Summertime Availability
Scorcher, that’s probably the best way to describe this past weekend. Records for high temperatures were broken all over the state. This seems to be more the norm rather than the occasional event these days. When I was a kid, sure you would get an early heat wave now and then, but Junes were almost always rainy and grey and not something you would consider summer. I used to drive hay bailer in the grass seed fields and it was always rainy up until the 4th of July when there would finally be enough drying to get the grass seed dried out for combining. To that end, the Spring alpine and rock garden plant availability is coming down in favor of our collection boxes. You can think of these as a Chef’s surprise or an Omakase alpine experience. Letting us pick the plants insures that you are getting the highest quality plants, that can survive the stress of summer shipping. Click here to order a box of illahe goodies for your garden.
A few of the benefits of ordering a collection box;
Average price of the plant is cheaper, so think of it as a sale box!
Free shipping!
Since we can offer one offs in the collection boxes, you may get some choice plants that were not offered during our regular spring availability.
The plants we select are the best we have and we can curate them for your taste, just use the notes box at checkout to tell us your interests? crevice garden? cushion plants, trough to plant, dryland garden, tough spot to grow perennials, moon garden, summer bloom, fall bloom etc.
If you have a trough to plant, consider one of our boxes, it’s sure to come with a blend of plants that will make a stunning arrangement however you choose to plant it!
Upcoming events:
Saturday July 11th, The Third Annual Rancho Cistus Summer Extravaganza. Click here for details
We had such a fantastic time at this event last year, we will be back at the world famous, Cistus Design Nursery for a midsummer sale! Illahe Rare plants will have a fantastic selection of alpine, rock garden, cushion plants, bulbs and rarely seen perennials, maybe even a few rare trees or two as well. We will have lots of stuff that wasn’t in the spring catalog at this sale so make sure you stop by!
In addition there are a host of awesome nurseries, like:
Van Hevelingen Nursery - premium herbs, shrubs, and perennials
The Other Side Nursery - tropical plants, succulents, and Tillandsias (Air Plants)
Dancing Oaks - unusual trees, shrubs, and perennials from all corners of the world
Sauvie Island Natives - a wide selection of Northwest natives
One Green World - unique plants, shrubs and trees
Plus, some great talks by speakers:
11:00am - Mark Weathington, JC Raulston Arboretum
12:30pm - Brett Hall, UC Santa Cruz Arboretum
2:00pm - Thomas Van Hevelingen, Van Hevelingen Herb Nursery
3:30pm - TBA
Garden tours by Sean Hogan, and great food and drinks!
You better put this one on your calendar of events for the summer!
While you are waiting for the Cistus Summer Extravaganza go ahead and order a collection box for your garden, we will make sure its full of choice things.
In other news, we are working on a new shade structure so our attention is turning to some construction projects. Summer propagation is always a busy chore as now is a great time to start sticking cuttings of treasures for next years catalog. Potting up seedlings and the general business of the post spring in an alpine nursery. Oh, don’t forget the bulbs! The bulb catalog will be along shortly as well, I will post updates as we get closer, probably towards the end of July. It will likely be a smaller than normal offering this year as we transition some things to some newly planned raised beds, but still jam packed with some excellent and rarely offered bulbs. It’s just gotten so hot in the summers now days as climate change takes hold that my preferred method of oversummering the dormant bulbs in a shaded greenhouse is needing some modifications and the new raised beds under a summer shade will definitely help. 10 years ago was probably the the time to start planning for climate change, but now is also ok as long as you are doing something. Speaking of bulbs, I recently had an article on potting soils that was published in the Pacific Bulb Society’s newsletter, if you need some additional reading today please check it out: The Bulb Garden and consider joining the Pacific Bulb Society for some excellent information and Bulb exchanges.
I have a backlog of stuff to write about on the blog, our trip to Japan to see some amazing Fritillaria, a recent trip down to the Bay area and some more amazing gardens, a few science experiments I ran over the spring that I’m just gathering the data for now. Stay Tuned!
Cheers to some cooler weather coming in the next few days,
Mark