Issue 15              Seasonal tips and featured varieties coming to a retailer near you              June 27, 2008

MORE TROPICALS

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: take advantage of the brilliant color, exotic forms, and enticing fragrance tropical plants can bring to the summer garden. 
 
Brugmansias - Previously in Garden News, we talked up brugmansias (Angel Trumpets), but the fast-growing plants are so impressive, and the spectacular blooms so grand and fragrant, we think they need another mention.  Right now we have ten or fifteen varieties that would love to be taken home and settled into a sunny garden so they can grow and bloom all summer. 
 
‘Valley Misty Pink’ is a medium-sized cultivar that works well in a large container.  Its pendant trumpet blooms start pure white, then flush with the palest of pinks after several days.
 
Huge, very fragrant 12 inch blooms in lemon-yellow are held slightly outward on ‘Sunray,’ which will reach 4-6 feet in a container.
 
The sweet-smelling peachy-golden trumpets of ‘Sunset Variegated’ stand out against large, lush green leaves edged thickly with creamy white.  Plants grow up to 5 feet tall in containers.
 
Our other varieties bloom in satiny white, deep orange, bright gold, or warm pink.  All will release a mild scent during the day, but the sweet tropical fragrance grows stronger by early evening, perfuming the garden well into night.
 
See our Garden News Issue 11 for our planting tips.
 
Tagetes nelsarii - Another plant we recommend for its striking scent is Tagetes nelsarii, or variegated marigold, whose finely textured aromatic foliage has a delightful habit of weaving through other plants as it grows.  Let it grow throughout mixed beds or containers, and watch the variegation become more prominent as plants mature.
 
Passion Flower Vines – With their showy, intricate, exotic flowers it’s hard to believe they bloom way up here, but passion flowers actually grow quite well if planted in a protected location and heavily mulched in cold weather.  They’ll die back to the ground in winter, but reemerge in spring, growing up to 10 feet in a season and producing fantastic 3 inch blooms from July to frost. 
 
‘Inspiration Purple’ blooms in an intense deep violet-blue; ‘Lavender Lady’ in bright amethyst; and ‘Lady Margaret’ in rich ruby-red.  All have a delightful spicy fragrance and the intricately structured petals, rays, and sepals that give passion flowers their outlandish appeal.
 
         
 

FALL & WINTER VEGETABLES

Vegetable gardeners: remember to save a little space for the greens, brassicas, and root crops that will provide you with fresh homegrown produce all winter!  Yes, it’s hard to look ahead to the cold rainy winter months just as you’re blissfully enjoying the first sweet June strawberries, baby squash, and crisp greens of early summer, but most fall and winter vegetable transplants should be set out between mid-July and mid-September, so we’re sowing them now to have them ready for you.
 
Those of us in the milder valleys of the Pacific Northwest are fortunately able to eat from the garden year-round.  Veggies like salad and cooking greens, broccoli and cabbages, and root crops are particularly suited to winter gardening in the Northwest, as they prefer to grow and mature in cool wet weather.  A few favorites that we have ready:
 
‘Premium Crop’ Broccoli can be planted throughout the season, but is best as a fall crop, when it will produce big compact heads up to 9 inches across, with additional side shoots.  Set out transplants mid-July until the end of August for a September through December harvest.
 
‘Jade Cross’ Brussels Sprouts can be transplanted July first through mid-August and harvested late September through early December.  The firm deep green sprouts hold well on the plants even in harsh weather, and they taste even sweeter after a frost.
 
‘Snow Crown’ Cauliflower is one of the easiest cauliflowers to grow. Transplanting out mid-July through late August will result in large sweet white heads mid-September to January.
 
To find more detailed planting and harvesting schedules for these crops as well as cabbages, lettuces, celery, kohlrabi, kales, collards, visit our Continuous Harvest chart.  Planting dates for other veggies and tips for extending your winter harvest are collected in OSU’s Fall and Winter Vegetable Gardening in the Pacific Northwest and in a vintage Sunset Magazine article on year-round vegetable harvesting.
 
Also, don’t forget that parsley can be planted out July through October to harvest all winter into spring; many perennial herbs also provide fresh year-round seasoning.
 

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