Jane ordered them.
We use them on the walks, and we have resolved not to buy another plant this year—just to spend our gardening time establishing the network of paths and edgings. Basalt chips is a very nice path material.
We are also cleaning out the mouse-y garage, laying down bait, and getting the place swept out. I am exceedingly sore and stiff. But we have a sense of what we need to do this summer, re the paths.
OMG…..I could NEVER do that. I’m on the lookout for apricot deciduous azaleas this week…..the ones that look like orange sherbet. They are so lovely against the right shade of purple lilac. And hopefully I can find another apricot perennial wallflower to go in the sage ceramic planters alongside the front steps. One died last year (grumpiness)…..
Haika, are those regular azalea bushes, but apricot colored, or are they another plant? Azaleas are popular here and I might look for that, since the two I got last year perished from drought.
Basalt and Cattery? 😉
The ones I’m looking for are not evergreen. Also known as Exbury azaleas or A. mollis. They get quite tall as well. I don’t know how well they do outside of the Pacific Northwest. I’m on the wet/west side of the Cascades.
I’m also browsing the new breeder daffodil catalogs. Just got the Grant Mitsch catalog. It’s hard to justify a daffodil for $40 per bulb or more (weak grin) unless it’s REALLY special. I also like Brent & Becky’s Bulbs as a daffodil source. I’m pretty addicted to daffodils. And Epimediums. And Pleiones. The list goes on…..
Doing without new plants for a whole year. I’d probably need medication!
I’m on that side, Portland, in the ARS and hybridize rhodies. The Exbury & Mollis azaleas will do very well on this side. The main thing is proper planting where we have clay from volcanic ash. All rhodies/azaleas have fine roots, which are susceptible to rot if they’re planted without proper drainage, e.g. a hole dug in clay.
One of the guys in our chapter had a big collection of Pleiones, but since sold. I’m babying a Bletilla murasaki.
Not sure of the species, but that sounds like the deciduous azaleas that we got a few years back. Unfortunately only one of the three survived, since their first year turned out to be very dry and they got a bit too much sun. And yes, thanks to our glorious forefathers, we have terrible clay soils with no native topsoil left.
With us, we love peonies as well as azaleas and rhodies—peonies of all sorts. And strange evergreens. Jane’s started putting up pictures of our spring flowers, for those who need a flower fix.
Pleiones are Chinese bulbous ground orchids.
Oh, I’d love to have those—but those have got to be from the warmer end of China. I don’t think they’d live through our winters!
Pleiones are terrestrial/semi-terrestrial orchids and can be really tricky to overwinter if you aren’t careful to study the growth cycle. I do best with the spring blooming species and hybrids and have never been able to successfully grow the fall-blooming ones. They are not all Chinese in origin and are basically from foothills/higher mountanous regions and many can take freezing as long as they aren’t too wet at the same time. Most people lose them by watering them at the wrong time. Some folks in our local orchid society apparently grow some species outside but have to protect them during the winter so they aren’t too wet. Mine overwinter in the garage in pots. I have a big pan of P. formosana that is in full bloom right now along with a number of other cultivars.
I’ve grown Pleiones since the early 70’s. I used to buy them from Red’s Rhodies but he sold out to a guy who killed most of the stock. I’ve most recently purchased them from Burnt Bridge Creek Nursery (near Vancouver WA) but haven’t gotten any responses to my e-mails for the past couple years. I’ve imported them from Ian Butterfield (England) in the past but that process has become quite convoluted. Just go to the Chelsea Flower Show at Kew Gardens and see glorious glorious Pleiones. I just wish it were easier to get them into the US these days. There are some nurseries in British Columbia that have hybrids I don’t have but the importation process is a pain. The problem is that CITES protects orchids and even the hybrids are affected…because it’s not that easy to tell a dormant wild-collected species Pleione from a dormant commercially propagated hybrid.
I do Bletillas also and some Calanthes. I like the yellow-flowered ones.
I got my Bletilla from Red at the rhody chapter Xmas party. I’ll be seeing him in a couple weeks, I can ask. I think he kept some of his Pleiones, but is out of the “business”.
OMG….I’d love to connect with someone else who is still serious about Pleiones. I’d love to import more from England but all the paperwork ends up costing about $100 per plant these days, I hear. Red ‘may’ remember me….he would have sent the order to Bothell WA and it was several years back. I’m hoping to refind some of the alba strains of the commonest species (like P. formosana) and anything from the Shantung crossing. I gave away hundreds of bulbils to Baker & Chantry Orchids back in the day, but they are out of business (and both are now gone/dead). The spring-blooming species/hybrids seem to really like my new place (not in Bothell….a little higher up and a bit cooler). I’m scared to try any of the fall-blooming species again (P. humilis, P. praecox etc)….I HATE killing them!
CJ: Here’s a pretty good synopsis of Pleione culture. Note that some of the spring-blooming species can really go quite cold when dormant.
http://www.aosforum.org/pdf/Pleione_1.pdf
Paul Cumbleton has a good website also: http://www.pleione.info
Can you tell this is one of my obsessions(weak grin)?
I’ve always been rather attracted to the idea of having one of those hexagonal basalt columns standing tall as a focal point in the garden. The PNW’s inheritance from the Yellowstone hotspot. 😉
Lol! I know where you can get one, but they charge…big bucks.
Drilled for a fountain, even more.
We cheated and got one that’s concrete, and piped. It makes a nice fountain for our front yard disappearing water feature.
McClure and Zimmerman offer both P. limprichtii and P. bulbocodioides in their Spring catalog. Both are relatively easy and are spring-bloomers.
http://www.mzbulb.com/dc.asp?c=113
They are one of the best bulb mail order sources – good prices and great quality and customer service.
And nice people to deal with on the phone.
I just finished “Betrayer” this morning, and my first thought upon seeing “basalt chips” was “Oh, great, I hope they don’t have to dig those out of Tano’s flesh.” It’s OK, I’ll be back in the real world soon.
Oh, and speaking of basalt:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/05/iceland/haarberg-photography#/03-litlanesfoss-waterfall-670.jpg
Sorry — I tried to tag that post as a slight _Betrayer_ spoiler, but it’s not showing.
It’s ok. 😉 And that’s a beautiful picture.
What bait are you using for the mice? If it’s poison, be very careful of the kittehs. If a cat ingests a mouse who has eaten poison, the cat can also become very sick or die, particularly if it is an anti-coagulant poison. A related hazard is when mice die in the walls or other accessible places, their odor lingers for a long time. This is why I prefer the old-fashioned snap traps to catch mice. Long ago, I was a licensed PCO.
That’s correct. With the warfarin baits they add an emetic so if something eats it, e.g. a child, that can vomit, will. Rodents can’t, so they keep it down and die. A poisoned rodent would still contain the poison, which could be dangerous to a scavenger. But I’m not sure most kittehs would eat a dead mousie. Dying, perhaps.
Yes, paul, exactly. If the mouse has just eaten the poison, and the cat grabs it…well! My cats probably wouldn’t eat one that was dead, unless it was a power play between them.
hmmm. That should be ” INaccessible places”.
Here’s some really good info on Pleione culture.
http://www.aosforum.org/pdf/Pleione_1.pdf
I also keep up with Paul Cumbleton’s website (Pleione.com).
I did a cut/paste job on that bit a little ways up and sent it to Dick. If he’s interested I may hear from him.
Please, please be sure to wear a mask CJ and Jane when sweeping in the mousey garage. Hantavirus or no, you still don’t need to be breathing all that nasty dust with mouse urine all over it. UGH! UGH! UGH!
Never mind the azaleas and peonies, and all that other stuff. Not ten minutes ago, I saw a hummingbird in my honeysuckle!!!!! — just got two quick glimpses and yes it was a hummingbird and not those big moth things and I am so entirely totally CHUFFED!
Mousie Dung!
Happy May Day, all! And what a delightful gardening discussion (it’s cold and rainy here in the seacoast of New England, although that should keep this year’s frightfully early lilacs around a bit longer: 2nd warmest April on record). I will monitor this blog to see if CJ and Jane remain true to their plan not to purchase a single plant this gardening year. And if they can show such restraint, I will be in awe. We’re investing in a fair amount of house repair and have quite a stuffed garden already so I am supposed to show considerable restraint in plant purchases this season. But I am eying a shaded area of the back yard for some non-purple rhodedendrons and maybe some colorful azaleas and Haika’s mention of an orange azalea quite caught my imagination. All our neighbors have but one type of rhody, which is purple and blooms in mid-spring. I want to find a source of native, colorful (anything but purple mid-spring, ’cause those I see fine in the yards around ours), late spring/early summer rhodies and azaleas. Ooh, orange!
The deciduous azaleas have really nice bright fall foliage as well. Sorry for the double post of the info on Pleiones (the AOS PDF)….it didn’t show up so I thought I’d blown it. Now I’m seeing BOTH posts (big blush).
I picked up a bunch of honeysuckles last year and am growing them in big pots near the posts for my upstairs deck…training them up the posts. I’m seeing big buds and can’t wait for them to open. My ulterior motive was hummingbird attraction. I got mostly bright orange varieties (I love orange, especially the softer shades that don’t fade to an icky pinky color).
The “Eastern Azaleas”, R. austrinum, flameum, bakerii, prunifolium, and calendulaceum, and their hybrids have very good, true oranges. Unfortunately all the evergreen elepidotes I’ve seen are pink/yellow blends and bicolors that look vaguely orangish.
OOh, I will have to make a note of these. Since folks are so knowledgeable here: is there a good book on Rhododendrons and Azaleas? I’ve looked a number of times at the Boston Flower Show and before that at its proud sire, the New England Flower Show and on line, but never spotted a good book to help guide me in selecting any of these bushes (unlike, say, the thousands of Rose books).
I can recommend Greer’s Guidebook to Available Rhodendrons, (a link of mine to Amazon), but be aware that many of the rhodies there will be severely challenged by the northern East Coast environment. Pay attention to the “hardiness temperature”, but that might be adjusted a bit by fortunate choice of protected planting site.
One other bit of advice? They’re always out and easily available when blooming in spring, but that’s not the right time to buy and plant them! The impending summer will be a great threat. Make note of what you see that you like, and whether there’s an indication on the tag of the grower. (I also recommend getting in touch with the local ARS chapter for source recommendations. 😉 ) The best time to plant is in fall as soon as the heat breaks, but hopefully some time before frost and dormancy (evergreens do a little better than deciduous because they have leaves providing energy). You want to give them a chance to settle-in while they can. Be specially careful to avoid injury, including the roots!
Make sure they get good watering the next summer, and burlap wrapping the first winter if your climate is severe would help.
“Lace bug” (not lacewing), Stephanitis pyroides, in the PNW has been come a big problem for azaleas/rhodies in the past 5 years or so–I should have mentioned. The blighters can suck all the chlorophyll out of the leaves, turning them white or yellow, killing plants. One must take a proactive role to combat them. I’ve used acephate spray, now giving imidacloprid granules a try. They can fly, and untreated rhodies in most PNW neighborhoods provide a reservoir for (re)infestation.
This is a major problem for rhody lovers. It cannot be ignored.
Well, we now have a 4×4′ pile of basalt chips in the drive needing moving, so that will absorb our attention for a while.
Requiring Absorbine Jr.? 😉
Ah….now we are in a true southern New England spring…..wet and chilly with occasional days of sun. But as Raesean says….it keeps the flower going from our insanely early bloom times. I’ve had daffodils for over two months now…..columbine is starting and the violets have gone nuts! The gray makes the colors pop, and we do need rain, so I’m not really complaining. I’m putting off installing the pool filter and pump until the sun comes out.
I have found that having stuff delivered in the driveway really gets us moving.
The basalt will look great with your various plantings and pond….love the idea of the red of the bridge with the gray-black basalt.
P.S. To see a truly amazing private garden go to Robin Hopper’s blog….he is one of the great potters of our time who considers his gardens an important part of his life. rhrising-dot-blogspot-dot-com…..or just google him. ( Why do I consistently write google as goggle?
Fish and basalt chips? With basalt and vinegar?
I must have rocks in my head.
I thought you were going to go with the basaltmic vinagrette. 😉 That would be gneiss, and probably more healthy than junk food like basalt chips.