Far Reaches Farm

I was struck yesterday of the parallels between farming and our nursery business.  I've known about the similarity in hours and the generous financial compensation that we share with farmers but it was the fragility of the crop that spoke loudest this week.  I spent some time dumping dead potted seedlings of very interesting plants and realizing why most growers with any sense don't grow these types of plants.

We always wonder why some of these extremely cool plants that we know about are never available in the trade.  Great in appearance, neat flowers, drought tolerant - just a litany of admirable qualities.  So we made a concerted effort to grow some of these babies sowing a lot of seed.  Well a lot hasn't sprouted.  Yet, I hope.  Some will wait until next spring, some until the spring after.   That doesn't help the production cycle.  A bunch did sprout but only 2 or 3 in a batch with the rest of seed still good but waiting.  Kind of a pain to handle when that happens.  Some sprouted and grew with abandon.  Until we transplanted them and then they died with abandon.  Others sprouted, and being of a kindly nature,  died before we could transplant them saving us much in time and materials.  Some of course are growing very well but I am now suspicious and expect them to die when we pot them on to a larger pot or perhaps they will succumb to winter dankness.  I do know for sure that the survivors will be precious entities to be treasured in the garden.

Of course sometimes you don't even get a chance to plant the seeds.  We were just walking around our shade garden just minutes ago with our friends and I bent down to harvest the plump seed heads on Trillium kurabayashii which were looking very ready only to find out that they were hollow having provided a tasty meal for a cursed vole.  Hopefully the wee beast cached them in the garden against leaner times this coming winter and more hopefully perhaps one of the many coyotes will munch the vole before this winter drives him to uncover his stash.  It is a vague hope to find a knot of Trillium seeds sprouting this next spring in an unexpected spot.

We'll not give up trying to grow the obscure and the unprofitable as they are very interesting plants.  It may be because we have no better sense.  Actually I prefer to think of it as a different sense.  We like the challenge and we like seeing something new.  It keeps us enthused and intrigued and hopefully will help forestall Alzheimer's by keeping us thinking and not falling into routine.  Well there is the routine of dumping casualties so maybe that is not valid but it is the successes we must focus on and besides we just gotta try.  Every seed is just a surprise package and we like surpises, especially the good ones.

We recently received the PT City monthly newsletter in which the Mayor was espousing (per the advice of local action groups) the use of native plants in the landscape as they are adapted to low water requirements.  It does seem to be a particularly vehement minority that champions the use of natives and also seems quite willing to exclude from consideration plants native to other parts of the world which enjoy even more arid conditions than our Pacific Northwest. 

We love our native plants.  We belong to the Washington Native Plant Society and find many of our native plant communities to be absolutely precious.  We also recognize that for landscaping purposes our native flora is quite depauperate compared to other regions  and that given an alternative to Douglas Fir,  Oregon Grape, Salal and Sword Fern,  most people are going to take the alternative.  I'm being simplistic but the tunnel vision view of  things being either black or white has never worked well for me.  Like George's "You're either with us or against us."   Last I checked that doesn't seem to be working out too well.

One of the more enjoyable late spring-early summer sights here in PT is the old fashioned Red Hot Poker naturalizing on the bluff along Washington Street.  A more inhospitable place in town would be hard to find with full exposure to wind, sun, no water, sharp drainage and at the mercy of the Uptown Deer Gang and yet these do fabulous.  Native to South Africa, these are very drought tolerant and deer resistant - more so than many of our natives.   And this is just one example of literally hundreds.

So shouldn't these merit a place in the water-wise landscape?  And are we going to advocate that perhaps Sequim should have a Garry Oak Festival instead of a Lavender Festival?  (Actually I would be in favor of honoring the remnant Oak Prairie in Sequim as I find a little Lavender goes a long ways and the Oaks are amazing regal plants)  There are a lot of places to save on water such as building houses that are a trifle less palatial and more sustainable, forget watering your lawn, try mulching or possibly allowing development only within the limits of your municipal water supply.

We have generally found that the blame for excessive water use in the landscape falls more on the human than the plant.  Forethought in garden preparation and appropriate plant choices can let most people enjoy the full spectrum of plants from bog to desert without being water miscreants.  If you don't know, get a book or better yet, get several.  I would suggest asking someone who knows but anymore it seems as though you have to know the stuff to know if they know their stuff.  You know?  

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We are faced with hiring on more staff as our plant lust has far outstripped our ability to manage the acquisitions.  Did we really need to pot up over a hundred Melanoselinum decipiens?  At the time I thought so but looking at our cramped and crowded can yard I have to wonder at the wisdom of masses of an admittedly cool and admittedly esoteric Canary Island giant umbellifer.  Especially taking up coveted winter greenhouse space.

Seedlings are turning rapidly from the beaming joy of germination to wondering if they will stay alive until next year without transplanting.  I am reminded of how much I like bulb seedlings which are mostly dormant now and can be just set aside and out of mind without having the quiet condemnation of over-full and crowded seed pots staring at me several times a day.  It's just not more staff but more focus perhaps.  Do I need to be growing 8 different variants of an already fairly obscure hardy cactus from seed?  Well I know the answer is yes and in my heart I was hoping to obtain seed of a few more variations but from the practical aspect perhaps not.  Here at Far Reaches Farm I guess we just have to embrace the impractical and view it as a positive and a goal to strive for or we might suffer from disquietude.  A friend of mine who has a nursery and is a maniacal hybridizer of Sarracenia and grows far more than any sane person should told me that he keeps redefining what fun is so he can still have some.  That is the plant bug and I'm off to have some fun in the nursery.

It is July 4th and I find myself thinking back to the founding of our country and the sacrifice and heroism required to break the yoke of tyranny.   I look back to the vision of our Founders who forged doctrines of uncompromising values and beliefs which have guided us remarkably the past two centuries and have served as inspiration to other aspiring democracies.  I look back and I cannot help thinking that our Founders are looking down upon us with heads bowed in shame and disappointment.

America through the years was the gold standard of freedom and doing the right thing.  There were lapses and mistakes for sure but we could hold our heads high in the international community and our citizens had a comfortable faith that our government had our best interests in heart.  I just don't see that anymore.

We have a government running prison camps on foriegn soil and denying the "detainees" due process.  For years.  We have a government condoning torture and occupying sovereign nations using lies as justification.  We have a systematic erosion of personal rights and individual liberties.  We have government giving away our future to corporate interests through unchecked exploitation of natural resources.  We have a government increasingly unable to separate Church from State and one that seems to be a tool of special interests more so now than at any time in history.  Our access to unbiased news is skewed and "spun" by corporate and governmental influence.  The idea that we as citizens can effect change is seeming more and more remote.  

Our country needs to do the right thing.  We were founded in principles of doing the right thing.  Our leaders need to set aside personal agendas of religion, corporate interests and global empire building through military force and do what is right for the citizens of this country as well as the citizens of the world.  This movement towards unreproachable tyranny is unforgiveable.  We still have the vote - use it.  Call your elected officials.  Do something.  Complacency is implied consent and I for one want us held to a higher standard.

I was advised to keep controversial rants out of the blog and I think I did pretty good.  I could have been a lot more pointed.  If you haven't seen Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" then you must make every effort to do so.  A factual and non-partisan look at global warming and our own arrogance that will open your eyes and make you aware with absolute clarity that we need to effect change now.

Thanks for listening. 

This is the single most asked question at our nursery and one that has a simple answer from us - it is a shame and a wasteful tragedy.  We feel for the staff, some of whom we count as friends, for being so callously dismissed.  We lament the loss of plants, of new seed collections and introductions, and the termination of years of breeding work especially with Hellebores.

We feel less sadness for the loss of the garden as gardens are so much an extension of the personality of the owner  that once that connection is severed then decline and mediocrity is inevitable.   We have learned to enjoy gardens while they are still under the direction of their creators as once they are managed by corporations, boards or municipal interests they lose their edge and focus and become something other than what was intended.  

Heronswood is owed a huge Thank You for elevating and energizing the gardening community by exposing them to obscure and sometimes challenging plants and for introducing gardeners to the joyful diversity of species from habitats around the world.  This has made it a lot easier for us to sell our admittedly chaotic range of plants as folks are excited to try something new like the brown form of Arisaema exappendiculatum or say Betula calcicola from our seed collection from plants growing on limestone outcrops at the base of cliffs on the Zhongdien Plateau.

Thanks Heronswood.  There won't be another and you will be missed. 

Had a pleasant diversion on the way out to the office - the sun has set and on our old dog's grave we have a stand of Oenothera triloba whose 4"-6" yellow flowers pop open in the early evening like time-lapse photography on NOVA. It was a 18 flower salute tonight and no matter how many times I watch the floral kinetics I am still moved with a child-like wonder. I am so excited that our web Empress from Isabel Bay Design gave us a tutorial on updating our site ourselves that I fear I may succumb to my own verbosity. Looking back at my last entry I recognize the need for brevity. So in Sichuan, some of the most superb plants we saw were: purple-black foliaged Arisaema concinnum, red-centered foliage on Corydalis, Rhododendron rufescens and rich pink R. bureavioides (among 40-50 other Rhdodendron species), Diapensia purpurescens, odd endemic Pedicularis, Meconopsis integrifolia interspersed with Meconopsis punicea, Cypripedium, Satyrium and Epipactis, a low elevation shrubby Clematis with narrow lanceolate leaves and rich yellow flowers, Mandragora caulescens, Paeonia veitchii affinity, Corallidiscus, Syringa reflexa, Omphalogramma, Primula polyneura, cockburniana, latisecta, et al, Smilacina fusca, Thermopsis smithiana, Solms-Laubachia, Oxygraphis, Rheum alexandrae, Paris, Arenaria, Lloydia, Daphne, Berneuxia, Arisaema wilsonii affinity with pink to red foliage looking like Caladiums in the forest and evoking several involuntary "Holy Crap's" out of me, Arisaema lobatum with silver checking to the foliage, Epimedium davidii, Cardiocrinum giganteum aff., Vaccinium glauco-album, Fritillaria, Polygonatum prattii, hookeri and curvistylum, alpine mat-forming gorgeous Silene, ditto on the red-flowered Potentilla, and can't forget Rhododendron dendrocharis growing epiphytically. We knocked a lot of plants off our list of Plants T0 See Blooming In The Wild Before We Die. Meconopsis punicea leaps to the fore but Meconopsis integrifolia with its salad plate yellow flowers may well carry the day in strength of numbers with whole hillsides sprinkled in magnificent specimens. The rich Pink Rhododendron bureavioides hanging on rocky outcrops over frothy white rapids is tough to beat but the Syringa reflexa with its full pink pendulous flower heads remains etched in our collective conscience. The shocking thing to me and a testimony to the floral wealth of the region is that stands of Cypripedium in full flower barely merit a mention for plant of the day. Now that is some fine plant hunting when that happens! We took a lot of pictures and are already putting together what looks to be a killer slide program. Have Slides Will Travel.

So much has happened since the last posting from Chengdu in Sichuan.  The next morning after updating our website from the hotel computer we were lazing in our room commenting on the strange odor emanating from the air conditioner.  Not that unusual and simply joining an array of new and exotic odors to which we had been exposed so we simply turned off the unit.  It was just minutes later when our door was banged upon and that line you hear in movies or read in books was shouted "There's a fire in the hotel!  There's smoke on this floor!"  We looked out and sure enough my worst fears were about to come true - I was going to miss breakfast.  We flashed into hyperspeed and got everything packed in seconds and tossed onto the elevator heading down while we opted for the stairs.  Being on the 15th floor and having seen a disaster flick or two made this seem a prudent choice.  As we got lower on the stairs, the smell and smoke worsened and the lights quit working all adding to the ambience.  Surrealistically, we passed young girls who were hotel employees heading up the stairs to go to work and wishing us a good morning amidst the chaos.  So very China.  Not every floor is on fire and there is work to be done.  The fire meant our departure to the Wolong was quite delayed scuttling our day there but we did witness blooming sheets of Corydalis flexuosa (from which 'Blue Panda' was introduced) in flower on slopes under the trees with majestic clumps of Arisaema elephas flowering amidst the blue.  The disappointment of the day seemed distant and trivial at that point.  Later quick stops yielded a white flowered Primula with many small flowers packed into a spherical grouping which is defying our attempts at identification.  Also seen were what must be Polygonatum sibiricum with thick asparagus spears at 6' and still heading skyward and the yellow Calanthe tricarinata, a glorious little Orchid.  I'll add more soon.  It is damn hot in the office as we are having record high temperatures and Sue just mentioned that it is a perfect night for Mojitos so......

Writing to you from Chengdu in Sichuan China as we prepare to head for the mountains in search of very cool plants. This is exciting as the weather has improved which was horrid the last couple of days in Yunnan in Wumeng Shan. This truly tested our plant hunter resolve but despite the torrents saw some exciting goodies. Meconopsis wumengensis which is a newly described species just 10 days from flowering. Damn! But still giddy over seeing it. Huge plants of Rhododendron sikangense var. exquisetum, lacteum, spaeroblastum var. wumengensis, bureavii, rex, etc were for the most part in blooming glory. Primula bella ssp. wumengensis and P. faberi - yum. Pleiones, Arisaema wilsonii, consanguineum and yunnanense, Chrysosplenium, Lyonia ovalifolia is just in its glory. Keeteleria is coned up - very neat conifer that is just not hardy.

We do miss our plants at home as our Meconopsis grandis from our own wild collection was just starting to bloom for the first time with luscious satiny dark violet flowers. But there is enough here to distract us from such thoughts. China is exploding with growth and modernization - it is truly flabberghasting the difference between now and our last trip here in '97.

The nursery although staffed is obviously closed until we get back. Happy to hear it has been cool rainy weather much of the time in Port Townsend. Well enough of this - off to see what there is to see and anticipate yet another mysteriously wonderful dinner. —Kelly