“Nothing you see here is by accident,” said our tour guide, Rolland O’Dell, when I went to the Portland Japanese Garden last month. Japanese gardens are very deliberate. Every element has purpose and meaning. Taking a guided tour when you go to the Portland Japanese Garden—or any Japanese garden—is the way to go if you don’t already understand this style of… Read more →
One of the neat things about having a blog is that sometimes you get free stuff. However, I was all ready to say no, thank you when someone from Bond Manufacturing emailed me to offer me a free BLACK+DECKER Cordless Pruner to review on my blog. I assumed by “cordless pruner” she meant cordless hedge trimmers. Since I have no… Read more →
“Our plants won’t croak!” If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you’ve probably seen Little Prince of Oregon plants with their trademarked frog tags at Fred Meyer and at your local garden center. I recently got the chance to go behind the scenes at this closed-to-the-public wholesale nursery in Aurora (30 minutes south of Portland) along with some of my… Read more →
When I was planning my first vegetable garden, I had a romantic vision of how it would go. I would sit on the back porch with a bowl full of peas, fresh from the garden. With great pride, I’d look out at neat rows of lettuce, carrots, beets, parsnips, herbs, and potatoes, shelling the tender peas into a clean bowl…. Read more →
I’m a slow shopper. It takes me ten minutes to pick out five apples at the grocery store. Now I’m trying to choose a tree for the parking strip, and that’s a major decision. I’ll have to live with it every day, you know? Persian ironwood, or Persian parrotia (Parrotia persica), is on my shortlist, and I’m weighing the pros… Read more →
Win a $40 gift certificate to Joy Creek Nursery! JCN opens for the 2017 season this Saturday, February 25. (They do mail order, too.) But first, a visit to this amazing nursery in Scappoose, Oregon, 20 miles northwest of Portland. I was invited to Joy Creek recently, along with some of my garden blogger friends, by co-owners Maurice Horn and… Read more →
Portland has had a horrendous winter. Multiple ice storms, lower than average temperatures, and a single freak snowstorm that dumped nearly a foot of snow have taken a toll, and not just on our spirits. Plants have been heaved out of the ground, broken in two, killed outright by cold. This is good news for nurseries, as people will be… Read more →
Love Letters to My Garden by Barbara Blossom Ashmun is like homemade mac and cheese and apple pie—comfort food reading for a drizzly winter day. In this, her seventh book, Barbara details her 30-year love affair with her garden, sharing stories that all gardeners can relate to, paying tribute to people who have helped her along the way, and marveling… Read more →
‘Whipcord’ arborvitae (Thuja plicata ‘Whipcord’) is a cool, quirky dwarf conifer that has been on my wishlist for quite some time. Instead of the usual flattened sprays of foliage, this lovable mutant form of our native western arborvitae, or western red cedar, sports a mop top of long, skinny, green rat tails. It tops out at around 4 to 5 feet tall… Read more →
Let’s face it, “winter interest” in the garden often amounts to a few somber evergreens, a spray of colorful berries, and some shreddy bark. Honest-to-God winter flowers are rare, and flowers on January first? Well, that’s asking a bit much. Or so I thought. I went to Edgefield McMenamins in Troutdale, Oregon on New Year’s Day to take some “winter interest”… Read more →
