I was going great guns until the Ysabel Yncident. 🙂 A little harder to go for the daily walk when you’re on killer antibiotic…just not quite the energy to spare. But it’s a lot easier than going for the walk when you’ve got a raging systemic infection, so, well, we’re not complaining.
We live in an area of 1950’s vintage, next to an area of 1930’s homes, in a climate where gardening is more than possible, and it’s an interesting walk in any direction. You find out details. Most houses in Spokane proper have basements. The houses across the arterial from us don’t—they’re sitting directly on the basalt, with a thin veneer of lawn. We have more depth, but they threw the excavation dirt from our basement (glacial moraine) atop the dirt we had, then added an even thinner veneer of dirt. So our block has either struggling, forever-being-watered lawns, or the owners have gone to big drives and beds of trees and bushes and mulch, on relatively smaller lots. We have about the biggest lot, twice the size of some, and, crazy us, decided to join the trees-bushes-mulch crowd.
Across the arterial, the basalt drove some people who wanted basements to do the California style, 1960’s-70’s style, ie, a more shallow basement excavation and part of it above ground as a sort of a half-buried lower story. That’s pretty popular. Then there are those that went for raaaaaaaaaaaaancher, ie, like ours but extended sideways: a fair hike from one end to the other, and all of it ‘finished’. As half our basement isn’t, but we like it split that way. And the ones who built ‘up’ for a second storey, or added on—one house has a lovely huge patio on the second level, on the roof of their garage.
Interesting is the word for the architecture around here. One house we looked at was from the 1800’s, and the basement was a bit of a maze; another was from the 1925-30’s era, and I think got through Prohibition by having their own speakeasy in the basement, which was redecorated in the 50’s, but I’m pretty sure there could have been some home brewing going on down there, and most houses don’t have a dance floor, however tiny. 😉
We live within hiking distance of 3 parks, old, old parks, with towering Ponderosa pine. I think I’ve heard that the same guy who designed Spokane’s parks was the guy who worked on Central Park in NYC. The idea is that every neighborhood has a green space of trees, where you can go and decompress—and they’ve become venues for dog walking (Corbin), for children’s playgrounds, including water jets (Shadle), and for art fairs and concerts (Coeur d’Alene Park)…and then there’s huge Manito Park, with its rose gardens, huge rolling lawns, etc, near the Japanese Garden…just a very nice aspect of this little big city.
Our neighbor with the bees also has cows. Once, after we had been away for a while, he greeted us with a very apologetic face and a small jar of his honey, explaining that the cows had gotten loose in our yard and he was fearful they had left some gifts, so he was bringing a gift. I wish we could figure out how to let the cows loose in our yard again, on a regular basis. His honey was lovely 🙂
and as to critturs, we also have deer and a nice flock of turkey. And there are coyote on the far ridge whom we hear late at night in the summer when the windows are open.
OSG has been here, but not, I think, when the critturs were out. Although she did see a bunny in the yard, whom we have never ever seen.
I had to laugh when I read this post. At my old house, my neighbor had 2 Highlander cows and a big goat. We called them the Three Amigos. They got out so many times I lost count. Since he was often gone, it was up to me to herd the critters back to their pasture and try to figure out how they escaped. Luckily, I’d taught myself ‘herding’ by doing herding work with a rough collie, so all it took was a big broom to make myself look bigger. They got into my bottom pasture once (walked right through the welded wire on wood frame fence) and grazed the top off one of my apple trees. This was the only apple tree out of an orchard of 40+ mature trees that was small enough to bring with me to my new place. This year it’s finally producing a crop worth mention. It’s a Cox Orange Pippen hybrid from Raintree. The cows ate the label or at least made it disappear (sigh).
Sounds absolutely wonderful. Bet you had some small round patches, too, where the grass grew greener next summer. 😉
I grow bulbous I. reticulata and danfordii here in Portland in containers. I can confirm they are very different than the yellow flag or siberian bog-irises! Even here, where we have dry summers and without supplemental watering, they often to rot on me. The danfordii tend to “fragment” on me. I get lots of little bulbils but don’t recall having ever gotten a full bulb ready for repotting yet. I refuse to treat them as annuals, buying new every year. Most of the douglasii I see around, growing wild, seem to be in banks where they get good drainage.
Hey, Paul…it’s been a battle for me as well. I’ve gotten some of the little ‘reticulata’ group to increase for a few years on my Mom’s property. She’s got a slope with rockery in front so I could find pockets to fill with bulbs. But they seem to slowly fade away over 5-6 years. Now….couldn’t find any this spring (sigh). She’s on the East Side across Lake Washington from Seattle overlooking the lake. Well, almost…the houses across the street overlook the lake and we have to climb up on the roof for a lake view from her house. I like the dandfordii yellow but have gotten that spring bling from yellow species crocus instead (until the squirrels or voles find them). I may need to to the wire cage treatment next time I plant some (sigh) or make sure I plant them where the dogs spend more time.
Never have dealt with these sorts, but maybe, like tulips, they ‘burrow’, gradually taking themselves too deep to thrive (not an evolutionarily positive trait, imho, but hey, evolution takes wrong turns as well as right.) Maybe yanking them annually and replanting would help.
I would be willing to bet your bulbs get eaten by chipmunks, moles or voles, like the crocuses. We can’t keep a bed of any type of bulbs in one place for more than a couple seasons at my parents’ in OH. One year I looked down over the steep embankment, and found 1 lonely tulip blooming halfway down, yards away from the nearest bed. Apparently one of the varmints had carried it off for a future snack, and it sprouted before he got to it!
Yep…or rats and squirrels. Moles….no, since they are insectivores but can facilitate bulb depredation via their tunnels, which voles and mice can then use. Around here it’s the tulips and crocus that are most attractive to rodents, but daffodils are poisonous and aren’t eaten by rodents. Narcissus bulb fly…on the other hand….
sounds gorgeous, kokipy, those wide boards and all …. and as for Irises, I just ordered a selection of scented bearded iris and am wondering where to put them. the instructions say they like their rhizomes exposed to southern sunshine … a new arrival in the village has the ambition to keep bees which will be very good for all of us .. although the pollination rate in my garden is such already that my little apple trees are almost at breaking point with the load they have this year …
They will like to be sunny: they will like support once they start putting up flower spikes, so a circular single frame on stilts would help if you have a lot of wind. Plant in a triangle with the ‘tail’ of each root facing inward: like orchids, they march outward year to year. Any fragment, no matter how dismal, may grow. They like both water, and drainage. Do not let water stand for days around their base. A heavy rain, no problem: a perpetual bog will rot them.
my garden is sand under a foot of black loam, so I think that will be no problem, and the bit where I put domesticated plants is very sheltered, against a wall …. thanks for the facing inward tip!
A NEW KITTEN has entered our house! Last night we went to the PetSmart a few towns over which hosts the town’s local pet rescue society and picked up a 12 week old white with grey tiger stripes kitten. Our older, black cat Froggie has still been feeling lonely with the loss of his brother Macadoo and it really hurt our hearts to have to refer to our “cat” instead of our “catS.” Enter Mao Tse-tung (Mao, Mao-ts, Mao-tse for nick names so far in the past 5 1/2 hours, also Purrful).
Mao-tse is currently doing what may turn out to be his version of downtime, parked in the sunny, open window next to me: I haven’t seen him sleep yet this morning… um, he’s just found some old computer/phone cable I totally forgot was in the corner there and is busy tugging at it. His nose is also dusted with cobwebs. Mackie used to sit in the window a lot too (he’s buried right below it) and watch the butterflies and whatnot. Mao-tse has also found the table in front of our bedroom window which looks out on our neighbor’s very active bird feeder and has gone back to it many times so far today. Mackie loved bird-watching too.
Froggie Cat is shocked, somewhat horrified, fascinated and worried over the perky little creature that zooms around and dances up to him. He is frequently hissing rude things when face to face but has not batted out a paw (I also caught a quick butt sniff when the kitten zoomed past and then stopped just in front of him suddenly to investigate something).
We got a kitten so he would adjust well (not go into “hunt” mode) with our two indoor bunnies and be a playful companion for Froggie. Bunny reaction to kitten: combo of blase and 1) Catwynne has been doing a few charges up to him just to establish that she is the dominant bunny around here and Mao-tse should therefore retreat a few steps respectfully and b) Petros Lagwos who ‘loves kitties’ dances around Mao-tse and wants to intimately smush nose to nose with him or burrow his nose in the kitten’s furry chest. Mao-tse is a bit confused with the smushing request. It’s a cat versus bunny body language translation challenge that the buns and cats here frequently have.
There’s a kitten in the house: life is good.
Smiles. How great for Mao-tse, and ultimately for Froggie Cat. A butt-sniff this early in the relationship says it will warm rapidly. It took Ysabel quite a while to get that friendly with Shu, and she’s only gotten to the back-sniff with Sei.
What a fun household–buns and kittehs. I hope the best for the new guy and the household!
Thanks very much for the best wishes! Peace and quiet has descended on the household as Mao-tse is curled up after his lunch and finally sleeping. Froggie has wandered to my office after his own nap and is receiving some quality alone time and pats: aside from the rather rude hiss-language, he is being very, very tolerant.
Here on Cape Cod’s sand bank the daffs and tulips split and go blind when they get too shallow. I find that I can get many of the tulips to live for years (one mass has been going for 15 years) by planting extra deep and providing a generous couple of inches of compost when they start toget smaller flowers and split. The tulip called ‘Fringed Elegance’ has been particularly long lived.
I love the soft yellow of Fringed Elegance myself. It’s one of my favorites along with Daydream. And yes, deep planting works better for me as long as the critters don’t find them. I kept Fringed Elegance at my old place in sandy soil/tall wood planter boxes for close to 18 years. I wish I’d brought them with me, but the planter boxes had rotted on the bottom and it was too messy to move plus I was running out of time (bulldozers were lurking). I’ll pick some up in an order some year and start over.
Mmmm, and in Oklahoma clay, they burrow. Interesting!