Alyssum

Aurinia saxatilis 'Summit'

Basket of Gold

Plant Height: 6-12"

Spacing: 6-12"

Sun Preference: Full Sun

Flower Color: Gold, Bright Yellow

Hardy to 3a (DG) 2b (BG)

The cultivar 'Compactum' has hairy gray-green leaves to 3 inches long which grow in low, mounded clusters. Flowers grow on stalks above foliage. Produces dense clusters of tiny golden yellow flowers in spring and early summer. Useful as a foreground planting in borders, in rock gardens or along walls. Self-sows readily. Hardy to zone 2b, this perennial should be kept moist until completely established. Average water is needed during the growing season. Fertilize in spring just before new growth begins. Shear back after flowering to shape. Grows to about 6 to 12 inches tall and wide. source

Backyard Gardener info

Daves Garden info

Hello!

Well no, I didn't fall off the face of the planet, just more into the laziness zone.  This summer has held successes and failures both personally and in the garden.  But thankfully I can learn, and have learned, from them all.

Many of my plants did not arrive, my assumptions being they rotted under ground or are preparing to surprise me next year.  Some of these include: my bleeding hearts, freesia, lilies of the valley, hostas, and more.  I know one of my hostas didn't like the snow we received in the spring and consequently fizzled out.  But I have hope: maybe it spent the summer on its roots instead of foliage...

But many of my plants arrived, and arrived with abundance.  The self-sowers out-did themselves, and I had a chore of thinning out my sunflowers, calendula, and cosmos.  My violas are spreading like wildfire and Jacob's Ladder is popping up everywhere as well.  In one of my weeding fiestas late this summer I finally started ripping out some of the violas just to help the east bed look a little tidier.  I also spent an afternoon or two collecting seeds from my Jacob's Ladder, cosmos, calendula, and snow in the summer.  I even kept the color varieties separate for the first 3.  Thankfully, I only have two varieties of Jacob's Ladder, and three of cosmos.  The calendula, however, ended up having at least 12 different flowers,  which I have a feeling I will never identify (without help that is) owing to the amount of time I would have to spend researching.  But I am okay with that for now.  I would rather be outside in the garden or skiing, than toiling away on the internet...

But one thing I was not lazy about this summer was taking pictures, and taking them in abundance.  I have hundreds of photos to go through to find the few I will post on the web.  That is something I am looking forward to!

Yard Work and Snow

Since we left for Spokane last weekend I haven't been able to make a post since I have been too busy either in the yard or updating the information on each of my plants.  But it has been snowing since Thursday and I am finally caught up with all my updating so here's a few of the things that have been going on...

One afternoon earlier this week I had been outside weeding and moving some rocks for my drip line when I noticed 2 ski patrollers in the yard next door (they moonlight as construction guys during the off season) looking up at some trees.  My hopes were high; were they going to chop the trees down or just trim them.  These trees are one of our banes of existence in the fall.  All of the trees in our yard shed their leaves and we attempt to rake only to have the trees next door drop there leaves the day after, no fail. So I shouted to them to just cut them down and they replied back "were working on it."  Oh, happy day.

The leaves aren't the only issue with these Lombardy Poplars.  A few years ago we had some incredible winds come ripping through town.  Several branches came down all over town, but next door one of the branches impaled itself through the roof of the garage!  Of course the owner of the place didn't remove it, but just cut it off.  We can only assume the branch must have sealed the hole...  Last year another of the big branches fell from high up and got caught about half way down.  Mason and I have been thinking at least on of the trees was going to come crashing down on to our house.  So you can imagine my relief and excitement when I heard they were going to cut them down the next day.

Upon my return from Bible Study, I saw them with ropes and ladders and a few branches down.  While eating lunch, we heard a huge crack and thud and looked out the window to see a decent size branch down.  We went outside a while later to see how the guys were doing.  They were rapping up!  And the trees were still standing.  Apparently there was too much rot for them to safely climb.  Lombardy Poplars are short lived with an average lifespan of 26 years, these trees were close to 30 years old.  So it wasn't too surprising to here they were going to have to bring in a big truck to safely take down the trees.  

Meanwhile, I had been thinking that I could use some of the branches for a trellis for my Morning Glories and other climbers this year, instead of making or buying one.  So I went rifling through the pile they had gathered and pulled out several nice branches.  I let them lay in the yard a few hours before I buried them.  My excuse was I didn't want them to grow back, but really I took a nap.  At 5, I went out and dug holes for each and planted them.  If they even think about growing they are dead.

Wednesday I was able to make a blueprint for my south and southeast bed so I can know where my perennials are for the future as well as figure out where to plant my new, precious baby plants.  Thursday I returned to my summer job of painting houses only to drive home in a snow storm.  Thankfully I knew it was coming and I had gotten so much done in my yard that I felt like I had been prepared and used my time wisely.  Friday, we woke up to several inches of snow on the ground and it was still dumping.  While I was eating lunch, I heard a huge crash and saw another branch come crashing down onto the deck next door and land across one of the satellite dishes.  I laughed.

The rest of Friday and Saturday I spent gathering more information on my flowers, so now I can spend some time figuring out where I want to plant them.   And since it is still snowing, I can't really think of anything better to do.

What the South Bed looked like before

Drip line on Tuesday Morning

Drip line in action 1

Drip line in action 2, with one of my unknown tulips

My new tree branch trellis (the bathtub will hopefully become a pond someday)

My Blue Angel Hosta on Wednesday

A Lily of the Valley

One of my new Lilies (from the Hot Chocolate Mix) with a Polemonium in the back

Aerial photo of the same lily

Another of the Lilies from the Hot Chocolate Mix

One of my unidentified tulips

Part of the group of unidentified tulips

The Apple Tree on Wednesday

Lettuce Seeds & Sea Urchin Eggs?

So last year I bought a packet of Lettuce seeds that was a Mesclun Mix from the Livingston Seed Co. Even with my distaste for mixed bags of seeds I had a reason: I couldn't find packets of the individual seeds I wanted. So mixed pack it was. The only problem we had is we didn't really like a few of the greens. My solution: separate the seeds, start each and attempt to identify them. So I spent around 4 hours splitting up the seeds and getting them planted! Of course, I did take a few breaks and ate dinner, but it was a time consuming project.


But I didn't mind, it took me back to the days of science labs and I had a flash back to an assignment I had at Occidental College the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I got to go down to LA to study oceanology for 5 weeks. Monday through Thursday we had class in the morning and a lab afternoon, where we dissected fish or went to the beach and did field research. On Friday we got to spend the day on their 85 foot research boat, The Vantuna.  The head professor specialized in invertebrates and one day he used us for some of his research. We had to count how many eggs from a sea urchin there were in one square inch. So we sat at microscopes with hand tally counters and clicked for every egg we saw.  Talk about a long time staring at the same thing.

So really separating the lettuce seeds wasn't quite so painful.  At least they looked different (for the most part).  Some were white, some were brown, some were small black balls that rolled very easily.  Others were pyramidish while others were several colors of the brown spectrum and round, but they would not roll.  Well I got them seperated into 6 groups and then looked at the package.  There were supposed to be 8 varieties.  There was only one group I figured could be separated further, so I divided them into smaller and larger seeds.  But that still left me with only 7 groups.  By this point it was 10:30 pm and I decided that was the best I could do.  I planted them in my germination tray, carefully labeled my legend and stored the seeds in their own bags.

I spent a few hours yesterday trying to identify the seeds online, but very few people actually take pictures of the seeds.  So after a while I got 2 or 3 pretty well identified and gave educated guesses to the others.  Now we will have to wait and see if I am right.  To see the pictures of the seeds click here.

For info on the lettuce varieties click here.

Sea Urchin photo source

Snow in the Morning!

So here in Bozeman we really don't get spring until May, and that is usually mid to late May. So to have a foot plus of snow fall on a mid-April day is almost expected. With all the rerouted traffic from the road construction in town, and the treacherous roads it took twice the time to get to my Bible Study in the morning. Thankfully the roads were just wet 4 hours later on my way home. The snow was very wet for us and many large tree branches had come crashing down, so I decided not to park on the street with the nice large Cottonwood trees looming precariously over the curb. Had we gotten this storm in mid January we would have easily gotten 3 feet of snow, but oh well. As I was outside taking some pictures I almost got tree avalanched on three times. I was quick enough to get out of from under the falling snow, but the cloud of snow that was kicked up coated me. Thankfully my camera battery was out of juice and I went back inside. I love Montana!

Failling an Exam and Finding Joy

April is here and for me that means the end of ski season. Bridger Bowl's last day will be tomorrow and I am ready. Oddly enough I haven't been on my skis for more than 12 runs in the past week. With the finish my PSIA Level III exam on the 2nd and 3rd my body started giving into the pain I have been skiing through and my body was ready for a rest.

On Monday morning I went outside to see a great suprise: my flowers were popping up through the dead leaves, soil and snow. What joy those tender little things brought to my heart.

It has been a hard past few weeks. Skiing hard and getting the last few pieces put together for my exam. I had an incredible week on my skis and was just amazed at what I was able to do anywhere on the mountain. I was actually excited for the exam to come and felt ready for whatever would happen, pass or fail. I was just having fun. Thursday morning, the 2nd, came and with some amazing encouragement from my coaches the exam kicked off. The weather was perfect. Snowy, low 20's, fantastic snow; it really couldn't get any better.

The group I was in was great. One other instructor, Alex, was a coworker from Bridger. Maggie, who once worked at Bridger but is currently at Big Sky, was also in our group, as well as Nick, from Big Sky, Dave from Showdown, and Don from Yellowstone Club. Both the examiners were from Big Sky and their shadow, and our great encourager, Karin was from Bridger. All in all, everyone was a strong skier and things went well.

Exams are always hard. There is not nearly as much skiing as we would like. Once we got warmed up the scoring, and waiting, began. We did wedge turns, open parallel, dynamic parallel, and 4 tasks the first day, as well as our bumps demo in seriously low visibility. But the Level III description is "anywhere, anytime, anyplace..." The second day brought our teaching segments, wedge christies and one more task. Overall, things went well. I definitely didn't ski my best, nor did I ski my worst, but I felt I skied well. My teaching segment was by far my best of the year, which was a relief considering that is what I had been most nervous about.

Well by 6 o'clock Friday night the scores were in and I did not pass. It was tough, I cried. But I had nothing to regret. I never quit, I trained hard all year, and I did my best. I was very proud of myself for keeping a great attitude through the entire exam and after (which is what my coaches had felt would be my biggest obstacle). So I truly felt that I had succeeded even though I didn't pass.

In total only 3 people, out of 13, passed the Level III this year. Jen, from Big Sky, as well as Maggie, and my best friend Kate. I am so proud and excited for all three of them.

With little sleep Friday night I attempted to ski Saturday morning. But my body was already giving into the pain and I was home by noon, on the couch, watching TV, sleeping and crying. I unfortunately got the part of the lyrics to a Rascal Flatts song stuck in my head, "What hurts the most, was being so close..." which really didn't help. I ended up staying home and in bed Sunday as well, but by the evening the tears were gone and I was able to right Thank you notes to my coaches and ski school director for everything they did this year in helping me to improve.

Monday morning I finally went outside and that is when I saw them. My flower were coming up. Tulips, narcissus, polemonium, violas, and of course the weeds. So I spent a few hours cleaning out the dead leaves from fall, pulling weeds, and being thankful that I finally have a reason to like the spring and summer. That may sound somewhat strange, but I am a lover of winter, cold weather, and snow. Here in Montana we do have that blessed threesome, but we also have fairly hot summers (and I don't care if you say that it is dry--if it is above 75 it is too hot for me). I also love the dark, and long summer days aren't really that exciting to me. To top it all off I have major depression, and my seasonal affect disorder is opposite of most people: I am happy in the winter and sad in the summer. But now I have something that makes me happy in the summer too: flowers.

The only real problem with this is my inexperience with gardening. I have never grown anything outdoors. I never had a garden in my childhood and I live a few states away from relatives who have amazing outdoor landscapes. But a few years ago I plunged in, and wow am I glad I have a husband who did have a garden growing up. We have a great yard and selected a nice spot for a small vegetable garden. We borrowed a tiller and tilled a nice little 10' x 10' plot, planted a few select veggies, and then began to weed. Had I only known about some of the weeds we had in our yard, maybe I wouldn't have jumped in so fast, but you live and you learn. And now I have a new nemesis: Bindweed, as well as a few other weeds.

Well now I have a few plots of flowers, a small garden, a few containers, and I am still learning about gardening. Hardiness zones, annuals, perennials, corms, bulbs, seeds, germination, and more. Earlier this week I decided to put together a Flower Manual on all the different flowers I had to actually keep track of them all (especially the names of them--scientific or common I had a hard time remembering them all) and I so far have a 37 page document with pictures, hyperlinks, and descriptions of most.

So far it has been great, with the exception that I can only get to it on my desktop computer and the document is slow to load with all the info. Then I realized that it would be a lovely thing to have online, accessible anywhere. So here it is: the adventures of Shannon and her garden...

Portulaca

Portulaca grandiflora

picture

I bought this a few years ago and had it in a container.  Last year I noticed it was growing in my vegetable garden.  So I am not sure if it just dropped seeds or if it is actually a perennial.  I will just have to wait and see.

Dave's Garden info