If you haven’t already guessed it, gardening in the temperate climate of the Pacific Northwest is a mixed blessing. Yes, you can battle long, murky, cool, overly rainy winters that seem to last seven months of the year, so the easiest things to grow are mold and mildew, possibly between your fingers and toes. You want a green roof? Get yourself a rooftop Japanese moss garden without even trying just by positioning your house close to any healthy shade tree. I can’t promise you’ll feel very Zen about it, because like the fiendish imported English ivy, such moss is mighty hard to stop let alone kill, and eats buildings faster than you can spell ‘plague’. Mud is perhaps a given, but so, in the territory of a once quite active volcano is the euphoniously named glacial till that means Rock Picking becomes a competitive sport among gardeners and anything larger than a teacup had better be excavated for with vigorous pickaxe action and the tenacity of a Welsh miner. Slugs grow to mythic size and are believed by small children to be capable of swallowing their pint-sized innocent selves without chewing.
But the mildness of temperature and plentiful rains also mean that one can practically put a piece of two-by-four in the ground and grow a tree, or at the very least, can make greenery and flora proliferate in an almost jungle-like exuberance. Heck, though outsiders might doubt it, you can grow big healthy palm trees and citrus and big fat figs right there next to the cold waters of the Puget Sound, mere crawl strokes away from the chilly dark not-really-Pacific Ocean. So the P-Patch allotments of Seattle are rich; why, even a parking strip along a city street can support a dandy raised-bed vegetable garden full of tempting green and vitamin-packed leafy goods.
One of the things I’ve missed greatly since leaving the west coast is an incongruously tough plant, one evolved to withstand the vagaries of coastal wind and salt and coastal dwellers’ neglect with remarkable stamina and glamor. The Ceanothus, sometimes known as Farmer’s Lilac, is one of my very favorite plants for this combination of ruggedly handsome looks and ease of care. I am fairly certain that an experiment with one or two of these heady-scented, blazingly blue delights is in my Texan future. They come in such a variety of heights and breadths, leaf sizes, shades of blue and purplish, and even both deciduous and evergreen types that there’s sure to be a sort that will withstand even north Texas trials. Now that I’ve been back amid them in full-blast bloom, I know I can’t keep going sans Ceanothus without giving them a good old Texas try.
The other thing I miss most, perhaps, about Northwest gardening will likely be much harder to replicate in my newer, ahem, digs: cottage gardens. Besides that native-born northwesterners are not much inclined toward formality, their access to easy growing conditions make them quite fond of that crowded, colorful and slightly overblown style of gardening, not least of all because it leaves less room for weeds, which of course also love the mild and friendly weather. But in hot and dry climes it can be a little too stressful on the water meter and long for greater shade than is easily procured by the average gardener. Clearly, it’ll take some tricky thinking to overcome those obstacles. Our recent negotiations with the fellow who will likely supervise our landscape overhaul when we can manage to do it have been a solid reminder not only of the limits of NTX nurseries and their resources but how much it’s going to cost us to do any adventuring in the fuller development of our patch of ground. Our recent house plumbing near-disaster and a couple of automotive ones, not to mention the trip we are making just now, all send pretty clear signals to our budgetary brains that it’s yet a while before we can tackle much renovation or revivification in our happy little greenbelt-hugging home zone. So for now it seems all the wiser to me to store up all of the brawny, brainy yet beautiful garden ideas I can and savor my short stay back in cottage-garden country to help me suss out just what I can do to bring a semblance of it back home with me when the bank account has been fattened up a bit more again.
Art-Colored Glasses 
You have some great ideas and dreams for your garden and I’m sure it will all happen. Your photos are beautiful. We have a ceanothus but the neighbour gets the most benefit as it hangs over the fence, flowering and facing their way for the sunlight. It is a blue beauty! I hope everything goes your way. Happy weekend.
Sorry I’m terribly slow here! But I still appreciate your comments, my friend! I’ll certainly be interested to see how our yard progress plays out over time.
I love those allottment gardens! so organic.. c
Aren’t they beautiful? One of the ones near my sister’s has nice walking paths around it as well as the great plantings, and her dog (wisely) chooses to head in that direction on many of his walks, so I had a nice visit there at one walk time last week. He’s a very good tour guide, by the way. 🙂
I love those cottage type gardens. I have always dreamed of a ‘secret garden’ type, walled, shaded and cool as a retreat. But since I live in an area where the average humidity this week has been 6% (or less), I will just have to be content with dreaming and looking at beautiful pictures like these. 🙂
You and I may have similar issues with our garden planning as far as humidity goes! But I have a feeling your temps stay a tiny bit lower in general, since I think you’re at a higher elevation than we are. 🙂 Meanwhile, there’s no harm in admiring others’ gardens without having to replicate them at home, and it’s certainly lower maintenance for *us*! 😉
Now those are some gardens! How pretty are they? It’s only a matter of time, Kathryn, before you grow the garden of your dreams. Although you may have wished otherwise, I’m sure you’ll put this additional time to good use, planning your little bit o’ Eden deep in the heart of Texas.
I know I would also be wise to work toward my various grand plans in slower phases for the most part simply because it gives me a chance to ‘test drive’ various elements as I go, so I will suck it up and pace myself even though I always love instant gratification best! 🙂
Beauiful garden!
I confess there’s very little I *don’t* find beautiful when it comes to gardens, and these days among Seattle gardens are just one of many ways to enjoy them. 🙂
I also love gardening. See the garden I recently photographed:
Oh, so lovely!
Don’t despair, Dearie…there are plenty of Texas plants that can mimic the style of a cottage garden while taking the heat. It’s all about form…
Indeed it is. And while I am plodding along in my plots, I can always slip over to look with admiration at *your* place!! xoxo
Pretty gardens love the flowers the most.
True! These patches all brought such instant sunlight to me as I wandered by, and the variety of the colors and textures in the flowering stuff is a huge part of their appeal. 🙂
xo
Loving seeing the allotment photo! I always spend ages peering at photos like that wondering, ooh what’s that there, and what have they planted alongside that… happiness.
But the line that got me was “the tenacity of a Welsh miner” – so droll!
I hope you get to try out some of these wonderful ideas sooner rather than later Kathryn 🙂
I meant to add – love dthe name P Patch, and followed the link and got myself a mini education 🙂
Of course, I’ve loved *your* allotment posts! Fun to share the different versions of them. Now that the heat’s settled in here in Texas, I don’t know quite what cheer will ensue in my *home* garden updates! 🙂
Blankets of color & walks of stone, just downright breathtaking. Thank you…
I’m still closing my eyes from time to time to ‘go back’ to all of this! Not likely to find any way to replicate it exactly in Texas, of all places, but I’m determined to take the spirit of it and manage to recreate some of *that* at least.
Absolutely splendid photographs, Kathryn, and that Farmer’s Lilac–well, it is maginificient! And that garden path…well, lead me down it anytime! Best of luck with your gardening and landscaping projects. I know you will do wonders!
I will keep everyone posted as I go, but it’s pretty well guaranteed to be a very slow progression. Money and time being the way that they are! 🙂