Saturday is Philanthropy Day at Urbanweeds

Come help us support four great local charities. On Saturday Sept. 19, 2009 we’ll be offering you the chance to donate 20% of your purchase to one of four charities. This month we are featuring:

• BF Day Elementary School   In addition to being a great neighbor BF Day recently built and showcases a really cool rain garden. If you’re here on Saturday you might want to take a quick stroll down the street and check it out.
• Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest One of our favorite northwestern organizations the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest (CSNW) is currently home to seven chimpanzees released from biomedical research. Check out their website to see some great video of the chimps.
• Equal Rights Washington Education Fund Normally we’re not very political (and we apologize in advance) but at Urbanweeds we’re big supporters of keeping the Washington State Domestic Partnership Law. We are asking our customers to APPROVE Initiative 71 in November. While not directly related to the Approve initiative 71 campaign, the Equal Rights Washington Education Fund is a 501 c3 organization, and is the public education arm of the ERW family of organizations. Through the Education Fund, ERW can organize, educate, communicate, and recruit supporters through broad-based issue education unrelated to current legislation.
• Fremont Abbey Arts Center We are so lucky to have such a rich cultural center located literally across the street. We are pleased to be able to offer the opportunity to support our friends.

In addition to giving these great organizations a portion of sales we’ll also be offering you some great savings on selected items throughout the day so pop by and help us help make our community a better place to be.

Sun, Heat and Container Gardens

It’s that time of year again when we (finally) get to see the sun and enjoy the long hours of daylight.  While the sun is GREAT for most plants it can also create some minor problems for some plants planted in container gardens.  It is always important at this time of year to provide a little extra water to your container gardens.  Additions of products like Terra-Sorb or water absorbent diatomite rock can help provide a bit of extra liquid cushioning to help your plants thrive in warmer weather as well as mitigate the effects of a failure to water while taking a long overdue holiday.  Most plants that enjoy full sun will thrive in containers that are large enough for them.  However there are a couple of notable exceptions.  Most clematis and several other vine varietals (e.g. kiwi, campsis radicans) like to have slightly cooler root systems.  It is best to plant these climbing beauties in containers that will allow the roots to be slightly cooler.  It is a good idea to arrange other containers around your pots containing vines.  This helps shade them from direct sunlight and provides a slightly cooler environment.  Enjoy the warm weather and please remember to provide a little extra water to your container plants!

Open July 4th

Urbanweeds will be open on Saturday July 4 from 10:00am until 4:00pm.

One man’s weed …

In February, I took a trip to New Orleans. Two of my happiest hours there – even better than the ones spent eating broiled oysters at the Acme, and I spent a lot of time at that – were in the city’s botanical gardens, where I buddied up with the volunteers inside five minutes. Garden geeks know their own kind. They let me eat kumquats straight off the tree, and showed off the huge tropicals which don’t grow where I live, but I took them aback when I admired the oxalis. “That? That’s nothing but a weed,” they said.

Not where I come from. Excepting non-native invasives, which are bad no matter how pretty, what counts as a weed is a pretty malleable thing: I think it’s anything you don’t want where you don’t want it. If you love a plant, no matter who says what about it, it’s a desirable. I hate the stubborn, spreading spiderwort, but I see it sold as an ornamental; my mother thinks the violets which crowd out everything are beautiful and should be encouraged. Weed or not, I loved the oxalis enough that there’s a pot of it in my kitchen now, and I paid cash money for it, too. It’s right next to some morning glories I pulled out of the sidewalk and I’m training up a window.

Water garden paradise in a day

How big is a pond? The answer is, there is no answer. Nature creates ponds out of low-lying land that captures the run-off from higher ground or natural springs. Ponds teem with life from fish to amphibians and ferns to fungus. But a pond can also be as small as a water bowl on a balcony or deck.

Ponds are beautiful, tranquil, restful places and the wonderful thing about them is you can create them easily in your own personal sanctuary.

A water garden needs three basic things, a watertight container, a pump, and plants. Beyond that you can be as creative or minimalist as you please. Spitting fish, spouting frogs or gurgling fountains can all be hooked up to the pump to create unique, quirky looks for the mini-pond.*

When purchasing a pump you need to consider how high the water needs to travel and how fast you want the water to flow. These two things will be clearly indicated on each pump in “gallons per minute” and “height in inches”

For a simple water bowl, 18 to 24 inches across with a small water statue spouting from the side, the smallest pump will do just fine. You will need a connector hose to attach the pump to the fountain or statue. Make sure it is the correct diameter to connect snugly.

One or two floating water hyacinths might be all the plants you need for a small container. If your container is at least 10 inches deep consider marginal water plants. They are placed directly in the pond. The rim of their plastic pots should sit just below the surface of the water. Mini bull-rushes, marsh marigold, and pickerel reed are some of the plants that would do well in a container water garden.

Goldfish can add a flash of color and keep insect larva in check. There is no need to get large fancy fish as small regular goldfish thrive in outdoor ponds. If they don’t get devoured by neighborhood racoons they will grow to an appropriate size for the environment. I have successfully over wintered goldfish in outdoor containers for several years. They should not be fed once temperatures start dropping below 55 F.

It might take Mother Nature hundreds of years to create a pond but you can do it in a day. Then sit back, listen to the soothing trickle of the water and sip your organic herbal tea. Bliss.

*Urbanweeds currently carries waterbowls, pumps, water hyacinth and other aquatic accessories.

Indoor herbs

There’s just no reason for dried dill.  The stuff that’s sold (pretty dearly, given the tiny jar you get) at groceries is too strong, fit only for potato salad or something else involving heavy mayonnaise to mask the taste of the herb.  Dill is a whole other thing entirely when you’ve grown it yourself and scissored it up to add to fresh salad or boiled new potatoes.  Ditto rosemary.  And unless you actually live in a basement there’s no reason at all not to have it fresh and on-hand.

Given terra-cotta pots and a sunny room, herbs will grow anywhere.  You can start from seed with the little starter kits (which are fine, as starters, but you are going to want to give your plants more space), or buy a couple of medium-sized planters and begin with seedlings.  Grouping different herbs in one pot looks pretty – just isolate the thyme; its roots have world-take-over ambitions – saves space, and keeps everything there for when you’re ready to cook.

You do have to give potted herbs as much sun as possible; herbs will get leggy and are prone to insects and infection when they’re left in too much shade.  Start the plants off right by lining the pot with pebbles for drainage, and mixing a small amount of balanced dried fertilizer in with the potting soil.  Keep them regularly watered (you can add a water-grabber – sand-sized granules that soak up water to several hundred times their size, then release the moisture as the soil around them dries out – or two to each pot if you’re lazy about that), and make sure you prune off any flowerheads that start to form.  If you let the flowers develop, the plant will put its energy into that, and the taste of the edible leaves will change.

Open Memorial Day

Urbanweeds will be open on Memorial Day from 10:30 am until 3:30 pm.

New City Rules: Plant Your Sidewalk Strip!

From the office of the Seattle Mayor:

Mayor Greg Nickels today announced improvements to make gardening in planting strips easier for Seattle’s residents. The new planting strip policy, issued by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), eliminates any permit requirements for gardens and ends fees previously required for hardscape improvements, such as planter boxes or pavers.

“This change makes it easier to plant flowers and vegetables in the strip between the sidewalk and the street. For many gardeners, that’s prime space,” said Nickels. “It’s one of the things that makes Seattle special, and, with planting season upon us, it’s time to get those green thumbs going.”

Under the new rules announced today, residents no longer need to obtain a $225 permit for hardscape improvements, such as raised gardens or stepping stones. Instead, they can obtain a free online permit for these improvements and to plant a tree at: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/stuse_permits_online.htm

SDOT has updated its Web site with information explaining the rules: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/stuse_docs.htm

Thanks, Seattle Times!

The cover story in today’s “NW Weekend” insert in the Seattle Times is about taking Mom to a local nursery for Mother’s Day.  And guess who is listed as the first stop?  Urbanweeds, naturally.  :)  Writer Bill Thorness even included a quote from Urbanweeds co-owner Tim Halloran in the first part of the story.  We do have a lot of great stuff in stock just in time for Mom’s special weekend, so come on down and check it out!

Tom and the Beanstalk

The conversation went something like this:
“What’s that?”
“A trellis for privacy.”
“What privacy, it’s full of holes.”
“Well, you’re supposed to plant climbing roses or something to fill the holes.”
“But that’ll take too long and roses only look good in June.”
“So you want something that’ll grow over night like Jack and the Beanstalk?”
“Yep. Sounds good to me.”

And so began Tom’s annual quest for the perfect trellis climbing, hole filling, privacy providing, summer lasting, magic beanstalk.

Our trellis is ten feet high and consists of two eight foot wide panels on the south-west corner of our deck. May is the perfect time to try growing your own sky-high beanstalk.
You don’t need a mega-trellis. A large circular planter with five or six tall bamboo stakes arranged like a teepee will do the trick.
We use rectangular, plastic planter boxes snugged up to the bottom of the trellis. Get the deepest planters you can find, 12 inches or more works the best. Make sure the drainage holes are open. Put an inch or two of small stones in the planter then fill with regular potting soil. We plant the beans closer than the package says and they do very well providing us with privacy, blooms and delicious beans.
Now this is the part where you can be creative and plant several varieties to see what works best for you. Scarlet runner beans can reach 12 feet tall. They have beautiful scarlet flowers that start blooming near the bottom of the plant and continue to bloom as the plant reaches for the sky. Purple pole beans live up to their name. The flowers and beans are purple and they love to climb.
The beans do need feeding. A slow release release fertilizer will do the trick or a liquid fertilizer that you apply every couple of weeks. The beans need to be watered daily on warm sunny days but if the weather is dull and cool it’s fine to miss a day of watering.
If you happen to live near a woodland or park the only neighbours invading your privacy will be local hummingbirds as they discover your bean flowers — now that’s magical!
Lorraine Forster aka “Thegardengoddess”