Before I realized that horticulture was my true calling, I was a sociology student with plans to become a professor of sociology. Then I discovered my love for plants. I left grad school after getting my master’s degree and took an entry level job at a nursery. There haven’t been many times when my old world and new world have met,… Read more →
I finally got around to reading Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. That’s right—yesterday was a beautiful rare sunny day in early November, and I was sitting on the couch reading a book about how people don’t go outside anymore. So I was inspired to go to nearby Powell Butte Nature Park and… Read more →
McMenamins Edgefield in Troutdale, Oregon is a former poor farm turned restaurant/hotel/brewery/winery/theater/golf course. Heck, they even have a glass-blowing studio. Of course, my favorite attraction is the incredible landscaping! Here are a dozen interesting and unusual plants I saw there this year while exploring the grounds (in chronological order, more or less). Pretty sure I killed this as a houseplant… Read more →
I write a lot of plant descriptions. It used to be a slow, tedious process, but over time I’ve learned exactly where to go to find the information I need, and that has made my job a lot easier. Allow me to share some of my favorite web sources for plant information: Missouri Botanic Garden Plant Finder If you do… Read more →
Maybe I shouldn’t review a book when I’m hungry, but I found Robert Kourik’s new book Understanding Roots to be one of those meaty kinds of books you can really sink your teeth into, with lots of delicious morsels along the way. For example, I learned: In loose soil, carrot roots can go down 7 ft. One cubic inch of soil can… Read more →
“I’d like to visit the swamp.” My parents thought this an odd request when I visited my home state of Minnesota last week, but I’d recently learned that I’d grown up literally next door to one of the most unique plant communities in the world, and I had never appreciated it. So I set out to rediscover the peat bogs of… Read more →
Have you ever wondered why the number of asthma and allergy sufferers has skyrocketed in recent years? Thomas Ogren thinks he knows the biggest reason for the spike, and he explains what we can do about it in his new book, The Allergy-Fighting Garden: Stop Asthma and Allergies with Smart Landscaping (Ten Speed Press). [Disclosure: I did receive a… Read more →
Until this winter, I only knew Japanese umbrella pine (Sciadopitys verticillata) as a handsome but dinky conifer I’d seen at garden centers selling for what could feed a family of four for a month. Then I learned in Phyllis Reynolds’ Trees of Greater Portland (Macrophyllum Press, 2013) that Portland is home to several mature specimens and that I could see this… Read more →
Birders sometimes use the term “LGB.” It stands for “Little Gray Birds” and is a shorthand way to note sightings of birds that are too unremarkable in plumage to ID. In the Pacific Northwest, we gardeners might adopt a similar lumping acronym: “BGC.” To the untrained eye, the bounty of evergreen trees here with soft sprays of foliage, like redcedars,… Read more →
A Wishing Tree! That’s so Portland. This humble horsechestnut on the corner of NE 7th and Morris in Portland is the bearer of hundreds of wishes tacked to its trunk by passersby. I visited the Wishing Tree last week after reading about it online. Our local KGW did a story on it earlier this year, as did The Huffington Post. They… Read more →
