Garden Muse

Food Served with Love Tastes Best

2011-11-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

I’m delighted that my story, Food Served with Love Tastes Best, has been published in the new Chicken Soup for the Soul: Food and Love.

The story commemorates my Aunt Libby, a beloved relative who embodied the joy of life. A woman ahead of her times, she had a meaningful career, never married or had children, and showered me with love and acceptance. I wish she were still alive to read the story. Her spirit is alive in my heart, and on the pages of Chicken Soup.

After reading Food Served with Love Tastes Best, one fan e-mailed “Everyone should have an Aunt Libby.” Especially when we’re young and vulnerable, a relative or friend who’s in our corner, who doesn’t have preconceived ideas of who we should become, helps us discover and honor our true nature. I will always remember Aunt Libby’s giving me permission to make mistakes—essential if we are to take risks and try new things. She said, “That’s why they make erasers!”

A Visit to Portland's Best Kept Secret Garden

2011-10-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

On an overcast October morning, my friend Diane and I took a stroll through Leach Botanical Garden, guided by Head Gardener Scott Hoelscher, Executive Director David Porter, and Board President Gay Greger. The 16-acre garden is located at 6704 SE 122nd Avenue, just a little south of Foster Road.
Gravel crunched underfoot as we navigated paths winding up and down the hillsides. Shaded by the canopy of enormous conifers, unusual shrubs and lush ferns flourished in the the understory. A pool of delicate Himalayan maidenhair ferns made a big swathe of lacy green, arching like a green cascade, while a colony of robust male ferns spread spread their wide, feathery fronds.
Climbing the gentle slope, we inhaled the aroma of cotton candy wafting from a stately katsura tree in its full autumn glory, golden leaves shimmering in the misty morning air. Scott pointed out several shrubs that will bloom later on in winter, especially evergreen Mahonia confusa, with blue-green foliage and yellow flowers, and Mahonia gracilipes, with red flowers. Sweet box (Sarcococca) had already set buds for fragrant winter blossoms. An bold-leaved paper bush (Edgworthia) will bear silky buds and yellow flowers in just a few months.
We continued to a recently expanded addition to the Rock Garden, where numerous new plants were marked with white flags. A tapestry of low-growing perennials covered the more established part of the Rock Garden. A silver-leaved California fuchsia (Epilobium canum), smothered with bright orange flowers, warmed up the picture.
As in most gardens tended by passionate gardeners, change is constant. A large sweep of Aucuba had recently been recycled to make room for more interesting species Rhododendrons.
“We’re trying to get rid of over-represented plants,” Scott explained. “We’re also getting rid of all the ivy.” The original garden owners, John and Lilla Leach, had collected over thirty varieties of ivy.
We came upon colonies of broad-leaved hart’s tongue ferns growing happily in the crevices of old, moss-covered retaining walls built of recycled concrete. On the slopes, newly planted chain ferns (Woodwardia) were settling in along with tree ferns (Dicksonia).
As we descended the stairs to the riparian area, David and I talked about the continuous process of change and refinement that creative gardeners undertake. He summed it up well.
“Since the mind never rests, the garden never rests,” he said. “Our gardens never stop changing because they really are the product of our minds, which are constantly imagining and creating.”
Approaching its 30th anniversary, Leach Botanical Garden is in the midst of many creative changes. A Master Plan will address development of the Upper Garden’s landscape, where two meadows await the imagination of a design group. This past summer’s oversize tent became the venue for Leach Garden Arts, attracting many new visitors. New classes will be dreamt up, and more collaboration with local artists is in the works.
Coming soon is the fabulous Holiday Bazaar, where wreaths, swags, table centerpieces and greens will be available for modest prices. Volunteers are needed to help create these goodies, during the week after Thanksgiving. To learn more, or volunteer, contact 503-823-1671 or info@LeachGarden.org. Close to 100 volunteers help maintain this public garden, and many more are needed.

'Midnight Barbara Blossom' daylily

2011-08-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

Bob Anderson of Midnight Gardens has given me the greatest gift: a daylily he’s named ‘Midnight Barbara Blossom!’ Here’s how Bob describes it:
“I think this flower is especially notable for the saturated red base color, metallic finish, black-red veining and chevron eye.” YES!
It all began when I visited his nursery on a sunny morning in July, with my friend Donna. This was my second year in a row to check out the beds, sparkling with pink, red, orange, yellow, purple and lavender daylilies.
Bob took us on a tour, pointing out some of the latest hybrids, like ‘Emerald Starburst,’ with green and wine flowers.
“It’s a cutting edge color,” he said. “Bigger blooms and intense colors are what people are drawn to.”
We took a close look at ‘Midnight Velvet Touch,” a rich black red, with good branching and high bud count. Then Bob showed us ‘Lemon Lollypop.’
“It’s the first daylily to bloom, and repeats, with three flushes of bloom, and good blue-green foliage,” he said. I scribbled a note to myself to buy it. A little voice inside whispered You don’t need any more daylilies. I replied, Yes I do!
While we strolled along, Bob’s friend Loraine, was steadily deadheading and weeding.
“I’m a weed killer,” she declared, demonstrating her mission with a hand-held mattock. “I help Bobby out—it’s fun to watch it all grow.” Loraine likes to be known as the “Weed Wolf.”
Now some growers are great with plants, yet shy away from people, but Bob has a wonderful way with plants and humans. So before long Donna, Bob, Loraine, and I were chatting away like old friends. That morning visit had turned into a plant lovers’ party.
At one point Bob asked me to choose a favorite seedling. As a hybridizer, he crosses many daylilies to create new cultivars, but keeps only about 20% of his seedlings, those which are clearly better than similar ones already on the market. One dark wine daylily with a spidery shape kept calling to me. A yellow throat and streaks of white along the petals in a starburst pattern made the burgundy-red pop. To me, the texture looked like satin, and the petals recurved at the edges. “That one!” I said, pointing to the dark beauty.
Pretty soon Bob got busy with other visitors. Donna and I placed our orders for daylilies, waved goodbye to Bob and Loraine, and slipped away. We would pick our plants up later in the summer when it was the right time for Bob to divide and dig the daylilies for his customers.
A week or so later I received a beautiful handwritten card from Bob in the mail, asking if he could name the burgundy daylily for me. The new plant, ‘Midnight Barbara Blossom,’ will be introduced in 2012. But Bob went even further. Last Saturday he dug divisions of the daylily for Donna and me to plant in our gardens right now! I can hardly wait until next summer to see it bloom again.

Two Cafes with Gardens to Enjoy

2011-08-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

What greater pleasure than to eat in a garden on a summer afternoon or evening? Lately I’ve discovered two destinations worth traveling to. DiPrima Dolce at 1936 N. Killingsworth is open daily from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., daily, and for dinner on Fridays and Saturdays in the summer. I’ve been there twice, once for breakfast and once for lunch. The frittatas are out of this world. Served with home made bread and well seasoned potatoes, this is a meal to savor. Eating in DiPrima Dolce’s perfectly groomed garden, surrounded by ferns, hydrangeas, flowering perennials and fragrant herbs completes the experience. What’s best is that it’s not my own garden, with deadheads crying out to be snipped and weeds hollering to be yanked. I sat there peacefully, enjoying quiet conversation with a friend, the mild air, the buzz of hummingbirds, the drone of bees, and the taste of delicious home made food.
Singer Hill Cafe at 7th and John Adams Street in Oregon City is open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, and 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday, with live music on Friday and Saturday evenings. The menu offers freshly made sandwiches, salads, wraps and Stumptown Coffee. On a rainy day the spacious interior is pleasant, with art on the walls. But the gardens are the highlight of a visit to Singer Hill Cafe. Inspired by vertical gardens in Madrid, the outdoor patio is an amazing sight with walls transformed into blankets of flourishing plants, and columns dripping with greenery. A tapestry of heucheras, hostas, ferns, hydrangeas, sedums and more have turned a long alley into a sumptuous garden.

Perfect Partners for Summer

2011-08-04T08:53:00.001-07:00

Perfect Pairs
When perfectly matched plants bloom together in the garden, I feel thoroughly satisfied. Sometimes I’ve planned a winning combination, but just as often, purely by chance, a stray seedling pops up right beside the ideal partner. Either way, here are some terrific pairings for midsummer.
I’ve always adored ‘Strutter’s Ball’ daylily. The wine flowers have the texture of velvet—I would love to have a jacket just like this. ‘Xenon’ sedum, with thick, waxy leaves of an even deeper burgundy, is a great companion, and sets buds just about when the daylily finishes blooming. Soft pink flowers arrive in late summer, lasting into fall. To cap off this combination,‘‘Madame Julia Correvon’ clematis scrambles through ‘Winter Fire’ cistus, an evergreen shrub which anchors the bed. ‘Madame Julia’ is a lively red-pink, echoing the central wine blotch in the heart of the cistus flowers, as well as the daylily flowers, and the sedum foliage.
Just when everything was coming together so well, ‘Lucifer’ crocosmia seeded itself into the composition for a hideous color clash. I guess I was feeling too cocky, so this blast of in-your-face orangey-red came along to humble me. If it weren’t for the hummingbirds that sip from Lucifer’s flowers, I would yank him out. But mercifully, the hummingbirds have saved him from shovel pruning.
In another bed, even after removing every shred of ‘Lucifer’ from a bed near the side path where colonies leaned and sprawled every summer, dozens of seedlings sprouted right cross the path, defying me. At first I was plenty mad, thinking, How could they, but this morning when I spent a good five minutes watching a very happy hummingbird drink her ‘Lucifer’ lunch, I changed my mind and decided it was all for a good purpose. Sometimes it’s OK to give up control and let the plants have their way. The garden is not just about my will. Please remind me of this resolution the next time I go on a mission to hunt and destroy.

Reflections on June 4th Open Garden

2011-06-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

My June 4th open garden for the Raleigh Park Garden Tour was full of joy. When three little girls came around the side of the garden and went "oooh!" and “ah,” my heart sang! It was wonderful to greet old friends, neighbors, make new friends. The wheelbarrows filled with souvenir plants were empty by noon, as early visitors quickly took advantage of the freebies. Later in the afternoon I dug up divisions of Phlomis and calla lilies for some admirers who had that desperate look of craving in their eyes.
For a while I sat on one of the pink chairs underneath the apple tree and watched and listened to people, soaking in their enjoyment and appreciation. Every so often someone would plop down on the other chair and we’d chat. Several friends from my Golden Gardeners group arrived, and we sat under the grape arbor, enjoying the shade. A young woman stopped to ask us how to prune clematis, and all four of us gave her more advice than she could absorb. Finally I said, “You can’t go wrong, clematis are very forgiving,” and she smiled with relief.
Opening my garden is a peak experience, starting with weeks of refining the garden in preparation—planting, editing, pruning, weeding, grooming. The day arrives faster than I can imagine, and then it’s over in a flash. Pretty soon I’m planning the next one. Stay tuned for an open garden in honor of the roses, late to bloom this year, but deserving our full admiration.

White at Night: Summer Blooming Clematis

2011-05-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

If you love to linger in the garden on the long summer evenings, try some floral moonlight. Full of large white blossoms, Clematis henryi is like a beacon, whether it’s climbing an obelisk or scrambling through shrubbery.
My friend Gail Austin, who has an entire wall of clematis in her Southwest Portland garden, plus many more climbing posts and trellises, says Henryi is the most outstanding white clematis.
“The flowers are huge and the contrast with its deep green foliage makes it stand out from across the garden. It also reliably reblooms in late summer. This is a very special clematis for me because it was my late husband Ken's favorite. When Henryi blossomed for the first time each spring, he would come and find me, take my hand and hurry me over to the plant so we could "ooh" and "aah" together at its pristine beauty. Then he would measure the blossom, and like a proud new papa after the birth of his first child, announce its size. One year it was almost ten inches across, and he could hardly contain himself!”
Clematis ‘Huldine’ and ‘Alba Luxurians’ are more modest in size, but just as luminous. ‘Huldine’ originates from France, and is stylishly cup-shaped, with six overlapping petals with the texture of satin. ‘Alba Luxurians’ is more papery, with distinctive green markings at the tips of the petals. I’ve grown both on my grape arbor where their white flowers drape over the edges like froth of lace below the large grape leaves.
I first saw ‘Alba Luxurians’ on an autumn visit to an English garden designed by Graham Stuart Thomas (the venerable author of my favorite books on roses, perennials and ornamental shrubs). The white flowers wove their way up a large Rosa glauca, mingling beautifully with the rose’s gray-green leaves and red fall hips.
The combination was deceptively simple, and all the more riveting because it was repeated throughout the same border. For me, who has to have one plant of every kind, dedicating so much space to the several of the same plants was almost sacrilegious. But it was a great lesson in restraint. Although I do admire this quality, I haven’t yet embraced it.
I haven’t yet grown ‘Guernsey Cream,’ but a recent photo of it is so enticing I’m putting it on my wish list. Both Gail Austin and Clematis Queen Linda Beutler praise it, so it’s gotta be great.

A visit to Edelweiss Perennials

2011-03-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

A rainy day was perfect for a drive down to Canby for Edelweiss Perennials’ first open house of the season. The aroma of chocolate chip cookies filled the greenhouse as I entered, and it was tough to decide whether to go for the cookies or the stands of plants marked 1/2 off. The plants won. I’d already e-mailed owner Urs Baltensperger with my list of plants, selected from his website (plants pulled in advance get a 10% discount) and a box was waiting for me behind the cash register, but it wouldn’t hurt at all to add to the stash.
Once I pulled a few of the plants on clearance, I went to the tables loaded with treasures. Small pots as well as husky gallons brimmed over with vigorous hellebores, epimediums, as well as bright pink cyclamen in full bloom. By now I didn’t need that cookie; I was in plant heaven.
Friends greeted each other as they landed in the greenhouse, then got busy studying the plants and making their selections. When the serious work was done, and we loaded our cars up, a few of us drove off to Starbucks to celebrate and schmooze.
It wasn’t til I got home that I realized what treasure I had scored. Several small pots were so stuffed with healthy plants that I had to cut the pots away to get the plants out. One epimedium was so well grown I was able to divide into four parts, then repot each division. Every plant will continue to grow in my cool greenhouse until I figure out where to plant them. That will keep me daydreaming for the next few weeks.
Edelweiss will have more open houses and will also sell at future events (check the website for dates). Don’t miss a chance to enjoy some fabulous, healthy and unusual plants!

A Few of Our Favorite Plants

2011-02-23T11:08:00.000-08:00

At February’s Yard Garden & Patio Show the most fun I had was sharing the stage with Oregonian columnist Dulcy Mahar, and Maurice Horn, co-owner of Joy Creek Nursery, as well as Lori Volmer, co-owner of Garden Fever. Each of us had been asked to come up with a list of three favorite trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals.
Since this was an impossible task, we all cheated and made much longer lists, then talked as fast as we could to make sure all of our plants got their share of praise. Moderator Nancy Goldman kept us in line, mostly. It was hard for us plant nerds to behave ourselves when we get excited.
Since our combined lists were too long to mention, I’ll start with our overlaps. Dulcy and I both loved ‘Grace’ smokebush and Japanese snowbell tree. Most of us agreed that ‘Westerland’ rose is a must for the color, a blend of orange and pink, and the fragrance, and for its versatility—you can grow it as a shrub or a climber. Hydrangeas were praised repeatedly—‘Blue Billows,’ Hydrangea aspera, Hydrangea paniculata ‘Pinky Winky,’ and Hydrangea serrata ‘Miyama Yae-Murasaki.’
Lots of wine-leaved plants got high marks, including several ninebarks—‘Coppertina,’ ‘Center Glow,’ and ‘Summer Wine—as well as ‘Wine and Roses’ weigela. Gold foliage was popular all around: the golden form of mock orange, golden forest grass, and ‘Golden Ghost’ pine were among the chosen.
When pressed to pick just one favorite plant—after we finished agonizing about how truly impossible this was—Dulcy and I both chimed in, “Hellebore!” No doubt that was the seasonal effect of answering this question in February. By June we would likely have come up with a rose.

Falling in Love with 'Josephine' Clematis

2011-01-05T13:23:00.001-08:00

I always keep a wish list of plants on a handy large sticky note tucked into my weekly pocket calendar. This year’s list has ‘Josephine’ clematis at the top. My first impression, when I came face to face with this flower at Cindy Fairbrook’s garden in Olympia, Washington, was that it was too flamboyant. I might have even heard myself thinking, “Oh too garish, just too over the top!”
Then I saw it again at a few gardens in Portland—at Diana Lamb’s, growing up a post, and again at Gail Austin’s garden, scrambling over the top of an antique plow. ‘Josephine’ was beginning to look beautiful to me, adorably feminine. The central bud of her double flower stood up like a cream-colored topknot, surrounded by a ring of fluffy pink petals like a crinoline. A final layer of outer petals were like a frame around a beautiful painting. The flower was a delicious confection that I now simply have to find for my own garden.

Getting Old Gratefully

2010-08-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

I just got great news—my essay Getting Old Gratefully was accepted for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Think Positive! It will be in bookstores Sept 28. I'm pretty excited, a first Chicken Soup for me. I see it's already at Amazon.com.

Women Reinvented

2010-06-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

I’m thrilled to announce that my essay True Nature has just been published in Women Reinvented: True Stories of Empowerment and Change. It will officially be available in bookstores in July, but Amazon already has it!

I felt moved to tears by these honest personal stories told by women of many ages and diverse cultures, each facing a tough situation and moving through it into renewal. It’s a great book to read if you’re going through a transition (and who isn’t?), or to give to a friend facing a challenging change.

The profits from the sale of the book are donated to The Healing Project, which you can read about at www.TheHealingProject.org.

The Blooper Panel at the Yard Garden & Patio Show

2010-02-15T08:55:00.000-08:00

The room was packed to overflowing with gardeners eager to hear all about our mistakes. Unlike the usual Yard Garden & Patio Show seminars, with glorious slide shows that inspire and educate the audience, our Blooper Panel of three garden columnists—Dulcy Mahar, Robb Rosser and myself—was a series of true confessions. Each of us told about our worst downfalls in the garden. Our misadventures along the perilous journey down the garden path were abundant.
Many of our first attempts were total disasters. Dulcy confessed that when she first began gardening, her flower borders “looked like two graves. Nobody told me about adding compost, and the plants did not prosper.” Later she learned about Kosher’s compost.
“It wasn’t blessed by rabbis—the gentleman’s name is Kosher,” she added. Soon the plants grew robust and all was well. Until she discovered that an entire bed of perennials was too flat. A trip to England shed light on that problem. She observed that borders included trees and shrubs, and she went home and inserted them into her borders. “Now there’s too much foliage and I need more perennials,” she added. It’s always something.
Dulcy’s first pond is legendary, the topic of many of her columns. The first pond was constructed in shade
“I’d forgotten that leaves fall off of trees into ponds,” she reminisced. Not only that, but since Dulcy, her husband Ted, and her three dogs all had short legs, she made the pond shallow to prevent drowning.
“But raccoons can wade. They decimated the pond liner,” she said.
Robb recounted his disaster with Coast of Maine fish fertilizer that he sprayed on the roses right before an open garden.
It can’t be that bad, he thought. But it was.
“It was ripe and pungent, like a salmon baking in the hot sun. People went up to sniff the roses and went, ‘Oh, my!’”
Gifts from well-meaning friends can become a gardener’s nightmare, like the two alpine goats, Harley and Davidson, that friends gave Robb for his birthday.
“Harley was the first animal I gave the heimlich maneuver to—he was a pig,” Robb recounted. Before the goats devoured his entire garden, he found a home for them with two teenagers. But the heartwarming moment was when he heard the goats crying out to him from the back of the truck, “Ddddddad!”
I received a gift of a dozen old rose bushes from an elderly woman who was dismantling her garden. Thrilled to get free scented roses, like ‘Madame Hardy’ I planted them enthusiastically in a big bed along the driveway, without a clue about how big they would get. Years later I fought my way inside the bed to dig out a five-foot-tall weed that had risen through the jungle of rose canes. Even with long sleeves, I could hardly get inside the thorny thicket, and nearly got stuck inside.
After a hard look at the situation, I hired a landscaper to dig out the roses, and brought in a truckload of composted manure. I planted my first low-maintenance border, layering Idesia trees, shrubs like Viburnum and Osmanthus, and drifts of hellebores, ferns and epimediums. It’s now my favorite bed in the garden.
Not to worry. Mistakes are great, they’re how we learn. It takes guts to risk failure. Gardeners are a brave and courageous tribe who keep on blundering, learning and laughing. If anything, we’re gardening more passionately than ever, possibly with a smidgeon more wisdom, but definitely with lots of gusto. Resisting is out of the question.
Dulcy’s final words of advice were “Don’t overly follow the rules,” and “Don’t be afraid to get just one of a kind (instead of groups of 3 or 5).”
She says she will continue to be “over the top.” Me too. A huge order of dahlias is coming soon. Smitten by the dahlias blooming in Swan Island’s fields last summer, I ordered dozens to take advantage of free shipping and bonus plants. Where the heck will I plant them?
But as Dulcy put it so well, about her decision to give up growing roses, and then ordering more (but only very disease resistant varieties), “I can’t help myself.”

The Garden Saved My Life

2009-03-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

What I enjoy writing about most of all is what happens to us when we garden—how gardening changes us, shapes us, teaches us, gives us gifts we could never have imagined. In “Garden Retreats” I wrote about creating an outdoor sanctuary; in “Married to My Garden” I wrote about my love affair with gardening; and in “Garden Muse,” my weekly column for the Portland Tribune, I often reflect on how the garden is a source of great joy and inspiration.

So I’m thrilled that my personal essay, “The Garden Saved My Life” was just published in a new anthology, “The Ultimate Gardener,” in the section aptly titled Garden Transformations. For it’s the transformative aspect of gardening that I’m especially interested in these days—how the garden heals us, comforts us, and takes us out of our small everyday selves into the bigger soulful part of our nature.

The stories inside The Ultimate Gardener will inspire you, make you laugh and cry, and bring you new ideas about gardening. You can order the book on line and find it in many bookstores. I’ll be signing personalized copies at upcoming events this spring and summer. If you’d like to receive notices about dates and places, just let me know and I’ll e-mail you directly. The book makes a perfect Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Birthday or Anniversary present.

Kiss the Ground

2009-03-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a visit to the east coast and now I want to kneel down and kiss the ground here. First of all, our gardens are green with grass and OK, maybe weeds too, but still green is everywhere—Doug Fir, pines, spruce, hemlock, Japanese incense cedar, eucalyptus, evergreen viburnums, daphne, sweet box, boxwood, box honeysuckle, Senecio greyii, Phlomis fruticosa. The lawns on the east coast are brown, and yes, there are evergreens, but nowhere near the variety that we can grow.

Hellebores are blooming here and we take them for granted every winter, along with snowdrops, lungwort (Pulmonaria), early daffodils, witch hazel (Hamamelis), winter hazel (Corylopsis) and winter aconites (Eranthis). We can actually design a garden with winter as the backbone, an easy way to guarantee happiness in the quiet season. Make sure to include a witch hazel or ‘Dawn’ viburnum for flowers and scent; sweet box (Sarcococca) for fragrant evergreen understory in the shade; Mahonia x Charity for yellow flowers that draw the earliest hummingbirds; and winter cyclamen for a splash of hot pink flowers and marbled leaves.

It may hail and snow in March, but the robins are still out there singing their hearts out and searching for worms. Rose canes are breaking new growth and every day I go out and prune a few of the dozens and dozens that wait patiently for their annual haircut. This is the time to spot the early weedy grasses and dig them out while the ground is soft, to find the baby cresses and yank them before they bloom and go to seed, to detect the buttercups sneaking in between the irises and geraniums and trowel them out. So don’t be a sissy. Throw on some hooded fleece and get out in the garden. Sooner is better to get going on the spring garden and greet your plant friends as they emerge from winter dormancy.

Early Cuties

2009-02-16T14:56:00.000-08:00

There’s something so endearing about the earliest flowers. Yesterday out in my garden, while I was kneeling down to clean up some leaf litter, I came across a little clump of snowdrops that had seeded themselves into the gravel near the greenhouse. Nose to nose with their tiny white flowers marked with green, a thrill coursed through me. Life is back in the garden!

Then I got an e-mail from my friend Michele who wrote, “The snowdrops in my front garden are tugging at my heartstrings.” All over Portland, no doubt, gardeners are exulting in the first flowers.

It’s the same when red peony shoots push through the soil and announce that they’re back for another season of sumptuous flowering. Even those first stems hinting at what’s coming in another few months is enough to make our hearts beat faster. It’s the eternal Yes! that we want to hear whispered, over and over, telling us that the plants lying dormant beneath the earth have only been waiting to reappear and delight us with their marvelous colors and scents.

The Thrill of False Spring

2009-02-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

It's early February and these last two days have been our "false spring" with temperatures in the 60s, sunny and glorious. I'm in heaven. I know it will rain again, but not yet! Birds are very active too, exulting in the warmth, and the suet feeder is covered with little bush tits every day.

Cutting off last year’s hellebore leaves is so satisfying—while I’m doing this I’m face to face with the newly opening flowers. I tip the pendant blossoms upward with one finger and look right inside them—some white, some pink, some burgundy, some freckled with darker splashes of color. So many hundreds of tiny hellebore seedlings sprout at the feet of the mother plants, it’s hard to find safe places to tread.

Now is the time to cut back the big stands of ornamental switch grasses too—Panicum ‘Shenandoah’ and ‘Dallas Blues.’ I whack them back with long-handled loppers and pitch the spent tan stalks onto a big tarp, to be dragged to the compost pile. In my mind’s eye I see them rising up again, ‘Shenandoah’ with red tinted slender blades and ‘Dallas Blues’ with broader blue-green foliage.

Sedums too are ready to cut back, ‘Matrona’ and ‘Vera Jameson’ are already pushing up little succulent rosettes. I snip off the old stems and marvel at the signs of new life already arising in February. Everywhere I look the garden’s pulse is quickening.

Why I Garden

2009-01-19T08:32:00.001-08:00

For me, the garden is the best home I’ve ever made for myself. It’s where I relish the refreshing scent of rosemary and the smoky tints of ‘Hot Cocoa’ roses, that remind me of taffeta skirts. I love to listen to the bush tits whistle, to the chickadees and song sparrows belting out their arias.

Maybe because I grew up in a home where cleaning and cooking were accompanied by heavy sighs, I never took pleasure in housework. But out in the garden, most every job, except for mowing, is fun for me. My first garden teacher, Frank Curtis, radiated so much love for gardening that I caught the bug. He did everything with tender loving care, from settling his baby tomato plants into the soil, to nipping out the suckers, from building a compost pile to turning the soil. He taught me everything he knew—how and when to sow seeds, how to wield a mattock, which plants were weeds—with so much joy! His enthusiasm was contagious.

From the beginning, gardening connected me with a big world of emerging life—woody stems swelling with buds, tiny hellebore seedlings sprouting beneath the mother plants, iridescent black beetles climbing out from a pile of damp leaves. Sometimes I even stop to marvel at the persistence of weeds, at the temerity of slugs and aphids.
If I help out, the wetland I live on becomes a better garden. The native clay soil, for example, is a perfect medium for growing plants—once I amend it with pumice or crushed rock for better drainage, and with compost for more fertility and tilth. The garden needs me to bring it to fruition—we become partners in creation. What a miracle that is!

It’s still work, but in the spirit of joy and play. I take a brain vacation while I’m digging, raking or weeding. A writer’s mind, always busy with words and phrases and punctuation, needs a break from all that mental activity. And I’m guessing that most all of our minds are overloaded with blather and can use a good airing out in the garden.

Even in winter, there’s plenty to do. This week I cut back all the old leaves on the hellebores. There, peeking out from underneath, are the new buds, almost ready to open. One dark purple hellebore is already showing its beautiful face. And here and there, small grey slugs lounge beneath the leaves, growing fatter each day. It’s an easy choice between the flowers and the slugs—slugs gotta go!

Soon it will be time to prune the grape arbor and the roses, but not quite yet. Jumping the gun now could mean exposing the newly pruned plants to the next cold front. I can wait. Meanwhile, I can safely cut back all the deadened stems of totally hardy perennials like turtleflowers, asters, and gooseneck loosestrife. The compost piles grow tall and hefty with leaves, kitchen peelings and old potting soil, waiting for the next rain to pack them down.

Here Come the Catalogs

2009-01-10T17:34:00.000-08:00

I love the avalanche of catalogs that floods my mailbox in January. Thanks goodness it’s an oversize mailbox or it would have collapsed under the tonnage. The covers alone thrill me—images of pink lilies and and illustrations of golden beets vie for my attention.
Nichols Garden Nursery (www.NicholsGardenNursery.com), celebrating its 60th year, has a beautiful cover that takes me back to slower times. Framed by a pear tree, a young woman gathers sunflowers, accompanied by her adorable dog.
I e-mailed artist Marcie Hawthorne (www.marciehawthorne.com) to let her know how much I love her work, and to request permission to post the cover on my blog. In her reply, she told me more about the illustration.
“This year the artwork depicts my daughter, Sierra, when she was younger, and our beloved (and now departed) female Ridgeback, Teneya, who also was a constant companion in the
garden,” she wrote.
Inside the catalog, vegetable, flower and herb seeds for sale are accompanied by mouthwatering descriptions. Supplies for making cheese, home brewing and wine making will also give you new ideas for 2009.
Rose Marie Nichols McGee and her husband Keane McGee carry on the business that her parents began in 1948. And together with Maggie Stuckey, Rose Marie wrote “The Bountiful Container,” now in its fourth printing. It shows you how to create container gardens of veggies, herbs, fruits and edible flowers.
“People don’t have enough room to do these big gardens. They want a small garden that can yield twelve months a year,” she says. For example, Survivor Parsley can be harvested longer than any other variety.
“It has more sugars in the leaves, and sugars help the plant survive,” Nichols says.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Bluestone Perennials—it was the first mail order catalog I used back in the days when I couldn’t find enough selection in local nurseries (hard to believe now). Their offerings remain tempting and their 15% early discount helps offset the shipping charge. I’m smitten by Agastache ‘Raspberry Summer,’ Sedum ‘Picolette,’ and Kolkwitzia ‘Dream Catcher,’ to name just a few enticements. You can request a free color catalog at their website (www.bluestoneperennials.com) and also check out their tempting half price on-line-only specials.
Leafing through the White Flower Farm catalog is like walking through a spring and summer garden. The lush color photos practically jump off the page, especially the dazzling dahlia display. Most of all I love the container collections, which make me want to plant more annuals next summer. The way to offset the shipping is to order a $50 (or more) gift certificate and get a 10% discount on your order.
Some of my most unusual plants have come from forestfarm (www.forestfarm.com), a major source of woody and herbaceous ornamentals, located in Williams, Oregon. At the website you can see color photos of the plants, and order a free print copy of the catalog which will serve as a terrific reference book. I usually order the more economical tubes (which have always been thick with well-formed roots) and then grow them on in larger pots. You’ll be amazed at their offerings of viburnum, hydrangea, eucalyptus, pine, crape myrtle, willow....

Back in the Garden, At Last

2009-01-06T17:44:00.001-08:00

Is It Winter or Spring?

During the snow storm, I’d taken apart my two piece terra cotta birdbaths and laid the tops—the basins—on the ground. In past years the weight of snow and ice would tip over the birdbaths, but not any more! In February I’ll reassemble them—for now they’ll stay put in case we have another cold front.

So this mild January morning, the birds were creative and found their own natural birdbath—the little bog had filled to the brim with rainwater. Splashing away freely, several robins sang heartily enough to wake me from my writing trance. I watched them through my office window, grabbing binoculars for a closer look. Plump, russet-breasted birds reveled in the fresh water, fluttering their wings and spraying droplets all around them. Oh yes! Then, flying across the garden, they swooped low and high. Praising the sun, the moisture, the worms now easy to pull from damp and mossy lawn.

Reluctantly, I left for an aerobics class at the gym, but made sure to drive straight home afterwards, without getting sidetracked. The afternoon remained dry and temperate, a perfect time for a reunion with my beloved garden—I’d been missing my connection with the earth for some weeks now.

I celebrated, along with the birds. Was it winter or spring? On Sunday it was snowing and today it was mild as May. It’s hard not to get spring fever when the birds are singing and bright green moss springs up through the lawn from so much moisture. I got out my long-handled loppers and pruned a big yellow-twig dogwood, taking out the thick older trunks, and leaving the newer, brighter stems. I raked up the last of the spiny sweet gum seedpods from the lawn, and filled the yard debris can to the top. I’ll sleep soundly tonight!

You'll Enjoy this Book

2008-12-23T08:15:00.001-08:00

Waiting, an excerpt from Married to My Garden

2008-12-23T08:11:00.001-08:00

Winter is a Waiting Time

An excerpt from Married to My Garden, my most recent book

Clouds come from time to time—
and bring a chance to rest
from looking at the moon.
—Basho

Late January and the ground is frozen, the trees are coated with white frost and all the little beautiful evergreen colonies of Mrs. Robb’s spurge are huddled together shivering in the cold. This is a time of stillness. It’s the dormant season, from the root dormire, meaning to sleep. I would like to return to my bed and slumber on this Tuesday morning, but instead I bundle up in fleece and sip hot Earl Gray tea, and write, looking out onto the bleak landscape. Even the rake stands against the sweet gum tree in repose, and the compost pile is frozen stiff. Nothing moves in the garden.
So the sight of a few birds flying between the tree tops is a relief of sorts. Life wants to move. So much stillness smacks of death. I long to go outside and do something—my fingers itch for the pruners and the trowel. I want to pull weeds, to prune roses, to grab a handful of lavender and pinch the leaves, releasing the aroma of summer, of love, of happiness. Winter is a hardship, a deprivation, an absence that makes me cranky. But remembering how cold it is out there, and how quickly my fingers will turn red, I decide to be a bear in winter, to hibernate and be still.
This quiet time is part of a cycle that comes each year, a breathing space between all the planting and tending, all the grooming and feeding. It’s a time to reflect, to look, to contemplate, to simply be rather than do.
In every life process there’s a segment like this. Just before the seed germinates, it sits quietly underground, in the dark, out of sight. A certain amount of faith is required for us to leave it alone under the soil, and let it spring to life in its own sweet time. We wait. The same with the bulbs that we bury each fall. Underground they sit for months, invisible to us, doing what bulbs do in the deep of winter, until it is time for them to spread their roots and send their shoots up into the upper world.
And it is the same with us, with our own internal growth processes. We have a knot to unravel, a problem to solve, and we mull, we discuss, we write, we contemplate, and then, we bury it in our own sweet unconscious mind and sleep on it. The seed, the bulb must rest a while in the dark, must quiet down before it is ready to send down roots and send up shoots and bloom into understanding. Perhaps a dream will come in the night to cast some light, or an insight will appear some days later. No need to rush or worry—the quiet time, the night, the waiting, are all part of the growth process.

Birds Have Their Say

2008-12-23T07:56:00.001-08:00

Birds Have Their Say

In the garden, I never know how small surprises will change me in big ways. This past year, the birds had their influence, and this is how it all started, last spring.
At first, the song of mourning doves woke me up early each morning. Their haunting tune, which my musician husband Tom says is C followed by F sharp, is a lot more calming than the screech of scrub jays.
Out in the garden, I followed the sound of the mourning doves to see if I could find their nest. Sure enough, it was in the gutter just behind the white lilac in full bloom, right above our bedroom window. I could see a baby bird’s head peeking over the gutter, waiting for worms. No wonder we could hear their morning serenade so clearly! I made a mental note to postpone the gutter cleaning 'til after nesting season.
Mourning doves delight me in many ways. I enjoy their stately walk along the driveway where they hunt for bugs and seeds. I love the flutter of their wings when they take off, and their pretty gray and tan colors. Bird life adds so much pleasure of the garden.
The largest gathering of birds is at the furthest end of the garden where old hawthorn trees reach from the neighbor’s yard and weave together with my own Portuguese laurel, witch hazel, Cornelian cherry dogwood, and mock orange, to form a dense hedgerow. Safely ensconced in this twiggy habitat, birds sing their hearts out at dawn and again at dusk, praising the day at both ends. The melodic cry of chickadees, the staccato twitter of bush tits, the sawing buzz of hummingbirds thrills me.
The joy of listening to this natural choir helps me appreciate the gifts of the less manicured part of the garden. I no longer need to apologize for this rather shaggy, naturalistic area, where I’ve let things go, and surrendered to the wild and woolly origins of this site. Now I see it as an homage to the original elderly homeowner who grew only fruit trees and let the grasses grow thigh high. I dedicate the south end of the property to Mr. Berg, to the birds and Mother Nature.
Now I plant all my new treasures closer to the house, where I can keep an eye on them, and protect them from slugs, weeds and cutworms. This is where the soil has been amended repeatedly, and many of the beds have been raised to provide better drainage. I have finally drawn some boundaries between the cultivated garden and the native wetland, and there is great comfort in knowing where to focus my energy.

Gushing Geyser

2008-12-23T07:53:00.001-08:00

Winter Excitement

I was still in my bathrobe, working on my column for the Portland Tribune, when a big bang interrupted my writer’s trance. I figured it was the UPS guy who loves to run up the porch, drop a package and then rap on the door like there’s a fire. But then, I heard more banging. I ran to the door and there was my neighbor Denise, pointing to a large geyser shooting up in my front yard. Oh my god, it looked like someone had installed a huge jet fountain right beside the driveway.
I knew the shutoff was right there beside the geyser, but by now a small lake was covering it up. I ran for the phone and in my panic asked information for the Portland Water Bureau and was speaking with them before I realized I needed the West Slope Water Bureau. Dialed again, got lovely Heidi, who stays calm through all emergencies and within minutes Bart and his crew were on the scene.
But even before Bart arrived, a handsome young man knocked on the door and offered to help. A contractor, working in the neighborhood, he had the right tool—a key—to shut off the water, but didn’t have high boots. We waited together, and soon the real experts arrived and began fishing through the lake to find the shutoff valve.
Once they turned the water main off, the actual catastrophe seemed less dramatic. Water pooled away from the lake and everything calmed down, including my racing heart. Turned out the hose bib connection had burst, not a pipe, thank goodness, and I’d just have to replace the faucet. The men went to lunch and returned later, shut off the irrigation valve (which delivers water to the garden) and turned the main back on, so I’d have water to the house.
While I waited for them, I surveyed the damage. The water had washed away the soil around the roots of a newly planted ‘Coppertina’ ninebark and uprooted some recently planted spurges and hyacinth bulbs. Even in the cold I was able to dig out some frozen wood chips from the big pile on the shoulder of the road—mulch for the garden paths—and cover the roots for now. I poked the bulbs and spurges back into the ground and hoped for the best.
I tried to give the water bureau guys a tip, but they refused it over and over, so I handed them a shopping bag of goodies that I was going to take to a party next week—little boxes of cookies, candy, popcorn, truffles, from a Harry and David gift package that my dad sent for Chanukah. I was relieved that they let me give them at least that. Those poor guys! One had his arm a foot down in the icy water trying to find the shutoff valve. They were so kind, too, said I just needed to buy a new faucet, and to remember to shut off the water next year, without any lecturing or hectoring.
Ironically, I’d shut off all the water to the front and back yards and to the greenhouse, weeks before this cold front hit, but didn't think I needed to shut off this particular box as it's always been sound. Until now. Sigh.
It's been a while since I had such an adrenaline rush. It took about half an hour to get back to normal. I think I've had my excitement for the week. I'm staying in now, with a cup of hot tea and the cats for company. Napping as usual, they took it all in stride, that is, if they noticed anything at all.

Mike Darcy Visits My Garden

2008-12-22T07:18:00.000-08:00

In the Garden with Judith of Garden Time

2008-12-22T07:12:00.000-08:00

2008-12-20T16:27:00.001-08:00

Moments of Joy Between Storms

Growing up in New York City where anyone sane uses public transportation, I never learned to drive on snow and ice. Even now, as soon as the ground turns white, I panic. Racing to the grocery store to stock up on life’s necessities—bananas, dark chocolate, eggs, spinach, crackers, yogurt, cheese, apples, soup stock, romaine, red peppers, cat food—I stuff the cabinets and refrigerator as full as my Jewish mother would have. I dash to the library to pick up reserved books and find a few promising DVDs. Only then can I relax and settle in at home.
I write, drink Stash peach black tea with vanilla Silk, pet the cats a lot, and worry. Will the power go out? How long will it be before I can drive again? Will I be able to get to dinner with friends, to my dream group, to my Women’s Circle holiday party, to see the Christmas boats with my husband Tom?
After three days of this, I grow very crabby. I crave exercise, I’m desperate for sight of a flower, I miss my garden. I get snappish with Tom. I start feeling old and decrepit. I realize that my hair is way overdue for cutting, that all vestiges of my summer tan are gone, that my muscles are turning to jelly. Worst of all, I have nothing to write about, with the garden shrouded in snow.
So today, I am overjoyed to watch the black asphalt reappear as the snow and ice melts. I call my hairdresser and she too is elated, as her morning has been filled with cancellations. Together we maniacally exult over this surprising window between storms, as she snips, shapes and fluffs. It’s heavenly to be surrounded by people, by the smell of lavender botanical shampoo as Tracey massages it into my hair, even by the sounds of muzak. I leave feeling renewed, and head for Starbucks to get a soy latte.
Most days, I see these kinds of activities as interruptions in my writing and gardening day, but today I soak in every sensory detail and stimulus. When a woman bumps my grocery cart near the refrigerated cheeses at Trader Joe’s, I give her a big smile. I savor the food samples with complete and sincere thankfulness—Stilton embedded with cranberries on a cracker with a side of sharp cheddar are exquisitely delicious, especially since I skipped half my breakfast to get to the hairdresser’s on time.
Every day is filled with amazing moments of beauty and pleasure, but these bursts of delight are more vivid after a period of emptiness. I think we’re in for more snow soon, and I hope I’ll remember the benefits of being housebound, and go with the flow.