Garrya

Monthly Top 10 Plants at Campiello Maurizio (February 2023)

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Not feeling so great after a trip to the dentist so this post will be brief!

Nine hours later, and I’m continuing to deal with numbing and discomfort on the left side of my face. Yea-ouch!!!

One: Oh hellebores—they’ve looked great both before and after the snow storm. This photo is from before, but now that the snow has mostly melted, they still look great. Phew!

I would love to have some fancier leaved hybrids, and maybe a species or two, but I’ve not been really great about acquiring them yet. You’d think I’d know better! It’s not too hard to find them out there.

Two: Fragrance in the garden is something most of us enjoy—especially in winter when so much is still asleep. Sweet boxes are always great additions to shady areas, and additionally, they smell great!

I have a few different ones in the garden. This one is Sarcococca hookeriana var. humilis and it’s in the back garden. Since it’s a lower growing option it works well as a ground cover.

Three: The Goodyera oblongifolia aren’t looking great per se, but the one plant has now grown into many since it was planted!!!

This little native orchid is a favorite of so many folks, and while it can be a bit finicky in the garden setting, it doesn’t have to be.

This grouping lives under a large Doug fir and I’ve included other native plants nearby to keep the little group happy. It seems to be working.

Four: Of course I have to add a houseplant or two too!!! This is Streptocarpus UA-Retro. Ain’t she a beauty?

Hubba hubba!

Five: Love this tough hybrid and so do the hummingbirds. Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’ is an interspecific hybrid of two Asian species and is quickly becoming a favorite in my front garden.

Six: I don’t even remember how long I’ve had these Galanthus elwesii but it’s been for well over a decade now. They’re reliable and true for me, maybe not the most hard-to-find, but hey, I live too far away from Galanthus Gala to throw down too much cash on some of the more difficult-to-find ones. (Just kidding!!! That’s what the internet is for, right?)

Anyway, for now, these will do!

Seven: Another great winter plant in the garden, this Garrya elliptica ‘Evie’ came to me as a pet plant that had been trimmed into a lollipop topiary in a container. I’ve let it get a bit messy, and plan to cut it back now that the big show is almost over, but until then, you get this view of it. As a lollipop, it looks a lot like a dramatic chandelier. I can’t wait to see it look like that again.

Eight: Back in houseplant world, Dracaena masoniana aka Sansevieria masoniana has been putting on some new growth and each night I’ve looked at it with a bit of wonder. Kind of amazing how much the leaves can change over time. Plants are amazing.

Nine: So then the snow came… and I think that this is an Acer palmatum var. dissectum of some kind, I just don’t know which one. Mom bought it for me back in 2004 when we first moved into the house. It was a discount plant, from some random nursery in Clackamas County, and it was on sale because it had a very ugly graft.

I wanted it for the cats to hang out beneath it in the summer. For many years, they did.

Now, she’s my pruned princess.

And last but not least…

Ten: All of the plants. All of the plants are #10 on my list this month because I love them and feel terrible they had snow dumped on them. I know this is a subjective opinion, but it seems fair enough.

If not, well, I’ll blame the novocaine whenever it wears off.

Le Monde Végétal and the Green Embrace

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Pardon my French, but it’s simply the way things have to be for me nowadays. As I enter into a new phase of life, one post-illness (aka in remission), post-marriage as I knew it, and during which I must pick and choose what really matters to me now, and ever-will-be it seems, I have to explore things a bit more, things from my past and my present. From my past, I will always embrace and hold near and dear to my heart a love of language, culture, and the natural world around me. This is now being roughly sutured with my love of gardening since the gap between the two is the painful part that’s hurt me the most, making my marriage into something it never should have been in the first place, and causing me great distress. I have to suture these things to help the healing.
My language replacement during the rough years was Botanical Latin, with its many linguistic textures and tones. Yes, my pronunciation in this green world is terrible, but I’ve been told that’s not uncommon by multilingual friends—especially in my situation with a memory that was often on the fritz. As long as I can see the name in my head, and spell it, I seem to be able to survive, and by that, I mean I can communicate. Speaking and being heard means the world to anyone who feels cut off from the rest of the society by the experience of illness. The isolation you feel is really quite incredible and it is more powerful than even I knew while in the midst of it. It changes you.
So with all of this in mind, as I sit here eating leftover Cadbury Mini Eggs from Easter, I will get to the point of my post.
Last week I participated in a little informal nursery tour with some plant friends. For them, it’s become an annual little get-together before the craziness of the Hardy Plant Society Spring Sale. I was not sure how I’d feel about le monde végétal since my life is still very much up in the air, and sometimes I do want to sell the house and garden, but I gave it my all anyway, and it was worth the effort.
Xera Plants
Agave gentryi ‘Jaws’. 
Garrya topiary.
Ercilla volubile.
Primula auricula ‘Dijon Blush’.
Potting gurney.
Moss garden.
McMenamins: Kennedy School Garden Tour
Cistus Design Nursery
Aristolochia californica (red form).
Aristolochia californica (green or yellow form).
Loree aka Danger Garden (blogger friend) with an Agave—shocking!
Sean Hogan’s feet, his dog, my feet, and the feet of one of our green friends on our little tour but I am not sure who they belong to still. 
I think this is a Podophyllum. 
Overall, the tours went very well, and I had a great time meeting new people.
Adding to the excitement that day was the fact that just the day before, I’d sold the chair I’d been sitting immobile in for years, and it left this funny blank spot in the living room. Having space now to freely move around is making me wonder about all the space I’d filled in while I was still ill. While looking at plants, I started to think about throwing so many old plants out so that I could finally create a more clear design. Things seemed open and possible now, where they simply didn’t before this.

Buying a new iPhone has opened up more photography opportunities too, and I am seeing the natural world in all of its spacious glory. Editing and cleaning things out both internally and externally is opening up my world, but it is such a slow process. I feel like I can breathe now though, both in my own world, as well as out in the world I share with all of you.

Cherry trees in bloom on Mt. Tabor.

I think I can say now that Sean Hogan was correct weeks ago when he told me to accept and be embraced by the green world. It’s just the medicine I needed for my transitional malady, and if ever you need to take this treatment too, I recommend it.