Poor Man's Orchid

I rely on this generously self sewing annual as though it is a perennial. It fills in deep shady spots in my garden, and often pops up in sunny places as well.

Aunt Jeannie shared the seeds with my Mom decades ago. She called it "Poor Man's Orchid",

It is also known as Balfour's Touch Me Not, Balfour's Impatien, or Impatiens Balfourii, and can be purchased in seed catalogs.

You may not be able to find this for sale in nurseries because in my experience this plant can be fussy about being transplanted. From seed however, it grows beautifully and multiplies!

I have discovered that it will show up in pots I have left nearby, so I have taken to leaving a few leftover nursery pots near my plantings as a way to easily create new starts for moving around the garden and sharing with friends.

Originating around the Kashmir region of the Himalayas, it grows naturally in cool moist climates.

Here are a few reasons I love this delightful annual:

• Long lasting blooming season (beginning late spring and going into fall)
• Charming orchid like blossoms
• Attractive foliage
• Performs well in deep shade
• Self sowing (generously)
• Attracts butterflies and humming birds
• Easy to grow
• Works well combined with other plants in the border.
• Entertaining exploding seed pods

That last "benefit" on the list is one of the novelties of this plant. When the seed pods are fully mature, they burst open when touched gently, much to the delight of guests, and especially my kids when they were little. As long as you don't get a seed in your eye, this is great fun.

New plants in spring

Drawbacks:

• Prolific seed production, but young plants are easily pulled out.
• Needs regular watering, but do not over water.
• May need staking when grown as a massed planting, as shown here. Grown as a single plant, they will develop a sturdy shape, but in a wall of plants they will tend to become tall and spindly. 
• Because it is an annual, plants will die after first frost and need removal. Obviously this means there is no attraction for the winter garden.

Just more photos...

A seed pod almost ready to burst

As a backdrop for Astilbe

Aromatic Santolina

I received a Santolina start from a friend many years ago.

Also called "Lavender Cotton", the standard variety has bright yellow flowers and more intensely silvery foliage. The variety in my garden has creamy white flowers, and it has earned a place in my top ten for so many reasons.

Hardiness:

• Cold hardy 
• Deer Resistant 
• Highly drought tolerant
• Easy to grow
• Full to sun to part shade
• Easily propagated by layering or rooting cuttings

Benefits:

• Attractive silvery green fern-like foliage 
• Evergreen - does not go dormant in winter
• Aromatic foliage has been used historically to discourage insect pests.
• Long lasting blooming season in early summer
• Adorable button flowers
• Good cut flower, possible to use as dried flower
• Combines well with other plants in the border.
• Santolina cuttings are lovely in winter container arrangements. They will last a long time if kept adequately watered, and may even take root. 

Allow for plenty of space, planting at least two feet from the edge of your border.

The blossoms open out as they mature.

Drawbacks:

-Must have good drainage; will not tolerate excessive watering.

- Although some sites claim you can keep Santolina trimmed to the shape desired, my experience is a rambling shrub that sends its long flower stalks wherever it wishes (even though I trim it every year).

 - Must be pruned back after blooming because the spent flower stems are not attractive, and the plant will become leggy and the woody stems tend to split if not trimmed.
After the flowers turn brown I prune it back vigorously.

- Even with trimming, most plants will need to be replaced after about five years.

However:

Sometimes I take my trimmings and bury them in mud, keeping them moist until the winter rains begin. I usually am rewarded with several rooted cuttings by spring.

The other way to propagate this plant is to layer branches in dirt until they root, then divide the plant.

Just more pictures (below)

Rose Campion from Grandma's Garden

I grew up taking these deep magenta blossoms for granted. 

They were practically ubiquitous in our rambling sidewalk borders, 

and were most likely planted from seed shared with my Grandmother decades ago.

My Mother called them a "single phlox", and it's not hard to see why she made that error. 

Rose Campion is just one of the many common names for Lychnis coronaria. 

I think it sounds like a heroine from an Edwardian novel.

Because they multiply rapidly by seed, at one point they were so prolific I pulled them out every time I saw them. Now that they are under control, I realize what a treasure they really are.

• Long lasting blooming season in mid-spring (some repeat blooms in summer-fall)
• Velvety deep magenta blossoms
• Felted silvery stems and leaves (like Lamb's Ear)
• Fairly drought tolerant
• Cold hardy 
• Self sowing (generously)
• Transplants easily
• Attracts bees, butterflies and humming birds
• Deer Resistant 
• Evergreen - does not go dormant in winter
• Good cut flower
• Easy to grow
• Seldom needs staking
• Adaptable to sun or medium shade
• Works well combined with other plants in the border.

Reading other postings about this plant, many people mention that it just showed up in their garden. Birds? Wind? Happy circumstance!

Drawbacks:

Spent flower stems are not attractive. 

I cut it back mid summer.

Prolific seed production. 

Young plants are easily pulled out.

Needs drainage. 

I think of this perennial more like a self sewing annual, because our Oregon winters are often too wet for established plants. 

Just more photos (below)

Rose Campion and Lavender

Rose Campion's silver foliage contrasts nicely with brighter greens in the border.

Airy Linaria

Another mid spring flower that brings butterflies and bees to my perennial border is the faithful Linaria Purpurea, or "Purple Toadflax".

Linaria and Lavender

Specific cultivars are available from nurseries. Mine is an old fashioned variety, and has purple, pink and white blossoms. It is often promoted for rock gardens and cottage gardens.

I got a gallon or two from a friend about 20 years ago, and it has earned its place in my favorite plants lists for these qualities:

• Long lasting blooming season in spring (with repeat blooms throughout the summer and into the fall)
• Drought tolerant
• Cold hardy 
• Self sowing (generously)
• Transplants easily
• Sweet, airy blossoms
• Attracts bees, butterflies and humming birds
• Evergreen - does not go dormant in winter
• Lovely cut flower
• Easy to grow
• Although it is a tall plant, it seldom needs staking
• Adaptable to sun or medium shade
  

Drawbacks:

Requires a small amount of maintenance -- I cut back bloom stalks when they are no longer attractive, but it will send up more blossoms from the remaining stalk.

Highly prolific seed production and excellent germination means it will happily fill your garden. Young plants are easily pulled out, but it can be a lot! 

Just more pictures...

Linaria and Lavender

Brilliant Penstemon

Every spring I get unreasonably excited when the Penstemon starts to bloom.
I believe the variety I own is "Electric Blue"

I bought one gallon from a local backyard nursery many years ago, and this plant has earned a top spot in my "Favorite Perennials" list for these qualities:

• Long lasting blooming season in spring (with some repeat blooms throughout the summer)
• Drought hardy
• Cold hardy 
• Dividable *
• Gorgeous blossoms
• Attracts bees, butterflies and humming birds
• Evergreen - does not go dormant in winter
• Lovely cut flower
• Not invasive
• Easy to grow

* To divide this plant, I purposefully buried some of the stems in dirt to encourage root growth, and once established I dug up my start. Here is the original plant.

Here is the one I grew by division, just a couple years later! (I think it's happy)

Early in bloom season

Drawbacks:

• Foliage for this variety is OK, but not exceptional. I cut mine back after blooming and usually place annuals in the bare space. Cutting it back encourages more bloom.
• Stems are weak, so the plant becomes rangy. Another reason to cut it back after blooming. 

Later in bloom season, heavy blossoms & rain have collapsed the stems.

 Just more pictures. 

A Garden Planner

We enjoyed an early Spring this year, and last week I planted the first few rows of my vegetable garden.

This year I spent some time studying the theory of companion planting, and put a little more thought than usual to the placement of my plantings.

Because I tend to lose my hand drawn diagrams,  this year I decided to plot my garden using a Google Spreadsheet.

I discovered it is quite easy to put images inside the spreadsheet cells, and then once entered, all you have to do to "Plant a Row" is highlight the image, click on the little square at the edge and drag.

This is far too much nerdy fun.

Here is what I hope my garden layout will be when everything is in the ground. (Click on the image to see it in better resolution)

If you want to design your own planner using a google spreadsheet, here are a few tips:

I made the cells 45 x 50 to allow my images to be large enough.
-- do this by selecting all the rows or columns (highlight an area and then use the keystrokes shift-space for rows, or control-space for columns)
-- while they are selected, right-click and choose "re-size rows" or re-size columns".

I filled everything with a tan color. Select All, and then find the color you want using the Custom Color Selector.

There are two ways to insert images in a Google Spreadsheet. One is simply using the Insert menu. Images inserted this way can be freely moved around and re-sized. My little ladybugs and butterfly are inserted this way.

I wanted the vegetables to be inserted directly into the cells however, so I used a function dialog for images: =images("URL")
I also wanted to manipulate the size of each image, so I added ,4 and then the size of the image, for example, the marigold function reads like this:

I wanted to use copyright-free images, so just to be safe (and have fun) I drew my own primitive little images using Microsoft's paint tool.
Take this link to my hidden resource page.
Right click on the image and "copy URL" to insert them into your own spreadsheet project.

They are not fine art, but they worked for my purpose, and you are welcome to use them.

The ADVANTAGE to going to all this trouble -- besides knowing which row has what! -- is I will know exactly how to rotate crops in next year's garden. I can just make a new planner further down the page, copy-pasting my images already loaded into the spreadsheet. Easy!

A New Lefse Generation

I have two sons in law now. They have heard stories about the Great Grandparents who came from Norway and settled here, working the land to create this beautiful farm.

So for Christmas I gave my daughters their very own lefse rolling pins and a copy of Julia Peterson Tufford's Norwegian Recipes. Our local hardware store happens to carry these! We made lefse a few days later, using leftover mashed potatoes.

Our mashed potatoes were just the standard made with butter, salt, pepper & a little cream.

A simple lefse recipe is a half cup flour for each cup of mashed potatoes.
I cut the flour in with a pastry tool.

We learned that cold mashed potatoes are lumpy and we had to work the dough far too long. Next time we will warm them up and make sure they are smooth! I might try using a little less flour as well.

We combined the flour & potatoes into a workable dough, and kneaded it until it felt ready to roll.

My Grandmother would roll all the dough into a large cylinder which she called an "emne": a rough translation would be "something that is made to be processed into something else".

She would cut a disk off the end of the emne and shape it with her hands,

then turn it onto a floured surface and roll it round and thin.

My sons in law learned quickly. They found out why we keep adequate flour on the board and let the weight of the pin do the work; pulling the dough out from the center. Both of them are engineers, so they needed little help from me in working out the most effective techniques!

Lifting off the board with a paddle

 Lefse dough is handled more delicately than flatbread, but the methods are much the same. See my flatbread post for a description of the tools we use.

Tapping off the excess flour

If you can cook outside you will have an easier time cleaning up all the flour that gets swept off the lefse grill.

Turning lefse on the grill

Try to turn the lefse when there are light brown speckles (lift it to check underneath from time to time). If it is burning (black specks) you are cooking too long or your grill is too hot.

Once the lefse is cooked, you need to place it between dampened cloths to soften. I stacked our lefse about 3-4 high before adding another cloth. Let them soften until they have no stiffness left at least 15 minutes or more.

 One side will have larger spots. That is normal.

Traditionally we eat our lefse rolled up with butter and cinnamon sugar, but we also love to experiment with savory fillings the same as you might use a wrap or tortilla.