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Another introduction

Howdy, I think I must have written some sort of introduction back when the
list started but so many new people have come on since then that I'll do
it again. It won't be the same one; it's not really the same garden. :)

Well, my name's up above, so I won't repeat it.  That's me, just believe
it. :)  I live in Seattle, Washington -- USDA zone 8, Sunset Zone - I
don't know, but you can look it up.  It's not a climate that would prompt
most people to say 'ah, mediterranean!' but neither is it really that much
closer to the English "maritime" climate it's always being compared to. 
The temperatues may be comparable - our summers average around 70 degrees,
though we can have days up into the 90s on occasion.  It almost always
cools down into the 60s at night.  Temperatures in June can persist 
in the low 50s, "summer" as most people think of it doesn't usually 
happen until July.  Rain becomes scarce until October, which
surprises those who think of Seattle as some sort of "moisturizing
pad disguised as a city."  Winters average around 40 and are wet and gray;
we usually get a few freezes down to 15 or so.  About every 6 years we'll
get a truly nasty freeze down below 10, and the drying that accompanies
such freezes makes them pretty disastrous.

I grew up in Iowa, where my mother was an avid gardener.  Of course the
plants available were very different, notably the lack of broadleaf
evergreens.  This was what I noticed when I moved her in 1987, everything
seemed plastic-coated.  We have several native broadleaf evergreens such
as Mahonia, Arctostaphylos, Arbutus, the list goes on - and most of
our natives are very drought tolerant.

A lot of mediterranean plants show up in our gardens here (not always
planted intentionally), Cistus, Verbascums, Vitex, Cerinthe,
Ferula, Foeniculum, Figs, Hermodactylus, Iris (just a few that come
immediately to mind).  Along with these are many more cold-tolerant plants
that occur into the Balkans and Turkey, such as the hellebores and
fritillaries; many do well here as long as they can take the wet soil in
the winter.  Lots of the hardier South African bulbs do well here such as
the hardy gladioli, and Dierama.

Last winter was fairly mild; though we got a terrible dumping of snow in
December, many things survived that normally do not - Salvia patens,
tenderer Salvias.  As this winter is supposed to be especially mild, I'm
taking the gamble again with Geranium maderense.  Seattle is also a city
of microclimates; I live up on the top of a hill and my garden is rather
exposed.  Things will sometimes die off in my garden that will survive
down near the water in say, "Balmy Ballard."

The chief difficulty we face here with mediterraneans and plants with
similar requirements is often not so much the coldness of our wintrs but
the lack of heat in the summer.  (This does allow us to grow Meconopsis -
blue poppies - eat your collective hearts out.)  Many plants I see when I
visit the S.F.  Bay area also grow here but just do not perform. 
Sometimes this is not a bad thing...Albizzia never ripens seed so it
doesn't become weedy.  :)  (Laburnum and Buddleia, on the other hand....)
People grow figs all over the town, but placement and selection of variety
is very important.  "Desert King" is the best one it seems.  Others are
iffy and often the weather starts turning cold just as the first ones
start ripening (and the starlings usually get those but that's a separate
issue...)  I've sat through endless discussions on the frustrations of
trying to get Watsonias to bloom.  Everyone will argue, decide it's just
impossible, and then someone will say "well, I have Watsonia such and such
and it blooms for me every year, and it's not sheltered at all."  We all
cast a dirty look in that person's direction and blame microclimates. :)

Well, you can take a look at my rather un-mediterranean looking garden on
my web site (actually it's changed a lot since that photo and there are a
lot more mediterraneans now).  Crazy busy-ness lately has reduced me to
mostly a lurker on this list but I still enjoy it.

Bob

=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=
Robert C. Beer		  	      ...she stood on the balcony,
bbeer@u.washington.edu       	      inexplicably mimicking his hiccuping
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~bbeer  and amicably welcoming him in...
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