I've been thinking about design evolution since I was searching through files to find the plant list for my husband's garden.  I know, that is a funny thing to say.  Because it's my garden too, now.  In fact, I'm sure I have a greater sense of ownership than he does, because I put so much time and energy into it.

But when I designed it, we were dating and living separately.  He had just bought a brand new house - it wasn't quite finished yet.  The yard was a blank slate made a bit grim by the remains of construction debris and the horrible subsoil from the basement excavation that was spoiled onsite, covering about two-thirds of the backyard.

He had never gardened.  He wanted something relatively low-maintenance and resource-wise.  No plants that were liable to require an inordinate level of care or quantity of water during our dry summers.  Room for a tomato or two, a basil plant and some fruit:  blueberries, strawberries and a compact fig tree.

I removed a Caryopteris and two Mexican Lobelias.  These made room for an orange Agastache and a deep pink Bee Balm.  The Rock Roses gave way to two single deep pink peonies with brilliant yellow centers.  We built a beautiful garden shed, which was in the plan, but somehow needed to be larger.  We finally found the birdbath/fountain to fit in a designated area - that was no change to the concept, but took several years. 

The death of a whole row of parahebes during our perishing cold last winter has created an opening for a swath of native habitat, and I am slowly adding Willamette Valley native plants around much of the perimeter.  I'm still finding amazing drought- tolerant plants in those hot colors that need homes:  today I ordered bulbs for Foxtail Lily, orange Fritillaria, and tall pink traditional lilies to make a splash behind the fountain.

And my husband is slowly learning that you don't just plant a garden and it's finished.  As our late beloved local garden writer Dulcy Mahar would have said, a garden is never finished.  There is always another amazing plant, or a new concept that might fit.  Of course, her garden has more space than ours, so many of her brilliant ideas did fit and live on for us to see on visits.

This is true for so many areas of design.  Not all media has the changeability of plants, but our understanding and needs change over time.  The paint colors of the 80s no longer look so fresh and lovely.  Our family changes and a room becomes a nursery.  Our towns evolve as land uses and transportation needs change.  New technology changes how we build nearly everything.  This is the nature of places we live and things we use.  Our need and vision changes over time, and with it our designs.

About this time every year I get a powerful yearning for spring.  I am sure I am not alone, although it’s probably earlier than those of you who live in a climate where winter lasts till April or later.  Here, we sometimes get days in January and February  we call “June-uary”, when it gets balmy and early bulbs start blooming.  As it is, in spite of the recent blowing snow we have Witch Hazel, crocuses,  snowdrops and Iris reticulata blooming as I write.

Those of you with food gardens will be starting your seeds, or at least placing orders from catalogs and websites.  Some are content to ski and knit, watch Olympics, and generally behave like it’s winter.  But not me.  I want to be gardening, and there is little I can do, especially when it was 20 degrees and snowing.  So I find myself developing plant lists.  I can’t help it.

I’m dreaming about how to add natives to our Mediterranean garden.  I have struggled with native plants in garden settings in the past, when they overtook and outgrew their allotted space, but my recent efforts to get approved for the local Backyard Habitat Certification program http://www.columbialandtrust.org/press-room/news-items/backyard-habitats-certification-program have reinvigorated my desire to find really good candidates for our garden, and expand my list to serve future clients.  I don’t want to limit myself to Vine Maple, Sword Fern and Longleaf Mahonia anymore.

I’ve already fallen in love with our native ginger, Asarum caudatum.  It forms such a lush mat of glossy dark green foliage in dry shade.  It doesn’t spread too fast or make a nuisance of itself.  Native iris varieties are on my list too – showy, but not too brassy.  I have sentimental feelings for the ones I grew up with in the Oak habitat in Eugene near our house – Iris tenax, Oregon Iris, with its blue-purple fine-textured bloom.  I love Iris douglasiana, Douglas Iris, and Iris innominata, Del Norte Iris, with blooms in varied shades of yellow with dark veins.  I like the fact that this last one was discovered by Lilla Leach, as I fell in love with Leach Botanical Garden 25 years ago.  http://www.leachgarden.org/

I’m searching for native or native-like plants for our garden.  The space is limited, and I’m aiming for certain flower colors.   My list includes Lonicera ciliosa, Western Trumpet Honeysuckle, with its silvery leaves and orange blossoms, and Lilium columbianum, Tiger Lily – yes, orange flowers

both.  I also would like to add an Evergreen Huckleberry – I’m looking for the space.  Recently I saw this wonderful little dwarf blueberry, Vaccineum alaskaense at Leach Botanical Garden.  It is about 2’ tall and a bit narrower, and has been in the garden for 10 years.  The winter twigs are worth the whole plant, and the birds should love the fruit.  I’m definitely going to try some Lewisia cotyledon, Siskiyou Lewisia – what a show!

I would love to hear about your favorites in comments – please offer your thoughts!

This post was inspired by my awesome, ungainly Joe Pye Weed.  It seems a fitting reminder of the wonders and challenges of the summer garden.  Surpassing our 6’ tall fence in height, with flower clusters bigger than my head, it is a wonder to behold.  The bees and butterflies love it – when I approach it hums with life.  But it is an experiment for me – a plant I’ve never grown before – and it’s in the wrong place.

How many people see what’s not working in their garden in the height of summer?  Those long days invite us outside.  I make early morning perambulations to find any tomatoes ready to pick.  It’s hard for me to move on to other activities if I haven’t said good morning to the garden.  We love to bring dinner outside and eat on our patio.  Our dog Nyssa would like to have full indoor-outdoor privileges, just like a cat, and takes pleasure sunning on the patio stone or sleeping in the thyme.  How can you not notice if your Caryopteris has grown like a muscle on steroids and threatens to choke out everything in its path if you’re out there several times a day?  I never realized that in perfect garden soil they would become behemoth!  Or that the Joe Pye Weed is really meant for the very back of the border, where it can compete with the Italian Cypresses and the Witch Hazel to be a backdrop to other more modest plants. 

I know, as a Landscape Architect and garden designer I should always do my homework and place each new addition with knowledge and planning.  But who does that all the time?  And what gardener does not spend some time EVERY SINGLE YEAR moving something to make it fit better or compose more graciously?

The challenge is the waiting.  Don’t do it now.  You who, like me, see something that’s not quite right and just want to fix it now.  Resist the temptation.  It’s too darn hot.  Oh I know, we have had two or three mild days.  But they will pass and the heat will be back, and the plants you move in the height of summer are unlikely to survive.  Even regular water is most often not enough to compensate for the stress of root disturbance and the work to re-establish them during the heat.  This has been one of the hardest simple lessons I’ve ever forced myself to learn.

Because once you notice how very wrongly something is positioned, it sticks out like a sore thumb.  If you are like me, it is jarring to see it every day and not do anything!  It feels like the plant is taunting, saying, “I double dare ya!” But if you want that plant, you will become immune to its taunts.  You will wince, take a deep breath, and envision a nice cool, damp fall day, you in jeans, socks and gardening clogs, and maybe even a raincoat, cutting the plant back a bit to help it on its path to re-establishment.  Then digging in moist, not soggy, soil, a nice generous root ball that you hoist gently and move to its new home.  There, feel better?  So does the plant, and the taunts die out in a sigh of comfort and happiness.  And that's what our gardens can do for us, too.

Does anyone else get excited over stuff like this? My single Allium nectaroscordum bulb from my sister, planted last year, has multiplied secretly underground while I wasn’t looking and turned into this cute clump with promise of things to come.  Perhaps a little quicker than I might prefer if I consider the future…..  I am watching every move spring makes with an eagle eye.  My stalwart companion is my dog Nyssa, whose attention to spring looks more like this:

Recently I walked in the nearby canyon that is home to the origin springs of Crystal Springs Creek, in Reed College campus.  I saw the early spring leaves of the native Indian Plum, Oemleria cerasiformis, one of the earliest shrubs to brave the cool early March with its tender shoots.  Seeing the bits of green always makes me anticipate the arrival of spring.  I love this plant, but it's not easy in the small, residential garden as it spreads by rhizomes.  If you have space for it, then by all means!  The Tommy Crocus from my last musing is still out, and I am finding lovely scenes of the little guys naturalizing around my neighborhood.

And more exciting – our baby Winter Hazel is preparing to bloom!  My favorite is Corylopsis pauciflora, Buttercup Winter Hazel.  The pale butter-yellow blooms are delicate drops, so small and profuse on the bare, dark twigs the plant looks like a soft yellow haze.  This shrub gets 4-6’ tall and wide, and needs some shade.  It is an elegant and welcome member of the early flowering lineup if you have the right conditions.

These changes in the garden gets me chomping at the bit for spring.  And it’s not too early to start thinking about your spring and summer garden projects.  If you have changes to make, small or large, now is a good time in Western Oregon and Washington.  Moving woody plants and perennials is easy – the weather is cool and damp.  They have time to re-establish roots before the longer, warmer days start leaves and twigs really growing.  And for most projects, ample planning time is helpful.  Think through what you’d like to do and make sure any impacted plants you wish to keep can be moved or tucked in somewhere.  If soils are not too soggy, small changes can be made and plants can be planted before the weather gets too warm.  Then it is much easier to minimize their stress!  And for larger projects, it allows wet weather planning, dry season construction, and planting late summer or early fall when rain will begin soon, making plant establishment a cinch.  So let your burgeoning spring fever motivate you to action!  And if you need assistance, do think of me.

When I think of a harbinger, it’s always a hint that spring is coming.  And I don’t know about you, but I need them.  Winters in the Pacific Northwest can be grim, and come February, harbingers are soul medicine. 

We’re lucky in this region.  With foresight and a little discipline, we can have blooms throughout the winter.  But we make up for this with our lack of sunlight and snow – we can find both if we drive a couple hours, but day to day life is dark and dreary.  Up before daylight, leave work in the dark.  Even as the days lengthen, the plants that begin to perform even in the smallest way are powerful tonic.

Witch Hazel is my favorite.  Hamamelis mollis and other varieties begin blooming in January or February here – mine is in full bloom now, on February 8 – making it one of the earliest bloomers of the new year.  Its blooms are like miniature pom-poms, so unusual and festive, like a party on the otherwise bare branches.  Colors range from a clear cool yellow to golden, orange and auburn.  In my (always humble) opinion, the yellow bloomers are most effective, a brilliant contrast to the branches and somehow the color of archetypal spring blooms – think forsythia, daffodil.  And speaking of forsythia, Witch Hazel is a great alternative.  Both plants will be large, but forsythia always seems to look unkempt, like the neglected neighbor who you wish would move or tidy up.  Witch Hazel, on the other hand, is elegant, with its open V form and neatly arranged blooms.  A few selections are narrower.  Many, but not all have a wonderful delicate scent.  This is most reliable in mollis and its selections in my experience.  These will reach 10’-12’ and nearly as wide in normal conditions, and occasionally reach 20’.  They are hardy to zone 5.

While it’s early for bulbs, a few are beginning to bloom, including snowdrops and the very earliest crocuses.  But I find myself inspecting the garden with each free daylight moment for even the tiniest nibs of bulbs poking through the mulch.  Just the pattern of the green probes showing the promise of masses of bloom to come makes me unaccountably happy.  They are a reminder that I did indeed begin the process during random moments last spring and summer of populating my new garden with donations and purchases of bulbs that were blooming or finished, in addition to the mass planting of new Narcissus planted a bit late and not yet showing.  For me the hardest part of starting a new garden has been the impatience to have the desired effect of sweeping masses and large clumps of bulbs.  I think bulb plantings should be generous, abundant.  Except in cases where an individual bulb can create a focal point in the garden, like a large lily, they are most effective lushly planted.  I cringe at thin rows of tulips, and individual daffodils.  Who in their right mind wants these guys to be soldiers or loners?  Sweeps, hundreds, naturalized carpets – that’s what I love.  Not always possible to create a huge mass in a residential garden, I know, but we can ensure they have the clumps and numbers that give make them a show.

My favorite crocuses are those tiny ones - especially Crocus tommasinianus, Tommy  Crocus, http://www.oldhousegardens.com/display.aspx?prod=CR12, and Crocus chrysanthus, http://www.theplantexpert.com/springbulbs/Crocus2.html.  I am fond of their small flowers, subtlety, and lovely colors - periwinkle, soft cream, yellow-orange.  Their stature and reliable nature for naturalizing make them a great choice for carpets of crocus.