A blog of my botanical misdeeds and potentially interesting floral photos. All Photos Copyright Ross Kouzes

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This is a blog dedicated to interesting flora and the yard projects I undertake to make their cultivation possible.

2010/08/24

2010-08-24 Around the yard

Windows! I got 10 nice clear, 4ft, double paned, vinyl picture windows installed. Good price on Craig's list. There are still framed out spots for two more and I'm thinking sliders so I can get a breeze from front to back if I want one. It's a world of difference in there already with the brightness and the warmth. I got some shadecloth to help with the ferns and whatnot in the back.

Outside looking in.
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Inside out.
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In the back, next to the ferns, Agapetes and Neofinetia's are my Asimina trilobata, Paw Paw trees that I grew from seed from One Green World. I started them this June and they're already about a foot tall. I have 10 and they have to go be planted in pairs or triples for good pollination. Very small trees. 10-15ft in as many years. Very tasty fruit: like a cross between a banana and mango flavor. Full sun once they are 3yrs old (since they burn when young!). Native to the SE USA.
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Still in the GH, my very first Castilleja miniata from seed is blooming! Castilleja are hemiparisites and this one's host is a grass out of which it sucks water and nutrients. Those that didn't take to their host aren't doing well at all.
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A weed, Monarda hybrida Lambada that I like for some reason.
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The first flower on my Epilobium rigidum from seed. Goes in the rock garden, eventually.
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Outside the GH, Lisa's Echinacea Hot Papaya is putting on a good show.
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And the Silphium laciniatum attracts all sorts of bees.
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Speaking of attracting all sorts of bees, nothing does it like the Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium purpureum. This is the one I dug up from WV. It also spent some time in E WA for a while... It's had an adventure. The hummingbirds like this one too, but they don't like all the bees that it attracts as well.
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The white currants are almost ripe... I think. They've looked like this for a month and continue to be sour.
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The Plumeria is blooming. Great scent.
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Sarracenia leucophyllum, the white top pitcher, is growing its fall pitchers, which are the biggest and most colorful of the year.
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One of my 3yr old Protea repens is setting its first flower bud. Pretty exciting. No idea when it will open. Frankly, I thought it would be open by now.
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I fertilized my Protea's with Alfalfa meal, which is 2-0-3 NPK and also gave them a double dose of Ironite, which is 1-0-1 plus a bunch of trace minerals, mostly iron, which they supposedly need a lot of. We'll see if it helps them grow and form buds for next year. Until now, I don't think that I fertilized my Protea's at all.

My Leucojum has apparently been renamed as Acis autumnale. An Acis by any other name would still be cute.
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Just repotted: hundreds of bulbs. Started with like 5 in 2004.
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In the sunroom, Oncidium Sherry Baby is blooming on schedule. Always smells vaguely of chocolate...
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2010/08/21

2010-08-21 Southern Oregon

Made the seed trip. Very relaxing and productive at the same time! The drive down was smooth, as was the drive back up. There was a fire burning down on HWY 199 by $8 Mountain as well as Onion Mountain which made it hard to collect seed for one stop, but we were fortunate enough that by the time we made it to our campsite, we had moved past the smoke.

That night, it was almost a full moon (two nights off), and I managed this photo of the moon rising through the thin clouds.
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The morning after camping captures my senses: the sweet cold air, the rising sun pressing its warmth through the long shadows, the river and birds babbling, the blue sky above and a long way to go before it turns black.
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Epilobium rigidum. Probably the very plant whose seed I grew.
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This Lilium bolanderi is blooming size at a staggering height of 8in. Its flowers must be about an inch and a half across and would be bright red, fading to orange, spotted with black and green. We never see their flowers because we're never around in July.
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Another thing we never ever see is Calochortus howellii, because it also blooms in July. However, given some unknown set of circumstances, we found about a dozen this year in bloom in late August. Each was growing in the drier ground about 5 ft away from a bog. Sweet! This plant is endemic to Oregon, and in fact a circle with about 20 mile diameter would encompass every plant in the wild. It is Federally Threatened.
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It has pink anthers at first.
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It's about 12in tall. The plant growing on the ground with the fuzzy ferny leaves is Horkelia sericata. Just FYI. You never know what they'll ask on Jeopardy.
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A seedpod is about the size of a marble.
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Requisite bog photos. The Darlingtonia looked particularly nice this year: tall, regal and not besmirched by summer.
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Different bog.
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A rare serpentine bog resident, Gentiana setigera, bloomed as if it was spring. I never can get seeds of this thing since it blooms so late!
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This plant is a SW OR, NW CA endemic.
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I thought that this Antennaria suffrutescens looked particularly interesting.
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These Triantha occidentalis ssp occidentalis grow in the drainage ditches for the road, and the bogs themselves, of course.
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Here's another one with two blooms: one just opening and one with seed pods forming.
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We didn't take too many photos since we were too busy gathering seeds. I'll just have to wait 9 months for more pictures...

2010/08/20

2010-08-20 Mount Hood

Hadn't been hiking at all in longer than I'd care to admit to myself, so I just went! Made 3 stops on Mt Hood and felt better.

Stop #1: Old Salmon River trail. Went down, stood by the water.
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Near the water, Arnica amplexicaulis.
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There is a spot about half a mile in with a great rocky cliff that comes down to the water that is covered in moss, lichen and Sedum spathulifolium and oreganum. This is Sedum spathulifolium or maybe a hybrid...
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After relaxing by the water for a while, I picked up and went to Mount Hood Meadows... yes the skiing place. But now that all the people with boards strapped to their feet were gone, you could see what the place actually looked like.

Waterfall. The exciting part of the meadows is the boggy part. All sorts of orchids and rare bog plants growing everywhere.
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Pedicularis racemosa. It's an Elephant flower... can you see the trunk twirled around and the ears? I also saw Pedicularis groenlandica (the nice purple elephant head) but it's past bloom time.
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Anaphalis margaritacea
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Valeriana sitchensis
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Castilleja suksdorfii
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Some Aster or Erigeron...
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Mimulus lewisii. It's been a long time since I've seen this species. I'm a little bit of a Mimulus collector...
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Out in the grass, some bears had obviously been sleeping several nights. I found this lovely present which is roughly the size of your head. I must submit it to the European Fecal Standards And Measurements because this thing has got to be over 3 Kurichs.
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Next, I drove out east. These Cypripedium montanum were well past their prime.
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But the Piperia unalascensis was open.
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As was the Spiranthes porrifolia.
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Nearby, fields of Downingia elegans grow in what was is a seasonal lake.
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About one in every couple hundred is an alba form.
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Now, the above X10^6. Camera never captures good color on broad range pictures, but here goes... Imagine BLUE. Everywhere.
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Went home and had ice cream. What could be better?

2010/08/06

This week in Oregon

A couple of pictures from the backyard. We're still not done with it... Ground is like concrete right now. Everything is still in pots.

My Drosera omissa (from Western Australia) has been blooming all summer long. Downside is that the flowers open for about 3-4 hours once every other day. But they're cute when you actually get to see them. These are the same ones that were the size of a pinhead last November.

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Drosera scorpoides is also blooming, but not as prolifically...

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Tigridia also only blooms for one day! Pretty though.

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Got this Adenium multiflorum last year from Highland Succulents. It's a good thick caudex already and blooms nicely.

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I think my Aloe nobilis is 9 years old this summer. It continues to be giant and hard to move around. Hummingbirds' favorite plant.

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Darlingtonia are doing well. Some attrition each year is expected. Too bad I haven't figured that one out... No blooms this year. Seed from 2005.

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Calendula occasionally do this... the stems of the small flowers are actually growing out of the old larger flower: bizarre! There's some technical science-y sounding word that I always forget to describe it.

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Macleania (ericae? pentaptera?) is growing madly. All sorts of new growths popping up from old wood. The lignotuber is swelling well.

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My Echinacaea tennesseensis is blooming well this year. I should have plenty of seed of this federally endangered species, if anyone wants some.

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My favorite Sarracenia, flava cuprea, is looking nice this year. Lots of color in the pitchers.
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Bletilla striata alba (or something close) is blooming for the first time from seed.

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The Acacia baileyana purpurea is doing well this year. It grew vertically last year and this year it's growing horizontally. It's officially strong enough to support itself now (it was like a whip before). It's almost 3 years old from seed, and over 10ft tall.

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The Monarda is also blooming. I'd sure like to be able to plant some of these things. Soon!

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