We happen upon gardening inspiration all the time–an exciting new plant combo spotted on an apartment balcony here, a master gardener’s open garden tour there. We love to share the latest sights that have us seeing new plants and old plants in new ways.
Throw a wee winter storm my way, and apparently I’m done with the garden. I thought I'd be better, get out there and do this and that. Then I told myself, it'd be a good time to turn my interest toward indoor plants. Some challenges have ensued. But outdoors, the...
Do you ever find yourself on a family vacation, and you want to visit gardens while the rest of the gang has a different agenda? Nah. Probably never. In May of 2012 I meet up with family in Las Vegas. They were on a multi-month rock climbing road trip. I'm not much of...
Proximity to mountain, valley, and ocean is high on the list of Portland grooviness. Every year around this time, I go on a retreat with my fellow Book Babes. We’ve been making the trek for twenty years now, and almost without fail, we get glorious weather for our...
Truth be told, I’m having trouble sticking with the Plan, big P plan. Oh, I’m weeding and shopping and planting, but I seem to be happiest muddling my way through without a blueprint. But see all that grass up there, I can do better. A...
Some plants just require that you pull over for a closer look. These oddballs stopped me dead in my tracks. 1. In-ground Portland agaves Happy looking Portland Agaves are always worthy of closer inspection so we can try this at home. McMennamins joints have the...
This Concordia neighborhood has the kind of trees and plants so common when I was growing up on Mallory Avenue—in the Boise Elliot neighborhood a mile away. Oh sure, people gardened, but other than my Grandmother who loved Dahlias, I didn’t know anyone with the kind...
In June of 2013 I was part of a group of Garden Bloggers (“The Fling”) who visited the Wave Garden in Point Richmond, CA. I was awestruck by the garden and vowed to return the next time I was in the Bay Area. That first visit was on an extremely hot day and the garden...
I went thru a period wherein I never left a nursery without a grass or sedge in hand, usually several. I just couldn’t pass them up. I’d pop them in here and there in the garden, and loved watching them wave their wild arms in the breeze. I planted a couple Stipa...
I was so blinded by this lovely striped bark, I forgot to look up and take note of the leaves, leaving me stumped on the identity of the beauty. I'm thinking it may be a Crepe Myrtle. I have a few lovely trunk mysteries on my hands here. Any bark experts out there?...
Before we moved to Flamingo Park, I’d been focused primarily on living in the new environs—what it would be like to be in a different house and not know every inch of the garden. It was so hard to imagine leaving our home of 33 years—in an area I’d been walking for 25...