It’s almost May and I’m planting, planning, raking, and there’s just soooo much to do! No more snow, please. Or hail. A bit more sunshine would be nice. Weather permitting I hope to be open by May 11th. My open days at the nursery will revolve around my market days again. There’s only me, so, I can’t be in two places at once. Nursery hours are T-W-Th-Sat 11:00 to 5:00 or by appointment if you call ahead 24 hrs. in advance 746-3606 or email me at woolwood@mtaonline.net.

I’ll be at Palmer’s Friday Fling market, under the big green umbrella, across from the visitor’s center from May 14 – Aug. 20, 10 – 6.

There will be a new farmer’s market in Anchorage this year! The SpenardMarket will be on Spenard Rd. under the windmill next to Chilkoot’s onSaturdays. It starts May 22nd on Joe Spenard’s birthday! I hope to be there for at least some of the summer, so, you might want to call to see where the heck we are on Saturday if you want to stop by the nursery.

We’ll be closed June 25-27 for the Alaska Botanical Gardens Fair, so, come by the booth for a visit - June 26-27, Anchorage.

Unfortunately, the State Fair has canceled the Art & Garden Festival this year. They had a lower turnout last year, as did other events. For some reason they think gardeners are done gardening in July and not interested in buying plants! Really!! This was one of their rationalizations for canceling. What can you do about this? Let them know how you feel and call or email them at (907) 745-4827 info@alaskastatefair.org . Gardeners need to be able to enjoy the State Fair gardens for more than just the two weeks of the fair!

New Plants for 2010

Lily overload!

The bulb farms took a real beating this year and there were crop failures galore. I had to pull out all the stops to find spectacular lilies and they came from all over the map! This year there are two special exhibition sized Asiatics available – Pink Giant and Netty’s Pride. They are single bulbs to a pot and going like gangbusters. All our lilies are hardy to zone 3 and potted with slow-release organic plant foo d. Our other varieties are planted 3 to a pot- all one variety -so, you can be the designer!

Aye Caramba Shirley

Pink Latvia

Elodie

Tiffany

El Grado

Red Alert LA hybrid

Conception

Grafitti – Eclipse – Orange Art

Tiny Padhye – Netty’s Pride (exhibition sized) – Pink Giant (exhibition sized)

Spectacular new perennials!

Delphiniums ‘Black Knight’ & ‘Morning Lights’ – New Zealand hyb.

Achillea ‘Heidi’ & ‘Summerwine‘

Primula x juliae ‘Wanda’ Veronica rupestris ‘Heavenly Blue’

Dicentra spectabilis – Old Fashioned Bleeding Hearts in Pink and White!

Gad, Blogger is just not cooperating and this is extremely tedious. I have a ‘catalog’ of color photos available in Publisher that I can send as an attachment if you need more eye candy. In the meantime, this will have to suffice until I can get a proper website put up.

Enjoy whatever sunshine comes your way and get yourself out into the garden. Hope to see you all soon.

Brooke

It’s May and we’re really cooking here at the nursery. I’m already out of room in the greenhouse and I’m hardening off these zone 3 hardy perennials outside. Let’s hope the weather stays on our side and we have a nice long growing season with warm weather and just enough rain to keep our gardens lush and vigorous.

The nursery will be open by May 16th this year. We’ll be taking our plants to downtown Palmer’s Friday Fling open air market starting May 15th - August 14th.
I can’t be in two places at once, so, the nursery will be open tues-wed-thurs-saturday from 11 to 5 or by appt. if you call ahead 24 hrs. in advance (746-3606 or woolwood@mtaonline.net).

We’ll see you at the Botanical Garden’s Fair June 20-21 and the Garden and Art Festival, at the state fairgrounds, July11th.

This year we have plenty of new perennials for you and we’ve added herbs to our repertoire. Watch for our herbs in pots or as fresh cut greens at the Friday Fling this year. We’ll have recipes on hand as well. Remember, your vegetables are ornamentals as well, so, plant some flowering kales in among those trolliusand lilies!

New Plants for 2009

Lilies Galore!

All our lilies are hardy to zone 3 and potted with slow-release organic plant food. Planted 3 to a pot all one variety. So, you can be the designer!

America – Elodie (double) – Lollypop – El Grado

Fata Morgana (double) – Jive – Brasil

Black Out – Cocktail Twins (double) – Loreto

Cecil (LA Hybrid)

Get blooming early with trollius!

Cut these beauties back after blooming and you’ll have another fabulous show by fair time!

Alabaster – Lemon Queen – Cheddar

Pair this lovely Astrantia ‘Ruby Wedding’ with trollius for a shadier garden area. They’ll take the sun, but, trollius and astrantias like more water and a bit of shade.

Got the sunshine blues?

Veronica ‘Royal Candles’ – Veronica ‘Eveline’ – Anchusa azurea (Italian Bugloss)

The Delphiniums win again!

Last year Palmer’s own Pat Tremaine took Grand Champion Delphiniumwith her New Zealand hybrid. Give her a run for her money this year with one of these beauties.

Blushing Brides – Black-Eyed Angels

If we get lucky we may have Pink Punch as well!

New Penstemon ‘Prairie Dusk’ Gardeners have been growing Penstemon ‘Husker’s Red’ in our zone and now they’ve finally bred a Penstemon with the colors we’ve all been waiting for in zone 3. Another full sun, long-stemmed perennial for the floral arranger. 24 to 30 inches tall, June/July.

Eat Beautiful Food!

Don’t forget that herbs are beautiful as well as edible. One of the easiest flowering annual herbs to grow is the Nasturtium. As a substitute for watercress, you can’t beat the hot, peppery tang of Nasturtium leaves. Put some colorful punch into those summer salads with Nasturtium flowers, leaves, and pickled flower buds. Stay tuned for plenty of recipes using our herbs and flowers!

Spring is finally here ! Can you dig it? !

I’m potting up plants and bulbs as fast as I can. Barring any of those last minute snow storms I hope to have the nursery open by May 3rd. Due to roadmaintenance we’ll be open Thursday through Friday 12 to 6pm until June 9th. After that look for me at the Palmer Friday Flings in June and July, or by appointment if the road’s passable!

Don’t forget to stop by our booth at the Alaska Botanical Gardens Fair June 23-24 and the Garden and Art Festival at the State Fair grounds July 21.

While we do have some new introductions this year, we are part of the state’sAlaska Grown program that promotes hardy perennials that are winteredover to enhance your perennial’s ability to survive our extreme growing conditions. Most of our stock will barely be up and at ‘em in May unlike the shipped in plants you’ll find in most greenhouses. So, remember, AlaskaGrown Perennials are worth waiting for and will be available in late May through July.

New Plants for 2007

Red Hot Chili Mix Asiatic Lilies – Whew! A mix of hot deep wine reds
and almost black lilies ranging in height from 28 to 50 inches.

‘Blackout’ ‘Lanzarote’ ‘ Marrakech’ ‘Landini’

New Zealand Hybrid Delphiniums -
Shorter English types with three to four foot stout stems!

‘Misty Mauves’ ‘Blushing Brides’

Veronica ‘Sonja’ –
Archie would’ve loved
this tall willowy number!

Viola ‘Painted Porcelain’ -
Pretty fragrant little viola that will go to seed

Lamium ‘Anne Greenaway’ – She’s back by popular demand, our bright yellow and green creeper from the English countryside.

Annuals – I will have a limited amount of tall cut-flower varieties this year and I’ll try to hunt down some photos on my next post for you. I have several types of Cosmos in white, pink, and crimson with bi-colors as well, including ‘Double Click Mixed’ which look like Zinnias! Black Ball batchelor’s button, Striped Marvel marigold with maroon and gold stripes in a 30 inch tall French style, and several Sunflowers in gold, deep merlot red, bi-colored, and lemon. I might even have a few Nasturtiums left over! And, if they will hurry up . . . Shoe-Fly plants with some variegated ones. These turn into great bushy plants with periwinkle blue and white flowers followed by seed pods that resemble paper lanterns!

Okay . . . back to the greenhouse! Work, work, work. . .Brooke

It’s 2 pm. . .
Do you know
where the sun is?

Ohmigosh ! Has it really been that long since I’ve been gone? Call it blogburnoutitis or something.
I’ve been up to my nose in sawdust
building birdhouses for last winter’s shows, makingjewelry . . .

and adjusting the thermostat in the greenhouse until I’m blue in the face, and . . . feeding the local magpies - Pica pica- and raven - Corvus corax . Just one raven, for now, at least.

Pica pancakes with sunflower hearts and bacon fat!

Wow. What a bizarre winter we’ve had. No snow in October and November, but, lots of sub-zero weather and wind! There’s nothing like a little wind and -40fchill factors to say ‘Goodbye’ to what was left of last year’s sempervivums and sedums. Of course, along came December and the snow load like we haven’t seen in 15 years or more!

My fellow anthropologists would refer to this as a form of sympathetic magic. See, we have this D6-sized 1954 Allis Chalmers Crawler Dozer. I know. It’s a mouthful. We just call her Alice around here. She’s our snowplow and our lifeline if we’re stuck, need to haul logs, or push gravel. Unfortunately, she tends to not like getting stuck up to her navel. . .levers. . .in freezing muck. It just pisses her off something fierce and she throws a fit. I mean. . .a track.

You do not want to know what a pain it is to clean her up and get that track back on when it’s about 10f and the wind’s blowing and you’re writing a check for #$#$#$!!%&*$$$ to the guy you had to call to pull her out of the muck!

So, she’s parked for the winter. Her batteries are in the shop. And, here’s the magic part, we’re at the mercy of the snow and the guy we hired to plow us out for the winter. The drive’s 1/10 of a mile long, so, a lot of snow makes it pretty tight. When Alice is happy and running we just get enough snow to keep her occupied. If she’s in a pinchy mood and on strike we get inundated with heavy snow! I’m now the proud owner of a 30″ Poulan 11hsp. snow thrower. Oh, well. I just think of it as a bigger rototiller. Beats doing 30 minutes on the treadmill at the gym. Rationalize, rationalize. Somebody please donate some tickets to Hawaii or Bermuda will ya!?

Later. . .I’ve got to gas up and throw more snow. And I was just kidding about the wild sex part. Actually, we were just standing around in our skivvies after a sauna. But, that’s another blog, eh? Brooke

Ours came with an orange safety cat that keeps the Bubba from running amok in the prized weed bed. The control tower was a rather exotic extra that we just couldn’t live without. TheSmoochinator loves it though!
We’re officially closed for the season, but, still home. I still have leftover sale stuff, so, if you’re out our way give us a call to see if I’m here. I’ll probably been in the workshop with my head stuck in Audrey 2, the man-eating plant! If you’re interested in seeing my other theater creations click on the link to ChristianHeppinstall’s website. If you look in the Gallery of Productions and click onAndrocles and the Lion you’ll see my costumes and set designs.

Don’t forget to cruise the new garden blogs I’ve added to the links page!

Perennials are 50 % off, we have a few shrubs left at 30% off, and the last of the colorful house plants at 20% off. We have a couple of birch twig benches with cedar seats left as well. We’re open August Friday 11 – Sunday 13th from 10 to 5. If you can’t make it just call and see if I’m here …746-3606.

Remember, you can still plant perennials and
shrubs right up to frost. I’m just now getting around to planting in my own garden!

Of course, I’m also building an exotic plant in my workshop! Yes, I’m building a man-eating space alien plant called Audrey 2 for the upcoming production of Little Shop of Horrors at Mad Myrna’s in Anchorage, Alaska. I’ll keep you posted on the process. The last theater production I worked on I had to build a 25 ft. tree with a 12 ft. root base for the Legend of Sleepy Hollow at the Performing Arts Center. Hmm. I smell a trend here. Maybe I need to branch out and do more costume design!

I promised our dear readers of the Dirt Divas garden column,www.dirtdivasgardening.blogspot.com, a photo of Inula Magnifica. Well, here she is in perfect about- to- bloom stage in earlyJuly. Of course, you could plant some Veronica spicata ‘Pink Damask’ next to her for a spiky contrast in textures. Something blue would be nice as well like a delphinium or some nepeta transcaucasica, campanula latifolia or persicifolia. And you can’t go wrong with some of those giant sturdy monk’shoods. I’ll have to get my camera ready when they bloom this year! Unless you’re the Great Martha herself, you can never keep on top of this stuff with a 120 day growing season!! In Alaska, there’s always some nut job who likes to remind their neighbors, come the first week of June, that there’s only 4 weeks until the days start getting shorter! Eeeeeeeeeeee! Put a sock in it!!

Start your trip with a traditional comfort food breakfast at the newly remodeled Valley Hotel’s Round House Café. Or have a great Latte and pastry next door at Vagabond Blues coffee house. If you’re out on a Sunday, stop in at the Church of a Thousand Trees. Built in 1936, this small town church in the center of Palmer just glows with a golden log warmth. Then have brunch at the Inn Café, an intimate little restaurant housed in the restored dormitory from the early Palmer Colony project. You’ll need to work off those calories with a stroll around the Mat Valley Agricultural Showcase Garden at the Visitor’s Information Center where you might get some ideas about what plants you want to add to your subarctic garden. These plants have to be really tough to survive in wind, sun, wind, no snow, wind….If it grows well here it’ll grow anywhere! So, take lots of notes.

Next, head out of town on the Old Glenn Highway and visit our nursery and art studio. Turn onto Clark-Wolverine Road on Lazy Mountain and follow those signs up the hill to WoolWood Studio & Gardens. Our Alaska Grown perennials are just starting to green up in the propagation beds and we’re digging and dividing as fast as we can! Come see my trellises, garden art, and birdhouses. Check out the frog choir in the pond. Visitors are amazed that they sound just like ducks! Bring a container later this summer and you can catch a pollywog for your wetland or pond at home.

On the way home, stop for a photo op on the old Matanuska River Bridge. With pullouts on both sides, there’s plenty of parking and picnic tables on the bridge. Take a walk along the river banks and look for great drift wood pieces or neat red, black, or speckled rocks for your garden. Or head back into town and get a real soda fountain style shake in a glass with whipped cream and a cherry, and a great burger at the Country Kitchen. Husbands will love the local fishing information on file there!

Call ahead for a tour of the display beds of wetland and upland species at the
state’s Native Plant Nursery on Trunk Road ( 746-7290). Located just down the hill from the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) Agricultural Experiment Station, this research nursery specializes in producing plants for commercial growers that are native to Alaska. Primarily used for remediation of wetlands these native specimens can be quite beautiful in a garden and can often be a hardy look-a-like substitute for less hardy favorites. Our graceful native Pacific Willow has very bamboo-like leaves and could be trained over that pond you’re hankering for!

We hope you enjoy your visit.

Mark your calendar!

June 24 – 25th - The 9th Annual Alaska Botanical Garden Fair at the botanical gardens. Music, art, great food, demonstrations, plant affianados everywhere and fun for all! Be there! We will!

July 8th - The Blue Poppy Garden Walk is a fund raising event for the Valley Garden Club.10:00 to 4:00 with admission of $5.00 for advance purchase or $8.00 at the gate per person. They will be providing Coffee, Lemonaid, and snacks. The club members will also be stationed at each terrace garden to explain what the guests are seeing or answering questions if they can.

July 22nd – The second annual Alaska Garden and Art Festival at the state fair grounds. Enjoy the beautiful garden displays put on by the fair’s garden crew without the crush of the crowds later in August! Lots of local nurseries, artists, speakers, hands on activities and food for the famished will be on display. Bring your sun block and plan to party!!

I’ll keep you posted as more events turn up, so stay tuned.

Our nursery plants are Alaska Grown and wintered over in the propagation beds and in pots. Some of our pots are actually frozen in place due to last winter’s rains and a cool start to spring. We’re busy dividing up plants from the beds, getting ready to pot up last year’s seedlings, and trying to put a lid on the general chaos of spring gardening chores. Our wintered over potted perennials have yet to show some green and need some more time to get dressed for company. So, we’re going to wait until May 19th to open for the season.

Our hours for 2006 are Friday – Sunday 10 – 5. We will make special appointments for folks who absolutley cannot come on our open days. Please call us at least 24 hours in advance to arrange a time. 907-746-3606.

Frog Alert!

I nearly stepping on this gorgeous gal coming out of the wood shop the other day! She just woke up and was still groggy after her winter’s nap under a the big boulder in the gravel garden near the shop door. It’s tough to wake up after freezing solid for the winter! She perked right up after I gave her a lift over to the pond and sat for a few celebrity photos. The boys in the other frog pond are working on their choruses in happy anticipation!