83 East Bay Nursery
June 16, 2023
85 Yamagami’s Garden Center
July 14, 2023
From My Garden, June 2023
R eaders, can you believe Driving Miss Viola began 3 years ago this month? That was June 2020 and I’m still here in 2023. (Apparently I have A LOT to say!)
In this post, I share updates from my garden on a few things I’ve blogged about over the years. By the way, saying “From My Garden” is the same as saying “From My Life.” You fellow plant nerds out there know what I’m talking about!
If you haven’t read my early posts you may not know that, in my garden, I have bamboo (post #11). When I installed it, I thought I placed it strategically enough—because bamboo spreads wildly. But this was back in the days when I knew nothing really about plants.
Along with other varieties, we have giant timber bamboo in the garden, and THAT bamboo is Mike’s. (So you know how this story is going to go.)
This spring in the bamboo grove down at the pool garden, 15 new timber bamboo shoots shot up from the ground. FIFTEEN!!
Generally we get 3 to 5, but due to all the rain this winter—WOWZER!!!
Mike and my grandson, John, had a field day running around counting all the new shoots. Some showed up in places I would not prefer. But to keep Mike happy, I’m letting all 15 stay.
They’re even shooting up into my variegated clumping bamboo…
One has shot up in the branches of my Eastern Redbud!
Mike said he’d move that one “strategically” to a position between the branches so it wouldn’t harm the Redbud. Oh geez! How kind of him.
But here’s the thing: if any bamboo crosses walkways into my other gardens, Mike knows I’ve got Roundup® concentrate on standby and ready to pour! (Like I’ve never done that before. Don’t tell Mike.)
From posts #12, #16, #18 and others, you know I love using pots in my garden. I even have them in the bamboo grove.
For awhile I had an empty spot between these 2 turquoise pots…
I had a Choisya growing in that spot but it died, and of course I blame the bamboo roots. They choke out everything in their path which is why bamboo needs firm boundaries like a child that doesn’t know any better.
I wanted a third turquoise pot to replace the dead Choisya, but finding the one I wanted took 2 years!
The 2 existing pots are not a matching pair. I didn’t want them to match, and I wanted the same for the third one. It needed to compliment the other 2 and together make an interesting set.
The new pot would have to be a specific height and width, and its color had to be spot on. But time passed and I wasn’t finding one to match my vision.
Periodically AP would find turquoise pots she thought I might like and would send photos. But I always replied, “No.” Remember I’m picky and impossible to shop for unless you take me with you.
But lucky me—my business requires nursery visits at least 3 times a week. One day on my regular rounds, I popped into Bushnell Gardens (#21) and—lo and behold—there was my perfect third pot!
Just as I imagined.
Now here’s a plant I bought a couple years ago at Cottage Gardens (#32). Look at it now…
Acanthus ‘Whitewater’
Just beautiful!
It’s a very s-l-o-w growing plant. When it matures, the clump should be 3-feet wide with 4-foot flower stalks. This one’s only a foot high.
I like white flowers and white foliage, especially when those purple shamrocks pop up everywhere. I know what you’re thinking…but these shamrocks are the beautiful ones you WANT to keep.
I bought this next lovely little thing at Greenhouse Garden (#61) a few years back.
Brunnera macrophylla ‘Silver Heart’ (Silver Heart Brunnera)
It might be the only blue-flowering plant in my garden. It’s a great addition to a full-shade or part-shade area as it definitely brightens up whatever shady spot it’s in.
I also bought Betsy at Greenhouse Garden. Just look at her now…
Leucanthemum x superbum ‘Betsy’ (Shasta Daisy Betsy)
What a woman! She’s even on my business card.
Here’s a Silene I bought a year ago on one of our many visits to Berkeley Hort Nursery (#38).
Silene dioca Red Campion
Pretty as pink, and boy has it spread. I think it is ready to be divided and shared with friends—at a price! 🙂
Remember my flowering cherry tree that died and so I was forced (LOL!) to buy a multi-trunk Olive tree as a replacement (#75)?
That cherry tree was 20-feet or taller and gave shade to dozens of plants that needed it…and STILL need it.
So the Olive tree is now 6-feet tall. See my issue?
I’m going to have those stupid umbrellas there for I don’t know how many years until that Olive grows large enough to provide adequate shade. Gawd, just shoot me now.
At least the umbrellas are coordinated in colors that don’t scream, “Look at me!” (See, I do know what I’m doing even when things get ridiculous.)
So I’ve written 84 posts, and it would take at least that many more to give updates on every plant I’ve blogged about.
It would take 20 years to blog about all the nurseries I have visited. In fact, AP and I need to take a trip to Oregon to revisit 98 nurseries we can’t find photos for. Remember who, back then, was in charge of taking photos? Yup…not me!
It’s a rough life visiting so many nurseries, but we’re willing to take one for Team Viola!
Because I’ve been online for 3 years and have so many wonderful subscribers, I get email from readers across the States. They write to ask questions, to thank me for my blog, or to tell me they have a husband like mine.
A month ago I heard from a Michigan woman who, while vacationing at Hilton Head, came across this garden statue which caught her eye…
She took a picture, did a Google search, and up popped my blog post #21 showing I had a smaller version.
She emailed wanting to know where I got it.
Well she’s a Reader now so, Nancy, I hope you found one!
One day while AP and I were shopping at Berkeley Hort Nursery, my phone rang. It was a man from Washington State asking if I had any Daphne odora ‘Moonlight Parfait’ in stock.
I was rather confused for a second because, first, I was in a nursery and thought the phone lines got crossed, and then I wondered how a man in Washington knows I have a private nursery?
Then it dawned on me—he had done a Google search for the Daphne and found my Darling Daphne, post #46 . Hilarious!
I told him, “Sorry, I don’t have a commercial nursery but you can subscribe to my blog!” He said he’d give it some thought and hung up.
Afterwards when I told AP about it, she just shook her head in disbelief.
I hope the man did subscribe so he isn’t missing out firsthand on all the riveting information I put on the World Wide Web.
Because apparently now even Google subscribes!
