Happy New Year 2020
Sending all our best wishes for a fabulous new year.
Cheers
Winter Solstice Greetings
We’ve gone round the horn of the longest darkest day. Yay. Time to fire up our imaginations, and set sight on a new gardening season. We’ve had mild weather around the Portland area, but we hear it’s not so great around all the country. We’re so sorry, and wish your plants all due recovery. My potted papyrus is still growing on the patio here–albeit allowing for Lucy to yank that football again soon. (more…)
Happy Thanksgiving Gardeners
Rumor has we’re in for a cold patch in the Pacific Northwest, and so many are already experiencing the vagaries of weather. Here’s hoping we all get through relatively unscathed–with gobs of green goodness on the other side. (more…)
A Spooky All Hallows Eve to You
Eat all the candy you want. Someone told me calories are free on holidays. (more…)
Plants to Tuck In, Well…
A never fail line my daughter uses on me, “It’s so handy to tuck in.” It doesn’t matter if it’s a tiny Bolax gummifera or a Stewartia chinensis, I fall for it every time. The good news, I’ve never been sorry. Megan is right: so many plants are handy for tucking in. (more…)
plant lust list: Lobelia tupa aka Devil’s Tobacco
Talk about a stunner, Lobelia tupa rises to the occasion. I received this plant in the mail from Secret Garden Growers. It came in a 4″ pot. Aren’t plants a marvel. (more…)
Denver Garden Bloggers’ Fling 2019: reflections
I can explain.
Two Portland garden bloggers talked me into attending the gbfling2019. That’s what those in the know call it. I’m looking at you Danger and Just a Girl. I will be the first to admit, I’m not a terrific traveler. I like home. But this duo urged me on numerous occasions, plying me with wine and sweet talk: it will be fun; all those new gardens; all those other bloggers. They even enlisted my husband to join the encouragement game. Bill loves to travel–though usually for motorsport related events. I’ve learned to stay out of that whole business. When Bill says he’s going to the track for a couple of hours, he means sun up, to sun down.
The Flingers were kind of like that. (more…)
Happy Fourth July 2019
open garden season: Hardy Plant Society of Oregon
Anita Barbey and Todd Liebow kindly opened their historic garden to Hardy Plant Society members this weekend. (Just join already. Months of fabulous garden tours and all for $35.) From the HPSO guide: The garden was designed and constructed for Lady Anne Kerr McDonald and her husband Sir James McDonald in 1940. It includes rare mature trees–Stewartia monadelpha, Trochodendron araliodies, Acer Griseum, Sciadopitys verticillata, Cunninghamia lanceolata, and Metasequoia gylpostroboides.
I did not take pictures of any of those things, because I forgot while looking down. And I was distracted by all the other gardeners I needed to talk with. (more…)
plant lust list: Canna musafolia
How much fun is it to say Banana Canna. Right up there with Sambucus. This post has nothing to do with Sambucus–aside from the delight in saying its name. Sambucus was my first deliberate Latin plant name utterance. Megan taught me when she urged me to buy a lacy Fern Leaf Elderberry. That plant got big and gorgeous. No worries. The new peeps poisoned it and it is long gone. I will not be bitter, I swear.
Canna musafolia aka Banana Canna is not only fun to say, it’s leaves are big, dramatic, and it sways romantically in the breeze. You’ll think you’re on vacation. (more…)