you so what else could I lead with?) is Dirt Nerd's pea seedling. Isn't she sweet?

Well if that doesn't work for you, perhaps the thoughtful musings over at A Thinking Stomach will:
"What possible kinds of salad greens can one grow when it is 105 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday and 50 degrees Fahrenheit (and spitting hail the size of nickels) on Thursday of the same week?" asks blogger Christina from Pasadena. Check out her answers.

OK, how about...

An old friend showed up in the Talking Plants inbox the other day. If you'd like to meet one of the people in the world I most envy, check out the latest from the fabulously talented (and obscenely young-to-retire) Margaret Roach. Her blog is Away To Garden.

Sure I wish I had a couple acres in upstate New York. Poor me, all I've got is this:

It was another dark, rainy morning when I left Portland and headed East along I-84. Sixty or so miles and a hundred minutes later, I was climbing up through lupine, balsam root and penstemon, making my way to the top of the Tom McCall Preserve. What you see here is the view from mid-way up, looking north across the Columbia River towards Washington State. The spills of yellow and purple you're seeing? Wildflowers, my friends. Wildflowers. More pix from this magical place tomorrow.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

10:44 PM ET | 05-26-2008 | permalink

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A Plant Nerd Worthy of the Name

Ever so slowly here at TP, strangers are becoming regulars, and regulars are becoming friends. So as I continue dodging your most-asked question, What Would Eve Do? (she'd chew her nails to the bone worrying about how much angst to reveal; I promise an update, soon...) I thought I'd introduce you to one of the many sensational photographers in the TP Flickr pool, an anything but garden variety acolyte of the Goddess Flora.

His name is Rob Illingworth, he says the "real"gardener in the family is his wife Sharon (I guess that makes him, what, chopped liver?), and the couple lives 7 miles north of the MN border in Oh! Canada. Judging by their Flickr page, her passion is woodland and rock garden plants and his is everything she grows.

If it takes a family to create a portrait like the one below -- the plant is Hepatica -- consider this union blessed.

Hepatica clearly thrives in Ontario, at least in the Illingsworth garden, where the couple grow -- and he photographs -- a variety of colors and forms, mostly from seed. The Mr.'s photographs blew me away. In answer to my sheepish question, Um, you didn't color-correct this, did you Rob?, he answered quite earnestly, "I went out and picked two flowers from the plants. I have always intended to do this just to satisfy myself as to colour accuracy. I am pleased to say that the flower colours are very close to what I see on my monitor, which is colour balanced."

photo credit: Rob Illingworth

 

A self-described "plant nerd with a bias to growing rather than plant classification" (aha! he does garden!), this serious amateur recently visited one of the country's more imaginative and certainly better-endowed public gardens, Chanticleer in Wayne, PA. Its website does not do it justice, but Rob's photographs do.

Surprisingly, it wasn't his destination. He had, shall we say, less romantic plans. Rob was visiting the mid-Atlantic region because of a trillum symposium he'd signed up for at a nearby native plant mecca, Mt Cuba. Now that is one serious plantfest of a place. "I went to the symposium not as an expert, but as a keen grower," Rob wrote, "feeling that we could grow many more trilliums here despite our climate."

I can only imagine the notes he took; something tells me this is the guy who'd you'd most want to cheat off during a final. Anyway, among the many pix he's posted from Chanticleer, this one is Rob's favorite:

"Here's a low circular mound of fine gravel very carefully raked into an artful pattern," writes Rob. "The fallen flower petals from the adjacent trees had collected in the ridges making for me a perfect garden memory. While I was there the light was right and I was very happy even though I only had three hours for my visit. Not nearly enough time to see all the garden, but leaving me reason to return".

photo credit: Rob Illingworth

 

So many Illingworth pix, so little time. Be sure to take your own tour through his photos.

And who, might I ask, are you?

2:46 PM ET | 05-22-2008 | permalink

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Too Hot to Hike

A heatwave descended on the Pacific Northwest this past wkend and it has not been kind to people, pets and plants. Fortunately, a friend and I got out to sunny Catherine Creek on the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge before the wildflowers fried and the heat nailed us to the wall.

I often blog about botanizing in the Columbia Gorge but I'm not sure I ever showed you an overview of the place. Looking west along the Columbia River from the Washington side, sitting daintily amidst blue lupine, meet my piano teacher/plant buddy Megan Hughes.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Although the weather's been a crap shoot here and everywhere these last eight weeks, it's been very kind to native plants. I've been lucky enough to follow the entire wildflower progression in both the pouring rain and the odd moment of shine. The shine, of course, is hell for photographs (most of you are way ahead of me, based on your Flickr pix), but I now have a camera that can take it...as soon as I figure out how to point it.

One of the last gasps of tall, starry camassia in this wildflower reserve: a wet shaded depression with filtered light and your basic, moss-crusted, picturesque stump. You know the moment, just your basic reason to live.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

This documents my last '08 trip to Catherine's Creek. It's time to move back into the forest and get ready for the next wave of bloom. On lower elevations we'll soon be seeing Lilium columbianum, our wild orange lily. On higher elevations I'll get to relive what I've already seen.

But I count on Catherine Creek for two serious sun-lovers: purple penstemon on west-facing cliffs, and bitterroot, which turns hot rock into moonscapes of bloom.

Bitterroot was collected by Meriwether Lewis (get it, Lewisia?), who shipped home dried roots of the plant. This sweet thing's ability to come back from what appears to be a dessicated death explains its second name, R. rediviva, (Latin, revived), though feel free to argue it was also named in honor of the the Columbia Rediviva.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I wish I could put into words for those of you who don't or can't hike in wild places what it means to revisit the same wild populations year after year. Even the Obama campaign can't deliver this kind of hope.

1:58 AM ET | 05-19-2008 | permalink

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Do Your Plants Suffer From Indignation?

Did you miss the Nature article about the Swiss government throwing a thorny one to a govt ethics committee: to debate the dignity of plants?

The story itself makes enough sense if you read the whole thing through; among the things this committee intends to debate is whether genetic modification is more than simply controversial when it interferes with a plant's ability to reproduce and therefore, remain itself.

What's been far more amusing is how the very idea of plants having dignity has brought out great humor in those cheeky Brits and to a lesser degree, we Americans (alas, unless we're crude, we're simply not as clever and prone to humorless, narrow-focused diatribe).

See what happens when you throw me to the blogs? Hell with it, I'm heading back to the wildflowers. Will post pix tomorrow...

12:26 PM ET | 05-13-2008 | permalink

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Pissing Rain and Standing Water

Having just heard NPR's Melissa Block report on the desperation after the quake in Chengdu, and the continuing absurdity of foreign aid not getting into Myanmar, I'm torn as always between talking plants and talking real life.

Right now I've decided they're not mutually exclusive.

Even as eyewitnesses text, phone and e-mail in accounts from China, native lewisias in the Columbia Gorge are pushing from bud to flower absorbing whatever sun's rays are available (all told, not much); the first ruellia and acanthus flowers have been spotted by an Austin blogger; and a U.K. gardener mourns the absence of bad weather as he heads into the region's biggest flower show of the year.

Thanks for the much-needed visits to Zanthan Gardens and Blackpitts Garden; your blog recommendations enabled me to pick today's small if desperately-needed bouquet.

2:00 PM ET | 05-12-2008 | permalink

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EZ Guide to Sharing Your Plant Pix

Just got a note from Ken Banks who's new to Talking Plants.

I'm a Hawaii plant guy and would like to be a part of this blog and pix scene, but I dont understand how it works. How do I become involved? I apologize for my ignorance, but a brief step-by-step guide might help.

Much aloha to you, too, Ken. Here's your step-by-step guide, courtesy of Andy Carvin.

Step 1: If you're not a member yet, join Flickr. It doesn't cost anything to join, though if you want to use it to share a lot of photos - ie, hundreds or thousands - you may want to purchase a Pro account.

Step 2: Upload some pics you'd like to share with the Talking Plants group. (If you're having trouble uploading, consult Flickr's help guide.

Step 3. Go to the Talking Plants group on Flickr and click "Join this group." You'll then have to click another button to confirm your membership.

Step 4: Find a photo from your personal collection that you'd like to add to the group. Between the title of the photo and the photo itself, you'll see a series of tabs. Click "Send to Group" then Select "Ketzel Levine's Talking Plants."

And that's it; you're done. Your photo will now be included in the group collection.

(Me again. Now even I get it. Guess it's time to finally jump into the Flickr Pool. See you there)

5:14 PM ET | 05- 5-2008 | permalink

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Not Too Late for the Poppy Reserve

Just a quick note, a gorgeous pix, and a big thanks to TP member Hugh3of5.

If you're anywhere in the southern CA area and you've never been to Antelope Valley, the time is NOW. Admittedly, I've just read that the poppies have peaked, but there's still plenty to see.

Kent writes: These were all taken just outside the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve in the high desert in the northern edge of Los Angeles County. Make a note for next year, as this shot was taken two weeks ago.

photo credit: Kent Roberts

 

Another no-brainer for you So CAL flower power types...here's a number for your cell phone: (818) 768-3533. It's the Wildflower Hotline sponsored by the Theodore Payne Foundation. Let me know if you get somewhere gorgeous and whether I should knock myself out to go, too. I could make it next wkend if you say it's a must.

2:40 PM ET | 05- 2-2008 | permalink

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Pomegranate Juice Fights Cavities

So we know (or think we know) that pomegranate juice -- like acai from Brazil, and other superfruit juices -- helps with everything from lowering bad cholesterol to inhibiting prostate cancer and reducing some of the risks from diabetes.

Today word arrives that two young men from Flatbush have discovered that pomegranate juice can help fight cavities. Here's a bit more from Touro College contact Barbara Franklin about Zev Zelman and Elliot Lutz:

The students based their research on the knowledge that cavities are not caused by the consumption of sweets, but rather the bacteria that ferment the dietary carbohydrates to produce lactic acid, which eats away at tooth enamel. However, pomegranate juice, and to a lesser degree pomegranate tea, effectively deactivate the bacteria within 10 minutes of contact. Other beverages tested that were effective included grape juice, cranberry juice, and some wines. The other beverages tested in the research had slight or no effect on the bacteria.

So maybe this should have been a picture of pomegranates in the wild instead of Zelman and Lutz in the office of their Dean of Students (Robert Goldschmidt) to merit the TP blog? Perhaps. But if it's the thought that counts, my thinking is this: Man brags while Nature indulges.

photo credit: Richard Lobel Photography

 

Feedback, please. Do you or don't you want to see TP venturing this far from Eden?

1:04 AM ET | 05- 1-2008 | permalink

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