This little hummingbird was flitting about in the Strawberry tree Arbutus unedo, behind apt 97 when I walked past. My original intention was to take a photo of the marvelous fruit the tree is producing, which are edible by the way if a bit seedy.

 Just after I snapped this photo a second humming bird came by and they both went zooming off chattering like crazy, saying nothing repeatable I’m sure.

How many gardeners harvest the last of the fall veggies and then just turn their backs on their gardens and walk away till spring? I can’t imagine doing that to my garden, after all the good times we had together, and yes all the traumatic times as well, the good the bad and the ugly.

Like the time the slugs ate the bean starts, the dirty rat bastards. I could have understood the first time the slugs ate the beans as just another of Mother Nature’s creatures trying to survive. But the second time the slugs ate the beans I took as a personal insult and attack on my competence as a gardener. That’s when I dropped my gentle organic gardening methods of using beer traps, coffee grounds and hand picking slugs and reached for the nuclear option; Iron phosphate. It was the slugs or me and I wanted those slugs dead.

Then there were the first of the sugar snap peas. Eating them right off the vine as I harvest the first batch for the farmers market, I can still hear the crisp crack as I bite the pea pod in half and taste the flood of that wonderful fresh pea flavor. And the broccoli, the arugula, the strawberries, every Tuesday morning while harvesting produce for the farmers market I grazed my way through my garden having my morning greens.

I did have a couple WOW’s. That’s “why oh why”, did I plant a whole bed of Kale? And a whole bed of Chard? And 5 hills of pumpkins? Its fun watching pumpkins grow, but they are kinda like teenagers; what do you do with them when they are all grown up? Anybody want a pumpkin?

And then there were the “wha’ happen’?” Last year I had box after box of ripe red tomatoes, this year the blasted things didn’t start to ripen up till after I got back from vacation in September. Likewise the grapes, they just kind of sat there and looked at me. I swear I could hear them asking me to turn on the heat this spring and they never did really ripen up this fall.
But now the season is over, I forgive the slugs, can accept the fact that tomatoes will ripen in their own good time and have given away all the excess pumpkins.
All the debris from the season just ended has been cleared away and I’m just a day or two of good weather away from getting autumn leaves dug into all the beds.

Wind whipping the flag sideways
Rain slanting through the trees
The Grounds crew taking hoses
Off faucets for the winter
Time to start looking through catalogs
Time to start planning for next season
November at my desk

First some definitions of sustainability;

 Merriam Webster dictionary says; “using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.”

 Wikipedia; “In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time.”

A United Nations conference in 1987; “meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”

My own thoughts are that sustainable systems should be flexible, adaptable, and able to change to accommodate the pressures put upon them. The sustainable landscape, be it the parking lot of a supermarket, the back yard of a home containing 3 children, 2 dogs and a barbequing husband, or a retirement complex, all have different needs, resources, and expected productivity.

In regards to the landscaping here at Rose Villa; the green foliage of the various shrubs, trees and lawns creates a peaceful cooling atmosphere, the bright warm colors of seasonal flowers, blossoms and again, foliage creates interest and an atmosphere of friendliness. The resources of Rose Villa include the natural fertility of the Northwest soil, the abundant rainfall 9 months of the year, the relatively mild weather year round and the human resources of both the grounds crew and the people living here.

Is the landscape here at Rose Villa planted with native plants? Before I answer that I have to ask; “What is a native plant?” Is it a plant that grows in the wild meadows, forests and wetlands today? Or is it one that grew in the northwest 200 years ago when Lewis and Clark first traveled here from the east? Or is it a plant that was growing here 2,000 years or 2million years ago?

People are not the only way plants travel, they move around on their own as well. Ancient roses have been discovered to be in every part of the Northern Hemisphere long before people started moving roses around. Rhododendrons were here in the Northwest long before Europeans settled on the east coast. Is it just the wild Rhododendrons that are native or could the hybridized rhododendrons of the last 100 years also be called native? They fit in here and live here just as well as the wild rhododendron.

An argument can be made that some of the grasses that were here when the pioneers first came into the Willamette valley had migrated from the east coast after the pilgrims brought them over from Europe to feed their cows. So are these native grasses or are they invasive species?

And finally; the environment throughout the Northwest is not the same as it was even as short a time ago as when Lewis and Clark came over the mountains. And in and around the major urban areas the environment is even more radically different. Will plants that are labeled as ‘natives’ be as sustainable in an urban environment as they are in the wild? I think not. I think that there are many plants that are not labeled “native” that are more sustainable in the urban environment then the ‘natives’. And I think we as landscape maintenance professionals have a responsibility to acknowledge this and plant accordingly, sustainably.

But how did such an important tree get such a complicated and strange name, known to so few people? For the answer we have to go back in time 200 years to when the Pacific Northwest was first being discovered, explored and settled by people who came from east of the mountains, way east of the mountains.

 Everyone knows that Lewis and Clark made their journey of discovery in 1802 – 1803, but it was in the early 1790’s that Captain George Vancouver of the Royal Navy made his 5 year voyage around the world, bringing the naturalist Archibald Menzies along with him as his surgeon. While circumnavigating what is now called Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Menzies in 1791, discovered and described for the first time the tree that now bears his name.

There were however problems (controversy) in classifying the Doug Fir tree, due to it’s similarity to various other conifers that were better known in the early 1800’s. It wasn’t until 1867 that the French botanist “Carriere” placed the Doug Fir into a new genus Pseudotsuga or false hemlock. There are five species in the Pseudotsuga genus, two in western North America, one in Mexico and two in eastern Asia.

But how did the common name Douglas, get attached to Pseudotsuga Menziesii? It was a rival naturalist, David Douglas that in 1827 introduced the Doug Fir into cultivation at Scone Palace, near Edinburg Scotland. David Douglas was another of the many naturalists that were traveling across the wide world at this time in history discovering, describing and naming new species of plants and animals. Douglas died at the age of 35 under mysterious circumstances in Hawaii, but that is a tale for another time.

“Corn Rigs  are Bonnie”
  Robert Burns

“It was upon a Lammas night
When corn rigs are bonnie,
Beneath the moon’s unclouded light
I held awa to Annie:”

“Corn rigs an’ barley rigs
Corn rigs are bonnie,
I’ll ne’er forget that happy night
Amang the rigs wi’ Annie.”

These lines are taken from a larger poem, one of the earliest works of Robbie Burns, written around 1725 and inspired by either Annie Ronald or Annie Blair.

In olden days before the world wide, interconnectedness of the agricultural system we have today, the seasons of the year revolved around the cycles of planting, growing and harvesting food crops.

Candlemas, February 2, commonly called Groundhog Day was when seeds for the season’s crops were started indoors; and some hardy crops were started outdoors. In Christian tradition Candlemas is known as “the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.””Candlemass” is also the name of a doom metal rock band.

Spring Equinox, March 20, when days were finally longer then nights, was when spring planting began in earnest.

May Day, May 1 was the day farm and field laborers were given a day off to celebrate the end of planting with dancing around the may pole. Today it is often celebrated as an International Laborers Day although in the USA it has been designated since 1958 as Loyalty Day due to the Soviet Unions perceived appropriation of the day as a Soviet holiday.

Lammas day, or in some English speaking countries Loaf-mass day, August 2, is when the first harvests can be expected. In some English speaking countries tenants were expected to give their landlords a gift of newly harvested wheat or a loaf of bread.

All souls day, November 1, or as we call it Halloween, is when all the harvests are done for the year, the fields are empty and dead, and you knew if there was enough food to survive through the winter or would you likely starve.

Beltane, Dec 21 is the winter solstice when the days start getting longer, when the rebirth of the seasons, the return of the sun is celebrated. In many countries today it is called Christmas and celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.

In the “Corn Rigs are Bonnie” Robbie Burns is talking about taking his willing girlfriend of the moment into the privacy of the corn fields on a bright moonlit night in mid summer during the celebration of the years first harvest. Young men and women haven’t changed a lot in 275 years.

I wish I had more work for them to do, they were really eager to get down and get their hands dirty. 

In the process of all this work we uncovered a ground beetle, a centipede, a little yellow spider and a garden snake.  All of which required stopping the action and everybody getting a good look at the critter.  And the only ones really squimish about the critters were the adults. 

Which says something, I’m not

sure what, about where we get our likes and dislikes.  Even when we opened up the worm bins and fed the worms some “worm chow” there wasn’t any squimishness about touching the worms.  In fact I’m pretty sure some worms went home in some of the kids pockets.

Before I was ready for it, it was time for the kids to leave and time for me to clean up the debris.  Now I wonder where all the spinach got planted?

You can find this rose outside the west windows of the library. It is originally from France and is named after the wife of a member of a banking family during the reign of Napoleon III (1881).

 Bourbon roses are named for the ‘Ile Bourbon’, now called the island of Reunion, in the Indian Ocean, where they are supposed to have originated from a natural cross between the China rose `Parsons’ Pink’ from the far east and the red Damask Perpetual rose `Tous-les-Mois’, from Europe, two roses which were used as hedge material on the island during the Napoleonic war. (This, however, is an area of hot dispute between rose experts in almost every particular.)

The first photo, from a Wikipedia website, is of an unknown European mole I used for my photo of the week last week; a photo of an actual Townsend’s mole, taken from the “Sunrise Pest Management” of Tacoma website, is below the first photo. I can’t tell the difference, can you?

The Townsend’s Mole, Scapanus townsendii was first described and named by John Kirk Townsend, who in 1834 joined entrepreneur and explorer Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth on his 2^nd journey to Oregon from the east. Nathaniel Wyeth built a fort, Fort William, on Wappatoo Island, which is now known as Sauvie Island just outside of Portland Oregon.

 Wyeth could not compete in business with Dr. John McLoughlin of the Hudson’s Bay Co. who was already at Fort Vancouver at this time and Wyeth traveled back to the east. Soon after this Dr. John McLoughlin purchased Fort William, demolished it and set up a separate Hudson’s Bay Co. operation in what is now Oregon City.

 John Kirk Townsend and his friend, Botanist Thomas Nuttall, who had also come west with Wyeth, stayed on in Oregon to study the animals and plants of the new land. Thomas Nuttall was the first botanist to describe the Pacific Dogwood, Cornus nuttallii which was named after him.

John Townsend was the first to describe the mole in the photo above and he was honored to have it named after him as well. Along with the mole, Townsend collected a number of other animals that were new to science, such as the Douglas Squirrel and the Vaux’s Swift.

 The Douglas Squirrel is the squirrel seen most often in the Pacific Northwest. The Vaux’s Swift was named after Townsend’s friend and fellow naturalist William Sansom Vaux of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. The central chimney at Chapman School in Northwest Portland Oregon houses the largest known roost of migrating Vaux’s swifts in the world! There are several other chimneys in the Portland area the Swifts use, one being in downtown Oregon City.

 While at Wyeth’s Fort William, Townsend served as the magistrate for the first public trial by Europeans in Oregon.  The fort’s gunsmith, Thomas J. Hubbard attacked and killed the fort’s tailor in an argument about a Native girl, Mary Sommata, who he later married. The crime was ruled to be justifiable homicide due to the tailor’s alcoholism.

 170 some odd years later, while dragon boating on the Willamette River, I spotted some of Vaux’s Swifts hunting for flying insects by the Ross Island Bridge. And today I found first hand evidence of one of Townsend’s moles living under my vegetable garden. While walking back to my office I went past two of  Nuttall’s Pacific Dogwoods and that’s what got me thinking about how much we owe to all those naturalists who spread out all over the world in the 1700’s and  1800’s discovering, describing, and categorizing, the natural world.

               English Lavender, Lavandula angustifolias (or)

                   Spike Lavender, Lavandula latifoli;

          I can never tell which is which. There is also a Spanish Lavender Lavandula dentata in this clump of 3 lavenders just outside of apt 38.

                   Josephine Bonaparte’s Lavender Mocha:  

          -Prepare in a drip-coffee maker one part fresh ground coffee to three parts crunched up fresh (or dried) lavender flowers.

           -Calculate the amount by assuming approximately one tablespoon coffee & three tablespoons lavender for each cup of coffee made.

          -Prepare an equal amount bittersweet hot cocoa separately.

          – Mix together.

          – Optionally, add a thimble or so of cocoa liquor.