Mukilteo Musings

Seattle and Gardening

I do realize people garden in other parts of the country but people in Seattle are fanatics. In Montana, my mother does remarkably well despite the short growing season and desert like dryness. My Dad had a forestry degree before his Master's in Education so he was always planting things. I remember him out in the yard trying to plant little doug firs and half of them would die. If they survived, they would be little teeny trees for years. My brother and his wife in Sheridan Sage Brush, Montana have a little teeny lilac bush that she struggles with year after year with complete pride.

Hopscotch over to Seattle: At our old house six blocks away, we had little doug firs popping up all on their own. Ten years ago, my husband moved one to the corner of the yard to see what would happen and it is a gigantic 50 foot tree now and too big for the Christmas lights we'd always put on it. Huge trees grow around here like weeds. Blackberry bushes take over everything. I always wondered why there were no old abandoned cabins in the woods like in Montana. Blackberry bushes grow in the windows and over the roof and they eat the old cabins till nothing is left. Three factors allow flora to explode in the Puget Sound area: 1. Rain 2. Mild winters and rain 3. Long long light in summer months because of our northern location and rain.

When you visit the nursery to buy bushes for your yard, they recommend dwarf varieties of everything. At first, I was worried about planting dwarfs. In Montana, dwarf bushes would be microscopic but "Oh my God!!"---dwarf in Seattle means it will not grow taller than or take over your house. Dwarf varieties still must be pruned...and pruned. At a party next to our old house last week, we peered over our old 5 ft. fence and the dwarf escalonia and bhuddlia were 15 feet tall! The people that bought our house don't own pruners, I guess.

At a party on Friday night, we were admiring our friend's enormous back yard. Raspberry bushes were taking over one whole corner and we spent a good share of time out there with our glasses of wine, picking berries, eating berries and putting them in our wine. She also had 10 foot blueberry bushes like I'd never seen. And then I spotted this gorgeous bush with beautiful fragrant white blossoms; it was a mock orange like my mother had when I was a child.

But this shrub was 6 feet tall--not like my Mom's little three footer. I asked my friend about it saying I wanted one. She responded, "Make sure you get....what is it?.....ah...the midget kind because they get too big!"

"You mean, the 'dwarf variety'?", I giggled.

"YES, that's it--DWARF! But look, my bush is a little leggy--I need to get the pruners to it tomorrow!"