Plantwise

Anchorage in August: Greener Than Portland

Posted By Kate Bryant on 08/20/2009

For the past week, I’ve been in Anchorage, Alaska visiting my brother and his family. Anchorage is incredibly lush and green at the height of summer: the native woods are thick with giant, leafy herbs growing beneath the native trees and people’s lawns are emerald green and growing so fast, they need mowing several times per week. Meanwhile, Portland lawns have already turned brown and dry. In terms of the natural environment, Anchorage is – literally – far greener at this time of year. But as for the other “green,” Anchorage hangs behind most West Coast cities, lacking even city-wide glass and paper recycling.

My niece was getting married so there wasn’t a lot of time to sight see. But I did steal away to visit the local botanical garden. And of course there were neighborhood walks (plant reconnaissance missions) and bike rides (garden viewing sorties).

Here’s a down-and-dirty, plant-o-centric account of what I saw during my brief visit to Anchorage. First, a walk around my brother’s neighborhood:

Lesson Number One: always garden with moose in mind: nearly anything you plant, no matter how elegant, is mere forage for the moose that wander the city. Red-twig dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) is ubiquitous in gardens and is typically about 2 feet high and bushy, thanks to constant moose-pruning. I like the idea of a red-twig dogwood hedge – might try it myself (but with less radical pruning).

Another ubiquitous Anchorage plant that I came to truly appreciate: the ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris). This huge, primordial-looking fern (perhaps 4 feet tall when the fronds lean against something) looks fantastic flanking simple 40s and 50s cottages – of which there are many in Anchorage.

Some apples (tree at left) and roses (Rosa glauca, right) are cold hardy enough – but nothing is “hardy” to the crunching, grinding maw of a moose. Thus, chicken wire contraptions envelop nearly every young landscape plant in the Anchorage area.

Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium, formerly Epilobium angustifolium). This long-flowering, West coast native looks particularly beautiful against the gray August skies and drab buildings of urban Anchorage. This patch was seen along the aptly-named Fireweed Lane in Anchorage.

Alaska – land of contrasts…

An Anchorage resident takes plastic recycling into their own hands, turning old plant tags into a charming wreath.

The next day, we broke off from wedding preparations to visit downtown Anchorage:

I loved the look of the downtown Anchorage Tourist Information Center. I never got to ask about the type of grass growing on the roof, though. Note: Anchorage residents really cherish their annual flowers. Lobelias, begonias, petunias, trailing fuchsias, geraniums and violas glow in planters, window boxes and baskets at nearly every house and business entryway. The growing season is short and folks in Anchorage are intent on making the most of it with florid splashes of bright color.

I liked the Tourist Information Center’s plantings: giant cabbage and fluffy moss-curled parsley for texture and begonias for electric color. Southern Alaska is famous for growing giant specimens of produce (such as cabbage) during the extra-long days of summer.

I can see why people love their flowers in Anchorage. The season’s short and every little flower counts! This window box was attached to a fence outside a house, smack in the middle of downtown Anchorage.

The day after the wedding, we rode bikes to the Alaska Botanical Garden. This lovely space consists of a series of perennial beds as well as an herb garden, an alpine garden, a wildflower path, and more, all nestled within native woodland. Very native, in fact – this is the sign that greeted us upon arrival:

Peculiar, perhaps, but definitely not a scary kind of bear to encounter.

Regrettably, the nursery was closed that day.

The wildflower walk was edged with rustic woven twigs. We really appreciated how it gave us a nice, artificially safe feeling walking through the bear-infested woods.

Close up, with native rose, ferns and bunchberry (Cornus unalaschkensis, syn. C. canadensis). The little orange-red berries on the bunchberry lit up the forest floor.

It was hard for me to peer into the woods without imagining bears lumbering about. While some large, twisted brown logs gave me some minor heart attacks, I never actually saw a bear. I saw quite a few moose, including a mother and two calves that I nearly rear-ended on my bike.

There were several large perennial beds demonstrating the variety of plants that can be grown in the region. The blue flowers are mostly monkshood (Aconitum), which do fabulously in Anchorage area gardens. Perhaps their toxic foliage keeps moose at bay?

The gardening season is compressed in Alaska – thus, plants we associate with late spring such as peonies were in flower simultaneously with Aconite, Veronicastrum, and other perennials that – in Portland – flower in mid- to late- summer. (And, in case you were wondering, that is not a particularly unusual peony, it is simply a Paula Fay peony flower resting on Bergenia foliage.)

A glowing combination: two kinds of Aconitum (a silvery-blue cultivar and the yellow A. lamarckii) with the pinky-purple spires of blackroot (Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Fascination’). The palette of available garden plants is limited compared with Portland’s. Broadleaf evergreens don’t work in such a harsh environment; only native and a few exotic conifers provide winter color) but the Arboretum’s perennial garden really demonstrates what’s available in the best possible way.

You might have noticed it with that previous peony flower, but this orange-red poppy (with pale yellow Aconitum lamarckii) illustrates it, too: in Alaska, red and orange flowers look simply ELECTRIC. I don’t know if it’s the quality of the light or the gray tones of the native rock or the vast sky… but it’s beautiful beyond measure.

The enclosed (moose-proof) herb garden

Up North, moss-curled parsley is currently in fashion as a lovely, textural edging

Angelica gigas – a wonderful flowering biennial whose flowers attract pollinating insects. And the color is heavenly. I loved the sight of this weird plant against the backdrop of slender, white trunks of the native birch.

My photos show Anchorage at its gardening peak. But the light levels are shrinking fast and temperatures are cooling as I write these words. Within a couple of months, the land will again be enveloped in snow. And when that happens, marketers hope that people will turn to this:

The Aerogarden: an indoor light system with room for six little fiber plugs. You select the type of plants you want to grow (a “salsa garden”, salad fixings, “wildflowers”, or other catchy notions) and then plug the pre-seeded fiber plugs into the system. They sell fertilizer tablets, too. It basically grows itself. The light unit can be adjusted as the plants grow. It’s a fun idea but not particularly economical in terms of investment ($160 for the unit plus about $15 per set of six plugs) to harvest ratio. But, as the ads say, it requires no “messy soil,” so if dirt bothers you… interestingly, my brother’s neighbors had theirs all set up and ready to go for the coming winter.

By susan on Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 12:25AM PDT

My trips to alaska have been mostly non-summer times, but i do remember being there for a magnificent season of intensly blue siberian iris, pink sitka roses and satiny purple perrenial peonys… and also those fabulous potted annuals- it’s true, the colours are so much more intense- i think it might be due to long long days and cool weather. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such lush flowers as the hanging baskets of fuschias and lobelias.

By Irmgard on Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 09:19AM PDT

The pictures are a gawker’s delight! They took me right back to August twenty years ago, when I encountered the same flora & fauna , in a mental state alternating between rapture and terror.I did not believe the cabbages to be real. I thought they were plastic sculptures bragging to visiting texans that “ours are bigger than yours”.I have it from a reliable source that the resulting sense of inadequacy on the population of the lone star state caused one particular and peculiar Texan to prove to the whole world that “mine is bigger than theirs”.

By Irmgard on Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 09:19AM PDT

The pictures are a gawker’s delight! They took me right back to August twenty years ago, when I encountered the same flora & fauna , in a mental state alternating between rapture and terror.I did not believe the cabbages to be real. I thought they were plastic sculptures bragging to visiting texans that “ours are bigger than yours”.I have it from a reliable source that the resulting sense of inadequacy on the population of the lone star state caused one particular and peculiar Texan to prove to the whole world that “mine is bigger than theirs”.

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