Questions

Today I have some questions. Some are rhetorical, some are meant to inform. Others, well, I truly am asking. We'll start here:

Did you know that Euphorbias can and do fall victim to herbivores? I thought these contained toxic sap? My recent addition was nibbled down to a stump. At only 2" (5cm) tall in the above photo, I wonder when it will get to a size to be noticed and "pruned" again?

Flowering herbs, briefly

I've always read that herbs are best used before they go to flower, when foliage gets all of the plant's resources.

To me though, plants used as herbs are always best once the blooms appear!

Just a weed

There are a few things I need to remind you about myself before we get into today's post. First, I love big plants. Second, I'm not afraid of vigorous growth or spreading tendencies -- I do grow 30+ types of running bamboo after all. Third, I love flowering vines. Fourth, I often let volunteers grow where they want, which usually means they're not in the best places. With all of that being said, I'd like to introduce you to one of the three main "weeds" in my garden right now:

It's Passiflora incarnata or "maypop", purple passionflower. This is a cold-hardy, native, perennial vine that spreads from its thick roots and is currently taking over the patio area of my garden. But the blooms are so fantastic I really don't care! Although some of the flowers are in reach right now -- a few are on the ground where the vines haven't been able to find anything to climb -- most are above my head, too difficult to photograph easily.

Splash! Finding the Art

Last night I was preparing the photos I took recently at the Portland Japanese Garden, continuing my posts about the 2014 Garden Bloggers Fling. I wasn't with the group on what should have been the second day of the touring, but my wife and I visited a few of the destinations from the itinerary anyway -- the Japanese Garden seemed like a nice place to spend a couple of hours on this hot morning.

We coincidentally arrived at the Japanese Garden a bit after the bloggers did. We saw some of them in the garden but were several minutes behind most of the group, and we stayed here about 90 minutes -- I only point this out because I may have been in the right place at the right time to snap the photos I'm showing you today. Had I been with the group I might have missed this.

"Walk"way

You probably already know about my walkway garden, how I created it a couple of years ago, and just expanded one of the beds this spring.

The thing is, it's more garden than walkway right now.

A look around

I'm taking a break from the Portland garden posts to give you an update on my own garden. Last summer I took very few photos of my yard due to the roadtrip and weeks of posts about it that followed.

I wanted to ensure I didn't make that mistake again, so here's a look at some of what's going on right now here (not everything of course, but parts of it). It's not all exciting, but having the photos for future reference is important. Year-to-year comparisons of planting beds, major plants (like bamboo, or trees, or large perennials), trellises -- if you don't have these images, there will come a day when you'll wish you did!

Portland: Westwind Farm Studio

The last stop of the first day of the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland was another private garden: Westwind Farm Studio. The name is confusing because it's not a farm and I'm not sure what the "studio" designation is for -- I may have missed the explanation when we arrived. (I did find out later that the property was formerly a sheep farm, so that's part of the answer... and their website explains that they have a recording studio too.)

Its name though was of no consequence, because this was one of my favorite stops of the entire trip, something like what I envision my dream garden to be.Views, grasses, privacy, wildlife, sculpture -- the only thing they didn't have was bamboo, otherwise this might have been designed specifically for me!

Portland: Old Germantown Gardens

After visiting Cistus and Joy Creek Nurseries, we on the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland were off to a private garden on Old Germantown Road (hey bus driver, the "Old" part of that name is actually quite important!)

A hillside garden of about two acres contains just about everything you could want in a garden, and the hosts supplemented that with fresh-baked cookies and ice-cold refreshments. I believe we were only here for an hour, but I could have stayed for several more and still be discovering things! (And not only because of the cookies!)

Portland: Joy Creek Nursery

After Cistus Nursery, the buses took us through more scenic farmland (did we just pass a field of spirea and roses?!) and on to Joy Creek Nursery. Whereas Cistus has a bit of an emphasis on more xeric and spiky plants (Agaves, Yuccas, etc.) Joy Creek felt like a more "traditional" nursery -- but that is not the right term to use to describe this wonderful place.

What makes Joy Creek so special is, like Cistus, they have a huge demonstration garden. In fact, I would describe Joy Creek as a garden that also sells plants rather than a nursery with a garden. So much to show you, so I want to jump right in...

Portland: Cistus Nursery

The first day (Friday) of last week's Portland Garden Bloggers Fling started with a walk, but then had us on the bus out to Sauvie Island, for a picturesque 15-mile ride to Cistus Nursery.

What makes Cistus (and the next stop of the tour, Joy Creek Nursery) different from most city and suburban nurseries is its display garden. With a larger-than-urban property, they can plant lots of the things they sell so you can see their potential. And although any nursery that has a wall of bamboo along one border is a winner in my book already, We'll start with the display garden, which you must walk through to reach the more typical sales area.

Timber Press, Lan Su Garden

The first full day of the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland, Oregon started with an 8 AM walk from the hotel to the offices of Timber Press, publishers of so many fantastic gardening books.

You won't see any photos of the walk over there, or images of the building or offices themselves from me as I could say I'm usually more interested in the experience itself than documenting every aspect of it. (I could say that, but maybe I just get lazy sometimes?)

Portland!

Last week/weekend I was in Portland Oregon for the Garden Bloggers Fling, a gathering of about 80 bloggers from around the country (and a few internationals). We toured several gardens and nurseries over three days, but my wife and I arrived a day and a half early so we could check out the city and hang out with an old friend that we haven't seen in at least 15 years.

It turns out that our friend is a gardener and plant person now too, and on Thursday she took us to the International Rose Test Garden up on the hill in Washington Park. The Fling itinerary would have me going to this garden on Saturday, but since I wasn't going to be with the group that day it worked out perfectly!

This is me today

There are pros and cons to flying into an airport that is surrounded by thunderstorms. On the positive side you get to see some really great, angry clouds. You also get to see heavy rain from a unique perspective -- the "wall" of water was really quite impressive, especially as the plane flew around it, giving be a view from different sides. I also saw that the rain was not falling from the cloud that was overhead, as it was coming from the bottom of the storm at about a 45 degree angle. Really cool stuff!

On the negative side, airplanes don't take off when those storms are around, so connecting flights get a little bit delayed. And by "a little bit" I mean five hours. So I got home at 2:15 AM, and very little sleep was enjoyed. I'm feeling and looking like the photo above right now.

Preview

I've been in Portland Oregon for the past few days at the 2014 Garden Bloggers Fling. Three days of touring amazing gardens and a few outstanding nurseries, and my head is almost as full as my camera.

It's going to take a bit of time to work through these photos and put together posts, so I thought I'd start you off with a few photo collages, one from each day of the trip. Although you won't get to see many of these for a while, they should give you a nice taste of what's to come...

Just a peek...

Just a tiny peek at what's to come next week...

There will be many plants that I just won't know anything about. Fun stuff!

Nothing to see here

Kopper King

One of the new plants I bought this spring was Hibiscus 'Kopper King'. I thought its coppery red foliage would look great at the end of my "prairie" bed, where the 'Grosso' lavender used to be.

It's just a small thing right now, only 2' (60cm) tall with a single stem, but it's huge blooms are still quite impressive. (I swear I got this for the foliage!)

Making the best...

If you've been reading my blog for at least a few months, you'll know that this past winter was very tough on most of my bamboos. Although the important in-ground ones leafed back out (whew!) there were several killed culms throughout the garden. In fact, at least four of my less cold-hardy plantings were "top killed", meaning everything above ground died.

That makes for a few dead culms that need to be removed. I've put this task off for a while, letting the dead culms provide support and protection for the newly emerging ones, but I finally decided it was time to start cleaning up a bit.

Fox, then not

One of the things that I've learned over the years is that although there are certainly common problems in many gardens, when it comes to wildlife every gardener sees something different. Climate, geography (both regional and localized), exposure, time of the day and how often you're around -- all of these things play a role in what animals you see out there, and how often. What may be a rare and exciting glimpse for somebody may be an everyday "who cares?" sighting for somebody else.

Case in point: foxes. Although their appearances in my neighborhood are becoming more regular, it's still an exciting day when I see one in my garden. Last Thursday this one little red fox was getting quite comfortable in my garden, hanging around for at least 15 minutes.

Eyes opened, questions

One of my long-time neighbors has been getting the gardening bug the last few years, and this summer it seems to have reached the tipping point -- and I like to think that my garden has helped this to happen. Although she wasn't able to make it the other weekend when my garden was open for the tour, I had a bunch of extra plants to give away so invited her and her husband over.

While walking and talking she kept repeating how excited she was about everything -- in both my garden and hers -- the plants of course, but also the insects.

Reuse!

I had this old sports jug taking up room in the back of one of the kitchen cabinets. I'm putting its age at 18 years old, and as you can see it's looking a bit horrible.

Although I could use a jug like this in the yard this summer -- I sometimes have trouble keeping hydrated when involved in outdoor projects -- I didn't think it would be wise to use this for drinking water anymore, as the plastics could be leaching nasty substances.

Thwarting the chipmunk

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the chipmunk that lives under my front porch was emptying the walkway bird feeder faster than the birds would notice that it was filled.

He'd climb the pole, jump to the feeder, then climb into it and stuff his (her?) cheek pouches. Return a minute later and repeat the process until the safflower seeds were all gone. Not anymore!