Tag Archives: low maintenance

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

bulbs, drought tolerant, garden visits, months 04-06: spring, urban deer

Meadow Blooms 5 – Camas

05/13/2013 svseekins 4 Comments

The camas meadow swaying in the spring breeze is like no other. Suddenly I’m walking in a fairytale instead of strolling in a Victoria park. Has my mind gone wild? Could I ever have come up with a dream so lovely? No. It must be real.

No gardener created this scene, either. This is Nature’s beauty.

Camas Meadow - Beacon Hill Park 3 — photo by SVSeekins

camas at Mt. Tolmie Park 2 — photo by SVSeekins

Camas meadows have flourished on South Vancouver Island longer than memory reaches into the past. The southern slope of Beacon Hill has been a camas meadow for centuries. It’s probably one of the key reasons it’s preserved as a park today. The same goes for the Garry oak meadows of Mt. Tolmie Park. At this time of year, they’re magical places.

Early peoples saw more than beauty in the camas; they saw food. I wonder who it was to first realize the bulbs are delicious?

Camas at Mt. Tolmie Park 1 — photo by SVSeekins

Perhaps she had gardening tendencies like mine; seeing a lovely flower automatically triggers an urge to have that flower in my own garden. (I’m known to dig up plants from roadsides.)

Before we moved from the Cedar Hill property to the Richmond house, I dug up as many camas as possible. The Garry oak meadow in the backyard was a great natural source for them, but the digging wasn’t so easy.

When I was able to dig deep enough, I often found the bulb tucked securely in a tight rocky crevice. Un-obtainable! I did manage to get a good number of bulbs (perhaps 2 dozen), but there was no risk of over-harvesting that hillside.

There was certainly more risk of starvation if camas had been my only sustenance. A good deal of effort for a very small reward. That gardener from long ago must’ve had more ingenuity than I have.

Apparently, she figured out a method that includes burning the meadow first. (?!?!…) Perhaps that was a way of cooking the camas in the process? By the time she got one out of the ground, it was already transformed into a sweet treat? I just can’t figure it….

Happily, after all my sweat equity, I now enjoy blooming borders.

snowdrops in January…
crocus in February…
daffodils in March…
hyacinth in April…
and camas in May…

It times out nicely. When the foliage of the spring bulb dies back, the daylily takes over for the summer. And from all that bounty, it’s only the latter that the deer like to feast on. 🙂

a bit of history on camas
a camas recipe
growing camas