Fiber artist Kaylin Francis returns to the Miller Library this month, virtually, with an online exhibit of felted mushrooms. From the artist's statement:

Working with fiber has led me on a journey of self-discovery and taking chances. I fell in love with fiber at the age of 12, and that love has continued to grow and evolve over time. It all started with cross-stitch, then moved to needlepoint, then on to making traditional quilts, which led me to making fiber art. All this has led me to earning a BFA in Craft at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, in Portland, Oregon. At OCAC, I added natural and synthetic dyeing, felting, weaving, and screen-printing to my fiber repertoire.

This show, entitled Mushrooms, came about because of my love of nature and color. Mushrooms are curious and amazing things. There are as many mushrooms as there are colors in the universe.

Observing the forest floor with an artist's eye, she works with wool and dye to depict the colorful and varied fungi that are a hallmark of autumn in the Pacific Northwest and other temperate zones worldwide.

Since March, I've missed gathering with children and their families to share books and activities in the library. We don't know when that will be possible again. In the meantime, we can offer Virtual Story Time. I hope my videos will provide families some library fun and a springboard for learning at home during this extraordinary time. As viewers can confirm, making these has been a chance for me to learn low-tech video production in a hurry!

This season our Virtual Story Time lineup features three books per month, most of them new to the collection this year. In September, viewers watched "Ursa's Light" by Deborah Marcero, "Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn" by Kenard Pak, and "A Day With Grandpa" by Sylvia Liu, all on the theme of enjoying the great outdoors. This month the selections pictured above provide different approaches to learning about insects. Families can check our website in November for stories of young gardeners, including "Plants Feed Me" by Lizzy Rockwell, "Errol's Garden" by Gillian Hibbs, and "Roxaboxen" by Barbara Cooney. In December, stay tuned for "Everything You Need for a Treehouse" by Carter Higgins, "West Coast Wild" by Deborah Hodge, and "My Forest is Green" by Darren Lebeuf. This last title features a young narrator who is inspired to create art by observing treetops from his apartment window.

Some of these titles are available from Seattle Public Library branches (offering a limited holds pickup service) and/or King County Library System. As for the  others, we are eager to lend them to the public as soon as it's safe to do so. Check our website for updates.

Q: I want to add a hydrangea to my garden and I would prefer one that is fragrant. Are there varieties that have a noticeable pleasant scent?

A: There are some species and cultivated varieties of Hydrangea that are reported to be fragrant. Bear in mind that everyone's sense of smell is different. I recommend seeking out examples when they are in flower and doing a sniff test in nurseries, gardens, or large parks and arboreta with a good selection. The ones that have a fragrant reputation are:

• Hydrangea quercifolia: the smell is a rich honey-vanilla to my nose. This shrub is also a wonderful magnet for honeybees, bumblebees, pollen wasps, and syrphid flies. Its inner flowers are fertile, while the more dramatic outer sepals are sterile. Cultivated hydrangeas have been bred to emphasize the sterile florets, while wild hydrangeas tend to have fewer of these and are more useful for pollinators. In my garden, all the pollinator activity is humming along on the fertile inner flowers beneath those sterile four-petaled parts of the inflorescence. The showy parts of a hydrangea so prized by humans for their beauty are not what interests the pollinators .
• Hydrangea angustipetala and its cultivar ('Golden Crane,' also called 'MonLongShou'): said to smell strongly like jasmine or sweet alyssum; of the species, Dan Hinkley says: "The deeply scalloped sepals of the infertile florets surround a disk of striking chartreuse fertile flowers while emitting a faint but beguiling fragrance". [Horticulture, Jun/Jul 2009, Vol. 106, Issue 5]
• Hydrangea scandens: Dan Hinkley says: "As its name implies, it can be a sprawling shrub but far from what would be considered disheveled. The branches possess a pleasing burgundy-brown color and the lacy cream-colored flowers pack a powerful fragrance during March and April. Hydrangea scandens 'Fragrant Splash' adds a bonus of variegated foliage". [Ibid.]
• Some hybrids of Hydrangea macrophylla x Hydrangea angustipetala
• Hydrangea macrophylla 'Ayesha': "one of the only Hydrangeas to have a delicate fragrance in bloom" [Great Plant Picks profile]
• Hydrangea anomala ssp. petiolaris (a climbing hydrangea)
• Hydrangea paniculata: "slight floral scent" or "mild fruity fragrance"

Close relations in hydrangea family:

• Pileostegia viburnoides: "In late summer, frilly cymes of heavily-scented flowers erupt amidst its foliage, filling the air of our woodland drive with a delicious aroma of honey. Not surprisingly, honey bees are highly attracted to the flowers that rely entirely on scent". [Heronswood blog, August 29, 2018] However, not all noses smell alike. An article in Arnoldia [June 2, 1964] says "The floral odor is described as 'fragrant' or 'ill-smelling.'"
• Decumaria barbara (woodvamp): a climber in the Hydrangea family, native to swampy areas of the southeastern U.S., with fertile flowers that are slightly fragrant or fragrant, depending on the source

Based on the research above, Hydrangea quercifolia and Hydrangea angustipetala cultivars seem like the best choices.