A few of today's activities

Mark had to go to Bainbridge Island to check on the house, get the van tires rotated and visit the eye doctor. When he returned, the van was bulging with greenery.

He dug up some baby hellebore from the backyard, which we potted up into 14 starts for our nursery. If you live in Eastern Washington or Arizona, you might not be familiar with this shade-loving plant, but they have been very happy in our Bainbridge backyard, which barely sees the sun. At Hardrock, maybe they will do okay on the edge of our yard where it drops down to the creek.

Mark also thinned our bamboo stand on Bainbridge and brought the excess. Here, he is trimming them up. We have used the canes for trellises, plant stakes and temporary fencing - and there are hundreds of other possible uses. As a plant, bamboo's multiple purposes include acting as a visual block (we needed that on Bainbridge, not here), beauty (we particularly like this variety and are hoping we can find more) and bird habitat. Supposedly, the new shoots are delicious, we haven't tried bamboo as a food source.

Then Mark stopped by to see our friend Andrzej, who gave us 26+ raspberry starts, which we potted up and added to our exploding nursery.