The hot, dry Seattle summer is well underway, and the native garden has passed from spring bloomers to summer bloomers. The spring bloomers have seeds already. I am excited to have seeds that I can harvest and grow on, but even more excited that seeds are available to wildlife and will be spread around the neighborhood and will hopefully start to find safe places to grow and thrive.
Puget gumweed is the star of the flower show right now, and truly the star of the flower bud show, as well, since the buds are so spectacular.
The fireweed brother Tim gave me is also in full bloom, and starting to form seed pods, which are beautiful/interesting, as well.
Only one of the many yarrows I planted is blooming at this time.
Lupine seed pods are magical and sculptural.
And I still love the large-leaved avens seed heads–just so intricate and effective.
The Cornus shrub in the garden has some berries. It fascinates me how many fo the blossoms end up without berries versus the few that do have berries. Maybe a second plant nearby would help more berries form.
And the Berberis of all sizes have berries. I believe these are on B. repens.
Oregon sunshine plants also have seed heads.
The Trillium ovatum plants may be setting seeds, as well. It is kind of hard to tell.
And one of the checker mallow has seeds, too.
The last seeds I noticed today were on the Collomia grandiflora plants. The seed heads on these plants are interesting and intricate. I am curious about their evolutionary function.
I was happy to see that the fireweed seedlings I started from seed last fall are growing well.
But the biggest seedling news is the success of the Aquilegia formosa (western columbine) seedlings that I started over winter. Some were transplanted months ago and today I potted on the last few seedling pots. There are more than 50 plants now, in all.
