Category Archives: attracting birds

attracting birds, drought tolerant, garden visits, months 07-09: summer, natives, perrennials

Landscaping With Wild Strawberries

08/18/2013 svseekins 2 Comments

An early summer adventure when I was a kid, was picking tiny, wild strawberries. They were packed with incredible flavour. We would forage for ages just to bring home a small bowl full, but it was always worth it.

wild strawberries 1 — photo by SVSeekins

More recently (2 years ago), at a ‘Gardening with Native Plants’ workshop, I learned those very same plants will happily grow in the urban landscape. How cool is that? Plants that provide an opportunity to forage in my own yard AND do double duty as a ground cover! Bring it on!

I’d never seen thick mats of strawberries like those in the photos at the gardening workshop, but Pat Johnston really knows her stuff, so I totally believed it was possible. I immediately formed a plan.

Trent Street garden — photo by SVSeekins

Pat explained the 2 kinds of local wild strawberries to take into consideration. The coastal strawberry is a tough, full sun, drought tolerant workhorse. The woodland strawberry also works great as a ground cover, but performs much better in more shady parts of the garden.

After running across a bed of wild strawberries growing prolifically in a curbside city garden – – and looking like they were about to take over the sidewalk, I was even more encouraged. Who knew wild strawberries would grow so well in town? I set about planting coastal strawberries in our sunny garden bed.

The landscape trend was spreading. A new native landscape area at the college down the street was planted with wild strawberries, too.

strawberry patch at Camosun's Lansdowne campus — photo by SVSeekins

The other day (2 years later) I walked by the spot and was impressed by how well that area had filled in. Perhaps the Camosun groundskeepers fertilize a little more than I do?… or maybe they water the area more? or maybe they originally planted more starts?… I’m not sure. But it looks great, doesn’t it?.

I reckon our strawberry patch will catch up in another year or two. In the meantime I’m enjoying watching my own little community of strawberries send out their ‘runner babies’.

The birds are more vigilant than I am, so I don’t expect to ever have enough harvest to make jam or pie. I figure the occasional berry is a reward for getting out in the garden to water or weed.

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© SVSeekins and Garden Variety Life, 2013

strawberry patch at Camosun' — photo by SVSeekins

attracting birds, drought tolerant, evergreens, months 07-09: summer, urban deer

Bottlebrush

07/31/2013 svseekins 1 Comment

Most of the time the Bottlebrush is just an unusual evergreen weeping shrub. Its spiky, lance-shaped leaves don’t look like the needles of any coniferous tree I’ve ever seen. But it’s kinda funky – – and you know, I appreciate funky. 🙂 So it makes perfect sense to me to plant one as a backgrounder in the shrub border.

bottlebrush in bloom Callistemon garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

It gets very little notice when the rhododendron right beside it blooms in May.

But come July, the spring spectacular in the garden fades. The hummingbirds & butterflies shift their attention as the Callistemon commands centre stage. For a couple of weeks, the red blooms are spectacular: a true summery colour.

bottlebrush blooms Callistemon garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

The flowers are 5 inches long + 2 inches wide, but STRANGE….

Instead of bobbing at the top of stem-like normal flowers do, the bottlebrush flower petals circle the branch itself. These blossoms remind me of the gizmo we use to wash out wine bottles. The name bottlebrush is àpropos.

As the blooms fade the seed clusters add a little interesting texture as the shrub returns to its regular backdrop duties.

bottlebrush seed head Callistemon garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

I know bottlebrush has coastal Australian origins, so I”ve crossed my fingers it’ll survive our occasional winter freeze. So far, so good.

It’s reputed to like a little moisture too, but after it became established I’ve really reduced the mollycoddling. With a whole lot more mulch & a lot less water, it seems as drought tolerant as it needs to be in this pacific northwest garden.

Because of the tough needle-like leaves, I didn’t expect any trouble from the deer, but we did have a problem the first year this bottlebrush was planted.

A young buck came into the yard. Frustrated with his velvet antlers, he was rubbing them on anything that might help remove the itchy felt. He took on the trunk of the evergreen magnolia (surviving still, but will never reach its grand potential)… he took on the columnar cedar bushes (recovered well)… He took on the bottlebrush & it shredded under his antlers. Poor thing.

recovering bottlebrush Callistemon garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

It was a good thing I was broke at the time because otherwise I might have just dug it up & replaced it with something else. Instead, I cut back the broken stems darn near the ground. It was delightful the following year to see it spring back & grow like crazy. I caged it for a year or so, but now it’s larger & unprotected.

protected bottlebrush, Callistemon garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

There’s another young buck coming around this summer, so I’ll keep an eye out for any signs of antler rubbing & be on the ready with more wire fencing.

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© SVSeekins and Garden Variety Life, 2013

attracting birds, boulevard garden, drought tolerant, evergreens, garden visits, months 10-12: fall, natives, perrennials, projects, urban deer

Fall Fun with Friends

10/25/2012 svseekins Leave a comment

It rained over the past week. What a transformation. It’s truly fall now.

entrance to Jeneece Place — photo by SVSeekins

Woo hoo! Wishes granted.

Because I’d already committed to helping out in the garden at Jenecce Place, I was especially grateful for the wet. The West Coast might be damp & chilly in the fall, but weeds are a whole lot easier to dig if the ground isn’t concrete dry.

the spot for the future kitchen garden — photo by SVSeekins

There were 2 challenges presented to the volunteers from the View Royal Garden Club on Sunday afternoon.

The first was to create space for a veggie garden near the kitchen area of the house. The chosen site was previously planted with native kinnickinnick for ground-cover & a blue fescue grass for architectural interest.

the weedy slope along the sidewalk at Jeneece Place — photo by SVSEekins

The second challenge was the slope running along the entrance sidewalk. There were Yarrow, Oregon Grape, and the occasional grouping of blue fescue tufts planted close to the walkway, but nothing further up the slope. The staff’s concern was the upcoming rainy season would bring erosion problems.

What complimentary challenges! One site needed plantings removed – – the other needed plantings added. Kismet!

the crew gets busy weeding & digging transplant holes — photo by SVSeekins

We set about weeding & preparing planting holes. The effort kept us warm.

When gardening in a team a fair amount of visiting can be accomplished while still continuing the task at hand. I like that 🙂

I also found it interesting to see the different tools each seasoned gardener chose for her/his tasks. Perhaps I’ll try some new tricks next time I’m in my own garden.

Dark clouds gathered, but happily the rain stayed away. We progressed to moving plants from one bed directly into the other.

I’m always amazed at how proportions & space gets mixed up in my head. I figured the plants to be moved wouldn’t come close to filling up the space available on the slope. I was mistaken. Near the end of the afternoon we squeezed in extra holes between new transplants just to finish clearing out the kitchen garden bed.

muffin / tea break before heading home — photo by SVSeekins

With a sense of satisfaction we sat down to muffins & tea knowing that the job was done. it’s so nice when a project starts & finishes in one gathering.

A bit more visiting was a lovely wrap to the afternoon before I headed home to a warm shower.