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!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
A Few of Our Favorite Plants
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Falling in Love with 'Josephine' Clematis
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.
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.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Getting Old Gratefully
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.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Women Reinvented
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.
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.
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Blooper Panel at the Yard Garden & Patio Show
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.”
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.”
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Garden Saved My Life
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
