IN THE GARDEN

By Caroline Collins

For gardeners, January is the time for planning and dreaming. This year I’ll be using last year’s successes and failures as a starting point for plans and dreams.

Let me review…

Along the big fence we built to keep our dogs in, I planted a honeysuckle (Lonicera) called “Mandarin,” which bloomed a little. I will have to find out what hungry insects nibbled most of the leaves off my three plants.

What with being the salad bowl of the south slope, it was touch and go for my Lonicera, and by the end of summer my plants looked more like green twine than anything alive and growing. Since then, I have seen new growth and am optimistic for the plants, as long as I get some help combating the uninvited diners.

Out back, my husband helped me build raised beds from scavenged railroad ties. Three yards of topsoil from Nielson’s Building Center filled the three beds. The new beds held seedlings of a new carnation, Can-Can Scarlet, and Cleome, that I started somewhat too early, indoors. I hardened these off outdoors in chilly March winds that nearly killed them.

This Navy Seals-style initiation will not be repeated next year, though the results were spectacular, vigor-wise. Russell lupines (bought bare-root by mail order) and dahlias (bought as tubers just before they went on sale, half-price, at Sunnyside Nursery) were joined by delphiniums started indoors (at the right time) from seeds from New Zealand.

Only the lupines had a hard time last summer, falling prey to the mold their roots wore like furry sweaters when I got them. I ignored the mold, believing that a reputable nursery wouldn’t ship diseased plants. I guess I thought it was just a phase they were going through. (I used to wear Angora, after all.) Of the two dozen I planted, about three-quarters died or ailed significantly. I didn’t try to cure the disease, preferring to wait and see if the survivors might have some marvelous resistance to the root rot. I won’t know until spring, of course.

I nearly lost a pair of bare root Don Juan roses in a trick frost that came after I confidently and incorrectly announced, in March, that frost danger was over. I learned later that a bare root rose has to be planted pretty deeply, with the bud union well below the soil, if the plant is to withstand cold snaps and freezing temperatures.

At the very least, a bare root rose in Point Roberts should have mulch heaped around the stem up to (and over) the bud union, if you feel happy about burying it permanently. (The disadvantage of burying the bud union is that it encourages shoots from the undesirable rootstock.)

In my case, new growth that had just begun on my over-exposed plants was singed off by frost. One of the plants recovered pretty quickly, and worked hard to live up to its reputation as a passionate paramour for trellis or fence. The other one stayed dormant until the middle of May. I made sure it was watered, tried not to despair, and was finally rewarded by the telltale reddish-green shoots of a healthy rose. This one soon took off and eventually outgrew its partner.

Through trial and error, and chatting with the right people, I learned a lot about gardening in the northwest. With just a year under my belt, I’m still a rank newcomer, but at least I know a thing or two!

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