Announcing Washington Native Plant Society Native Plant Garden Tour Saturday and Sunday, May 6-7. Free and open to public This year's native plant garden tour is in open-house format, and will be held over the weekend of May 6-7 as part of the Native Plant Appreciation Week activities. This is the weekend before the society's spring plant sale. At least eleven private gardens will be open to showcase a diversity of garden themes and plant collections. The gardens feature creative use of native plants to enhance living space, add beauty, and attract wildlife. The gardens are located in Seattle, Mercer Island, Mountlake Terrace, Lake Forest Park, Preston and Tacoma, and will be open to visitors at different times throughout the weekend. A final list of gardens will be available at the end of April. To receive a garden list and more information, please contact Rita Moore at rmoore@eds.org or Alan Yen at sedgeyen@yahoo.com. http://www.wnps.org/npaw_2006/events.htm

I'd really been wondering when the redbuds would show that first blush of color and finally .... just in the last day or two, they are showing up along the roadsides. A deer visited a few days ago and snacked on some of my tulips :( but the ones that are left are beginning to bloom and they are beautiful! Phlox is now blooming and the hostas are growing fast. I'm now pretty sure that the tree that I thought might be a crabapple is just that, and it looks like another small tree is a redbud (yay). It's fun discovering what's growing here, now that the weather has finally decided to warm up. A neighbor said 12 wild turkeys were in our yard the other day, but we were at work so we missed seeing them. The street we live on is called Turkey Run Drive, so now we now how it got its name :). Oh, and one bit of good news .... they started the dirt work where the building will go, and when they stripped off the bermuda grass the land is mostly nice dirt, with only one little strip of red clay running through it. This may have once been farmland, or a pasture. So that's good news for the vegetable garden. Suzie

Nancy, Keep an eye on that pink evening primrose. It is determined to conquer the world. It should be a great potato year, but only time will tell. It would be a better year for everything if only the sun would shine. All the foliage in the world isn't useful except on plants grown only for their foliage. We need sunshine to get fruiting plants to fruit. Jennifer, I hate to hear that about the standing water--it should drain away fairly quickly. You can want apples all you want, and go ahead and stamp your feet if it makes you feel better, but apples are very challenging here and do not produce reliably. (There's a reason you don't see apple orchards in Oklahoma.) I don't even bother with them because of all the frustration that comes along with them. Friends of mine who "try" to grow apples (their words, not mine) do not get a regular harvest---maybe once out of 4 years, and if you aren't spraying regularly at the right stages in the plants' reproductive cycle, then coddling moths, plum curculios and other pests infest the fruit. With a lot of the apple trees people I know have attempted to grow here, about the time the trees are old enough to bear fruit reliably, they get fire blight and begin to die. Are your columnar apples growing in containers? If so, that might be the problem as this would make them more prone to stress of all kind. Your apple trees didn't have to be exposed to freezing cold temperatures while in bloom in order for the fruit buds (if the tree tried to form them) to die. They can die from cold exposure before they ever even attempt to bloom. The only other things I can think of that would affect apple trees fruiting would be (a) age of the tree---too young to bear fruit reliably, (b) too much fertilizer is keeping it strongly vegetative, or (c) pruning at the wrong time---does one even prune columnar apples? No one I know grows columnar apples except for you, so I don't understand what pruning is or isn't done to them. People here also have a hard time getting their apple varieties to bloom together for cross-pollination---even after they selected apple varieties that ought to be in bloom at the same time. Trees tend to do their own thing. It isn't too late to sow dill seed. I just scatter handfuls of it here or there...if you have a place where the seedlings could be protected from the chickens. dbarron, You're further north so flowers probably are further behind there, but all the flowers here are spectacular this year---wildflowers, cultivated garden plants, shrubs, trees, even tomato and pepper plants have set a lot of blossoms extra early....anything that has a visible flower has been the prettiest ever. We have wildflowers we seldom see, likely because we don't get enough rain for them...so they only pop up in the occasional very wet year. All my flowers are early this year but I'm not complaining. I think they'd be even more spectacular if the sun would shine on them occasionally, but we'll never know because, apparently, the sun isn't going to show its face here again. Well, it has to return at some point. I hope you will get a spectacular flower show there like we are getting here. Jen, I am so sorry about your beloved dog. Please accept my most sincere condolences. Losing a furbaby is so very hard. I hope you are comforted by the knowledge that your animal companion lived a long, happy life and knew how much he was loved. Rebecca, While I appreciate having rain (since we tend to run more towards drought here most of the time) I hate when it interferes with planting time. You must have gotten our Thursday-Friday rain up there, because the 1.5-2.5" they said we likely would get over those two days completely missed us. I'm not complaining. They canceled the river flood warning and everything, because without that rainfall, the Red River didn't come out of its banks although it came close. We still have other flooded areas and damaged roads, so more rain just would have made things worse than they already are. Our ground still is too wet for planting though. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. If only the sun would shine and dry up everything somewhat. Jennifer, We are having the sort of weather that potatoes like. Some years, by this time, we're already hitting temperatures that they don't really appreciate. We have the girls here today, so there won't be much time (probably no time) to garden or plant shop. We're going to take them Mother's Day shopping so they can find something to give their mom next weekend. Last night they picked out Mother's Day cards and then, when they called their mom and Chris to tell them good night, they started telling her they had bought her Mother's Day cards that they described as 'hilarious'. I think if I hadn't stopped them right then, they probably would have told her what the cards looked like and what they said. They love surprising their mom with gifts on all special occasions, but they aren't good at actual surprises and they aren't good at waiting for the holiday to actually arrive. I'm pretty sure we'll shop for gardening tools and such because Chris and Jana really are getting into gardening now that they have a yard that is their own, instead of a rental. I'll have to give the wrapped gifts to Chris to put up on a high shelf and hide until Mother's Day. The kids' grass seeds (a shade blend of grass seeds that tolerate shade) sprouted this past week despite heavy rainfall and Chris was excited about that. It won't be a permanent lawn as they intend to have no front lawn---just really lovely, somewhat formal plantings of evergreen shrubs and perennials---but the grass should prevent erosion until they can get their new landscape installed. There was a serious erosion issued in one area behind their old retaining wall this week, and I think there's now a structure issue (a crack in the wall) and a big gully right behind the wall. I think replacing the wall must be the major yard project for this summer. We believe their retaining wall is the original wall from the 1930s, and one of their next door neighbors kindly saved one large stone from it that had collapsed and fallen on a portion of the wall some time ago---I guess this was after the house went on the market back in winter and no one was living in it. His retaining wall is peculiar (and there are others just like it in his neighborhood) in that it isn't stacked stone. It is like they graded a slight slope into the wall, laid down flagstones that are maybe 1-1.5" thick, and mortared them together. It actually is amazing it has lasted as long as it has because there's no proper footing, no,gravel for drainage, etc. After he did his proper research to determine how to build a retaining wall, he was shocked at the apparent shoddy construction of the one they have now. I just told him that times have changed and the wall he has now likely was considered perfectly acceptable at the time it was built...and it has stood the test of time. They are at the planning stage now, and would rather be at the planting stage. Chris has been researching plants and has asked gazillions of questions this past week. He is big time into planning and proper soil preparation, so he's done his jar soil test (5 of them from various locations on their property), etc., and knows what kind of soil he has (sandy). Now, I need to get him to do an OSU soil fertility type test. He, Jana and Lillie all have made lists of plants they want---right down to the variety of tulips and other bulbs they each prefer--and now are working on consolidating their three separate lists into one list and cutting it down to a manageable amount to plant. I think he said their tulip list consisted of 40 varieties and needed a lot of editing. I cannot help him with reducing his variety list---I'm no good at that task. It is fun to discuss all their plans with them as they plan their work---I do love seeing an old neglected yard brought back to life with great landscaping, and I have no doubt theirs will be spectacular. Dawn

Jen, I got some mint. It was small so is still in its original pot. I'll leave it be for now and see what we've got. Fun, right? I have 4 plants coming up in a straight line...so I must have purposely planted something there, but I don't recognize it and absolutely don't remember planting anything there. Also, fun, right? Love some mystery in my life. Who in the OKC are is going to the OKC Flower and Garden Festival tomorrow. We're going early. I'm hoping to see people I know. :) Also hoping to pick up some goat milk soap and herbs.