Free plants at Curbside page
Today's pile of plants, 12-Sep-1999...

Last weeks two plants were still there: Hops and unknown tree

Plus I added a whole bunch of new stuff!

The following are plants I've put out before:
Angelica, Butterfly Bush, Yellow Corydalis, Crocosmia, Foxglove, Golden Chain Tree, Lamium, Lupine, Lychnis, Raspberry.

The remainder are new ones that I've not put out before:

Datura
Lovely large white trumpet flowers with an incredible smell of Earl Gray tea and honey. Any individual flower only lasts about a day, but it seems to produce new flowers for much of the latter part of summer.

It is not cold hardy to a Seattle winter; plant one in a an at least one-gallon pot and keep indoors on a bright windowsill over Winter. When the flower is replaced with a thorny seed pod, leave until it dries and cracks open, then collect the seeds. Plant next year in lighter well-drained soil where there will be plenty of warmth. In the pot it will want to get leggy up to 2' around and 1' high, but you can control it. Outdoors it may get 4' high and 3' wide.

White Corydalis (C. Alba)
This version of Corydalis is a bit more difficult to grow than the yellow (which is practically a weed), though it will self sow a few plants each year. Plants are up to 12" high, about 10" around.

When it's finished flowering, break off any old dead stems. While doing this, if a whole chunk of plant breaks off, stick it in a pot of good soil, and you'll have a new plant in weeks -- that's how this very one came to be. You'll see plenty of new growth near the ground; be sure to continue watering, and you'll get another crop of flowers.

Jupiters beard
Careful, this is basically a weed, not unlike dandelions but much nicer to look at! We've never planted it, yet as you can see in the photo, our entire front wall is covered with it each year.

It puts out large tapering roots that can be pulled fairly easily if in sandy soil, though it will spread. It's very forgiving of Seattle climate, thriving on the north side of a wall where it never gets direct sun.

Plant this one plant in any small area that will get at least a little sun. Allow it to simply grow to seed, and be sure to spread around the seeds. You'll soon have several chive plants! Once it gets thick, be sure to just chop off the whole top, even if you're not ready to eat it all. This will sprout a whole new crop ready to go.

As seen in this photo, they make a wonderful decorative flower, however once like this they're no longer very good eating. For best cooking, trim when the shoots are about 6 inches tall. Once flowers appear, simply trim the entire top of the plant off down to the ground. (The first year let it bolt so as to get a few plants going. This way another is coming up while you're using the first.)

Wild Rose

When picking up your plants, the mother plant is directly above you on the rock wall at the bottom of the stairs to the left. It has nice pink blooms in Spring. It doesn't need a lot of sun, nor a lot of water.

It does have thorns, but they're fairly small and dense unlike show roses. It will happily put up dozens of shoots and fill in an area. A good choice for that space between the trees where you want to discourage the kids from running through.