2012 Mail Order Catalog

Our online mail order catalog has been updated for the 2012 spring shipping season.  One of the advantages of having an online catalog, compared to a printed one, is the ability to update it throughout the season.  We add new plants as they are ready and remove plants that have grown too large to ship or to re-propagate them.

Many woodland and larger scale plants can only be shipped in early spring or late fall when they are dormant or nearly dormant. One of the challenges we face every year is getting winter dormant plants to customers before they become too large to safely ship.

For this reason, we have adjusted our spring shipping schedule to allow for earlier shipping of orders.  Upon arrival, these plants may need to be protected from severe late season weather.

Plants we ship mostly or completely dormant in spring include:

Arisaema taiwanense

Crinum ‘Ellen Bosenquet'

Canna ‘Pretoria Variegata’

Kaempferia rotunda

Lillium nepalense

Meconopsis betonicifolia

Paris polyphylla

Polianthes tuberosa

Trillium recurvatum

Zantedeschia elliottiana

And that is just the beginning.  We invite you to browse our 2012 online mail order catalog of over 350 unusual and interesting plants.

Garden Renewal

This is the time of year when we tend to take a moment to reflect on past accomplishments and plan for the future.  For avid gardeners, this can take the form of scouring plant and seed catalogs, placing orders and making plans to visit nurseries and attend plant sales when the planting season finally arrives. 

It can also be a time to step back and analyze how well your garden is fulfilling your vision of what it can be.  I use the term garden renewal for this process of analyzing what works and what doesn’t in your garden and making plans for improvement.

Garden renewal is especially important in older, established gardens, which can easily become overgrown and uninspiring over time.  The rock garden at The Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon is an excellent example of a successful garden renewal process.  In 2009, a group of Master Gardener volunteers along with City of Portland Parks Department staff undertook the project of revitalizing the rock garden.

This thoughtful and multi-year process began with a careful analysis of the site.  During the initial phase, overgrown trees, shrubs and perennials were removed, irrigation zones were analyzed, rocks were repositioned and soil was amended.  The amount of sun and shade along the wooded, sloping site was carefully noted.

Structural plants such as small-scale shrubs and miniature trees were among the first new plantings.  Plant scale is always critical in rock gardens and careful attention to eventual size and placement will ensure that the new plants do not quickly overgrow their space.   Over the course of the next two seasons, a variety of perennials were added with attention to their growth habits as well as cultural requirements for drainage, water and exposure.

The rock garden at the Pittock Mansion has been an inspiration to the volunteer workers and to visitors to the garden.  We often hear glowing comments about the garden from visitors to our nursery.  Two of my favorite comments are “it’s my favorite part of the garden” and “I didn’t even know I liked rock garden plants”.  Obviously, it is a job well done and an inspiration to us all.

Happy New Year!

A special thanks to Skip Frankwick who shared many of the above photos.

Plant Lover

One of the joys of growing plants is that I get to fall in love every year.  Usually several times. 

The object of my affection this time of year is the lovely Cyclamen.  It all starts in late summer when the summer dormant Cyclamen hederifolium tuber sends out flowers in shades of pink or white.

Just when many garden plants have finished their show, bright splashes of color appear in the dark corners of the garden as this fall flowering Cyclamen spring to life.

It can be fascinating just to compare plants of this highly variable species.  Along with or soon after it begins to flower, Cyclamen hederifolium foliage unfurls.  Leaf shape can vary from broad and heart-shaped to narrow and spear-shaped and just about anything in between.  Leaves can be glossy or dull, bright green to silver, heavily patterned or plain.

With the onset of warm weather the following spring, the foliage of Cyclamen hederifolium dies back for a summer rest.  But the fun is not over.  If you look closely, you will see that the seed capsules have ripened and spilled seeds on the ground around the tuber.  These seeds will emerge as seedlings in fall and provide new plants to enjoy in future years.

Cyclamen hederifolium is a reliably cold hardy (reported hardy to Zone 4) and adaptable species.  It can be grown in sun to shade and does particularly well when grown in dry to moderately moist, humus rich soils under deciduous trees where it will seed itself to form large drifts over time.

Cyclamen hederifolium is native to a large geographical region in the Mediterranean from SE France through Italy and eastward to Southern Turkey.  It grows in a variety of habitats from woodlands to rocky hillsides and from sea level to elevations of over 4,000 feet.

Being a Mediterranean plant, Cyclamen hederifolium is adapted to dry summer conditions and can be grown in the dry shade in Western woodland gardens.  Just another reason to fall in love all over again!

Best of 2011 - WGF on Facebook

Wild Ginger Farm is now on Facebook.  We have selected a plant photo for each month of 2011 and posted them on our new Facebook page.  Check them out and let us know your thoughts!