The Convergence Zone

Creeping Blue Spruce, and light green-yellow barberry, and the camellia with pink blossoms. Pulling up the end of the green tomatoes, not going to fry them. Bouquet in the house today with snowberries, white little blobs, and pink Schizostylus, yellow pot marigold or calendula, red berrries on the cotoneaster, and the dark green leaves of the hellebore. And of course the dark purple of the faded Autumn Joy, and the dark reddish pointed leaves of the purple heucheura. That's it.

AN ORGANIZATION FOR CLOTHESLINE USE While reading an article about a woman who had to get her landlord to change rules to let her use a clothesline, came across this website all about laundry and air drying. http://www.laundrylist.org/ Project Laundry List is making air-drying and cold-water washing laundry acceptable and desirable as simple and effective ways to save energy. I've been using our little wooden clothes hanger all summer and am sorry now to have to start using the dryer some. But I still hang clothes inside on the thing. You can just leave the stuff there for days if you want to, don't have to run to empty the dryer and make sure its on the right cycle, etc. When we were in Haifa a few years ago everyone hung their stuff out to dry everywhere, just on the porches and decks of apartments. Just made it look like a lived-in neighborhood, nothing wrong with that. More friendly feeling, I think.

News from City of Seattle Rainwise Program Starting in 2010, the City of Seattle will offer rebates to property owners to disconnect roof downspouts from the combined sewer system, and direct that runoff into cisterns or rain gardens. The rebates will be targeted to neighborhoods where downspout disconnection can help reduce combined sewer overflows during big rain storms. These two one-day classes will prepare contractors and design/build professionals to work with owners to locate and size rain gardens or cisterns on their property, and to install those systems so they work well and meet the City's requirements for rebates on construction costs. These classes are required for contractors who want to participate in Seattle's new RainWise rebate program. Rain gardens and cisterns are two of the Low Impact Development methods that are coming into local stormwater codes in many towns around Puget Sound, creating a new business opportunity for landscape, irrigation, plumbing, and

Emerging from the dead, on the edge of the rain garden swale, the sharp purple stalks of the phormium are back.

Now that we have survived the worst heat wave in Seattle history -- only 4 or 5 days really, but enough to make some of us wish we were anywhere else -- we take another look at the raingarden. Today it is lush and green, although I have barely watered it. We had one day of rain in July, I think, so some drain water was available. I may have turned the hose on it occasionally when I was passing by to water the vegetables planted nearby, but no regular watering in the swale of the rain garden. Yet we have lush croscomia, yellow twig dogwood, pieris, hellebore, solomon's seal, sedums, and not too many weeds. The load of arborist wood chips I had dumped in the nearby parking strip overflowed into the raingarden, so thick layer of the chips covered over everything there. No damage, just a thick blanket (3-4 inches) of protective mulch.

Its May 14 today, showery, a bit of sun is peeking through. Last night finishing up some sedum planting, it was downright cold and miserable. We've been wondering if the New Zealand Flax that spiked up very tall last three years will come back. I'm pretty sure it will, since dark green shoots seen, but the overall bunch of this phormium, with reddish green spikes, now looks like a rotting mess, since we cut it way back a few months ago. This spiky plant is used a lot in the commercial landscaping along the new housing developments around here -- and so far most are looking pretty sad. I didn't know this: "Phormium is also called New Zealand Flax, because the Maoris actually used it for making a type of linen clothing, as well as for ropes and baskets. "

FRONTLINE’s Poisoned Waters , airing Tuesday, April 21, 2009 "...growing environmental threat comes not from the giant industrial polluters of old, but from chemicals in consumers’ face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that find their way into sewers, storm drains, and eventually into America’s waterways and drinking water." “We thought all the way along that [Puget Sound] was like a toilet: What you put in, you flush out,” says Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, who notes that about 150,000 pounds of untreated toxins find their way into Puget Sound each day. “We [now] know that’s not true. It’s like a bathtub: What you put in stays there.” No mention of SAVE OUR SALMON in the entire press release about the show. So not to worry.

Economical shopper that I am, I rarely buy salmon if its over 6.00 a lb, and I haven't asked recently where it comes from, but odds are its raised in a crowded pen on the edge of a body of salt water, mixing with the oceans. My daughter tells me what's wrong with farmed salmon. Not only does it lack much of the nutritional value of wild salmon, the farmed salmon & their diseases are moving from the farms to the open waters, directly threatening the wild species. Read more about it at Save Our Wild Salmon and Why Wild Salmon , a very informative site from Trout Unlimited. So far, I've learned: -- Its good to eat wild salmon if its caught responsibly, encouraging that fishing industry -- Not good to eat farmed salmon of any kind, shouldn't support that industry --There is no more salmon farming in Puget Sound, or anywhere in the US. It was outlawed due to disease in the fish and other factors. --Salmon is farmed on Vancouver Island, and in northern European

Here's what happens when we were testing with the hose to add water to the garden basin. Looks like it just rained, but not on day this taken, April 4. This was last week, and recent cold weather and rain have added to the lower rain garden basin, to be shown next. My "raingarden" is not actually the same as what may be pictured in recent articles about this concept. What I have is more of a drainage system with a swale at the upper side, pictured here, and another swale at the lower level, with drainage channels running in between. Basically all this is more like the playing with sand and water at the beach that I did as a kid. We'd work on rerouting the stream channel that ran into Puget Sound near our house, using beach rocks, logs, and the sand. Now its dirtier, and there's an actual purpose to it other than just having fun. But when I'm out there and the rain is pouring down and I'm poking at the little blockages in the drainage patterns, removin

Now that I'm making sure my plastic will be finally laid in the landfill, after being cast out of the recycling facilty if it does not meet the requirements, or after being recycled into park bench or decking material, and what's left goes in the landfill to stay forever, now that that's all figured out, I can focus back on my little rain garden project. Just visited a yard where the drainage is a real problem, lawn all squishy and mossy. But here we live on a hill, near the top at nearly 500 ft so we don't get drainage from above, except of course from the up the cul de sac to our east. A river of storm water runs along the front of the curb, and if I could just figure out a way to channel it into the yard, I'd really be in business. But back to the drainage from the roof of our split-level, and the channeling into this little swale. Here's a new picture of the daffodils and a few plantings. The red twigs were just stuck in as cuttings to root, but those

This is text from places cited - how many of the plastic bags I throw away end up here? How can there be any more debate about paper or plastic or recyclable? Great Pacific Garbage Patch In the broad expanse of the northern Pacific Ocean, there exists the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a slowly moving, clockwise spiral of currents created by a high-pressure system of air currents. The area is an oceanic desert, filled with tiny phytoplankton but few big fish or mammals. The area is filled with something besides plankton: trash, millions of pounds of it, most of it plastic. It's the largest landfill in the world, and it floats in the middle of the ocean. The gyre has actually given birth to two large masses of ever-accumulating trash, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches, sometimes collectively called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California; scientists estimate its size as two times bigger than Texas. Th

Its another cold, snowy day here in the Convergence Zone, and checking the garden I see that the drainage system from rooftop down gutters, downspouts, thru rain garden and to the vegetable patch is working fine. Spinach is sprouting little green shoots, and one spinach plant now with baby leaves is getting ready to grow (of the seeds planted last fall, just this one survived the winter). Pictures here of drainage and some more plantings. I'm using the garden now as a place for plants like the heuchera I got on sale to grow for a bit. They were from last fall, overgrown, sitting in a corner of the nursery greenhouse. Soon I'll divide them and they will be like new.

Yesterday, I put in two yellow twig dogwoods, both about 3 ft high, one recently acquired at the Green Elephant Plant Swap in Redmond, the other has been in the front for several years, not growing very well. Also put in two tiny starts of red twig cornus, pulled up from some place last year. Walking in the business park near North Creek, in the Quadrant as we call it, sometimes I see overgrown plantings edging near the sidewalk, often rugosa rose or red twig dogwood, so I just pull up a little start with some roots. It will be cut back anyway. More on Scrounging for Plants later. Also planted Native Iris, Douglassi, and dayliles, some other iris I had lying around, three starts of sword fern, and on the upper edge, zone 3 which gets the least amount of water, planted two mugo pines, two Evergreen bluberries, and several starts of Euphorbia, red bonnet I think -- all stuff from the plant swap. The Zone areas areas loosely defined, so far. But I've been able to increase the siz

Rain Garden - Modified Dug a hole, not too big, reading thru the Rain Garden Handbook and trying to follow every step. But my space is more of a drainage area on the way to other drainage areas, but still it can be a sort of a rain garden.