PLANTWISE

Chicken Shirts

- going viral?

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Mar 14, 2010 at 11:52AM 0 Comments

Karen Wolfgang and Isabel LaCourse, co-owners of Independence Gardens, LLC

If there’s anything a sluggish economy does, it’s make people crafty. By crafty, I mean arts-and-craftsy.

Take the Portland Chicken Shirt phenomenon. A couple of years ago, two women running a sustainable edible gardening business started screen printing some goofy chickens onto thrift-store t-shirts as holiday gifts for friends and family. Before long, other people wanted them and their creators realized they were on to a good thing. These shirts are fun, funky and come in great colors. I got one at Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply – and received another as a gift soon afterward! (Fortunately, a different color.) Now they’re making them in toddler and children’s sizes, too.

I was wearing one of mine under several woolly layers at a meeting recently and was talking with some folks about chickens. Before long, I mentioned my lovely chicken shirt, only to discover I was chatting with the shirt’s creator!

Since we in Portland are up to our ears in urban farming movement mud, it only makes sense that we want to show our chicken-love to the world… after all, once you’ve experienced the beady little eyes of your own hen staring at your hand and insistently pecking it because she thinks you have something to eat, long after you’ve opened your hand and shown her that you don’t, you’ll never be the same! And let’s not forget how adorable chickens look when they run… and roost… and sit on their eggs… Chickens are quite possibly the most endearing creatures on Earth. I’m sure that chicken-people are at least as proud of their friendly, charming, slug-eating, egg-producing pets as dog-people. And we all know how much dog-people love their dogs.

As long as chicken-people don’t start looking like their chickens the way dog-people morph into their dogs, I’m cool.

Bella – the perfect dog for a chicken-person! Same size, weight and fluffiness but regrettably, no eggs and she doesn’t usually eat slugs. Of course, chickens don’t retrieve tennis balls.

Chicken Shirts are available in children’s sizes S, M, and L and adults’ XS, S, M, L, XL, and 2X, as well as long-sleeve S, M, and L (brown and black only). They have just started producing “Chicken Squirt” onesies and will soon add hoodies. Click here to see colors and styles or to order on-line. Or buy then at Linnton Feed & Seed, Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply, or Wichita Feed & Hardware at 6089 SE Johnson Creek Blvd., Portland (503-775-6767).

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Bishop’s Close Garden

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Mar 09, 2010 at 06:00PM 3 Comments

Magnolia sargentiana var rubra

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Magnolia sargentiana var rubra

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Late flowering cherries and magnolias and early rhododendrons

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Spike winter hazel (Corylopsis spicata)

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I like the contrast between the clipped boxwood and sinewy trees and curving, informal paths

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The handsome and unusual Parrotiopsis jacquemontiana tree

The Bishop’s Close (Elk Rock Gardens) in the Dunthorpe neighborhood is one of the city’s best kept secrets. The garden and house – once in private hands, now housing the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon – date back to the beginning of the last century. The garden is beautifully maintained and is open to the public for visiting year-round.

Have you ever been?

I just returned from an impromptu visit and am again full of appreciation for the charm of the place. There are numerous ancient specimens of trees and shrubs – it’s a great place to see just how big various shrubs and trees can get in time. I’m thinking of the garden’s giant Japanese paperbush (Edgeworthia chrysantha ), which is at least six feet tall and eight feet wide, but there are hundreds of trees and shrubs, both rare and classic. It’s great to see specimens gaining stature in a park-like setting instead of growing through each other in the cramped confines of small city lots.

I didn’t have time to walk up into the native madrone woods on the hill beyond the garden – if you go, do allow at least an hour for the garden and the walk up the hill, which takes you to some spectacular views of the Willamette River.

Instead of giving you all the details, let me just show you a bit of what I saw today. (See slideshow.) Late winter is just one of many lovely seasons in this remarkable garden. It sparkles in early winter, when huge, lichen-encrusted witch hazel (Hamamelis sp. ) are in blossom on the upper terrace and, down below, the winter aconites shine in sheets of gold under the trees. Autumn is also spectacular, when the autumn leaves turn burgundy, red, orange and brilliant gold. I love the rockery in winter, when the conifers take on rosy or rusty winter hues. Now, it is magnolia season and there are some venerable old trees still in spectacular flower. Drink it in while you can.

The gardens are open to the public from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm daily – but are closed some holidays. For more information about opening hours, call 503.636.5613.

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Backyard Habitat Certification

I did it – you can, too!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Mar 06, 2010 at 01:00PM 2 Comments

The fabulous duo of Gaylen Beatty of Three Rivers Land Conservancy and Karen Munday of Portland Audubon came out to my house on a cold winter’s day and gave my garden their stamp of approval for nurturing wildlife. But I still have a ways to go towards improving things. I’ve already started working on it, ladies – come back soon!

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Out with invasives! I may love my unusual white-flowered, cream-variegated honesty plant (aka, money plant, known to botanists as Lunaria annua Variegata Alba) but I’d hate to contribute to Oregon’s already bad invasive plant problems!

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This 20-foot tall and wide shrubby flowering quince (Chaenomeles sp.) straddles my and my neighbor’s yard. It’s wild and overgrown, just like the birds like it. Hummingbirds and songbirds nest in there every year and it offers safety from predators, as well. It’s nice to have some untamed, wild places in your neighborhood.

As anyone who’s met me lately at a cocktail party can attest, I rattle on a lot about the native insects in my back garden. (Ever since I joined the Xerces Society, I’ve been a total pest about bugs!)

So when I found out about the Backyard Habitat Certification Program, a partnership of the Audubon Society, Three Rivers Land Conservancy and the East Multnomah County Water District, I immediately signed myself up.

This program is designed to help Portland area homeowners restore native wildlife habitat in their yards – that means for bees, birds, lizards (if you’re lucky), and other creatures. Oh, and plants, of course! For $25, you receive useful educational materials, valuable resources to help you get started (low-cost plants, coupons and gift cards) and individual feedback on your garden’s habitat-friendliness. The focus is on removing noxious weeds, replanting Willamette Valley native plants, managing storm water and basically creating beneficial habitat for native wildlife.

It all starts with a home site assessment. For this, a knowledgeable backyard certification staff person comes to your yard for a site visit. Together, you tromp around and notes are taken on invasive weeds, storm water issues (impervious surfaces, whether IPM methods are used, etc). Any existing native plants are noted and, if you qualify, the level of certification for which you qualify is awarded on the spot and you’ll receive advice on moving up to the next level. If you aren’t quite there yet, you’ll receive detailed information about how to create more valuable habitat for wildlife so that you can be certified.

There are three levels of certification. Silver is the first level – this was my certification level because I have 5% native cover. When I increase the native cover in my garden to 15%, and take further steps to create still better habitat for wildlife (such as installing a water feature for birds and butterflies to splash about in – or an orchard mason bee house) I would certify for second level “gold” status. Platinum level certification is the “top” level.

The walk-through was fascinating! As we strolled and talked, it was observed that I had an invasive species in my garden – a rather lovely white-flowered, cream-variegated leafed money plant (Lunaria annua ‘Variegata Alba’). I guess I hoped they wouldn’t recognize it (I do remove the tops after they finish flowering) but Galen Beatty (of Three Rivers Land Conservancy) and Karen Munday (Portland Audubon) know their plants. True, it’s variegated and marginally less aggressive than the straight green leafed, purple-flowered form. (There’s a picture in the slideshow.) But I do notice that it throws out the occasional green-leafed reversion. So out it will come, in the name of good environmental stewardship!

After the site visit, I received a Home Visit Assessment Report which detailed my property and the watershed I belong to. It outlined everything we discussed during the site visit, including the wildlife-friendly qualities of my garden and the steps I would need to take to make it increasingly wildlife friendly over time.

I also received an amazing wealth of resources including a fat Naturescaping binder providing all the basic information needed to envision and then create a haven for wildlife in your garden. Why are native insects important? What kind of a garden design is most useful to native birds? This volume addresses these questions, and provides planting diagrams and plans and numerous plant lists.

In addition, I got a file folder with more resources and ideas for cultivating the four main elements of the program: removing invasive plants and cultivating natives, developing a stormwater plan on your property, and attracting and preserving wildlife.

I am now the proud owner a sign which I will post near the front of my garden so that people who see the sign will ask me how I got it! Their goal is to help Portlanders think about and work toward creating a rich and diverse habitat for native wildlife. I’m all for it. How about you?

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Grocery Gardening

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Mar 03, 2010 at 11:43PM 0 Comments

I recently received a review copy of Grocery Gardening, a hands-on guide to growing and enjoying fresh garden produce.

Portland author Jean Ann Van Krevelen wrote the book to help readers get started growing and preparing their own food. I liked the book and wanted to meet her so we went out for lunch after the Yard, Garden & Patio Show. I wanted to know what she feels is the “hook” that inspires people – especially young people – to garden – and eat from the garden. For both of us, gardening came to us through parents and grandparents who were avid gardeners. But not everyone has a family member who gardens and can model how simple it can be to grow your own food. That’s where an accessible how-to book like this comes in.

Think of Grocery Gardening like a substitute gardening grandma. An extra hip, fun-loving grandma who shows you how to start an organic food garden but never gets mad at you for not wiping your muddy shoes. And while the book doesn’t actually make delicious, home-cooked meals for you, it does offer inspiring recipes that will make you want to run to the kitchen yourself.

Grocery Gardening starts with “Gardening 101,” detailing the basic information needed to plan your food garden, amend your soil, start your seeds and deal with potential pests. Since part of the goal of growing vegetables and fruit is to eat all this delicious, organic produce, there’s a section on purchasing quality produce at the grocery store or farmers market. After all, you probably won’t be growing everything you eat the first year. I appreciate the list of the most and least contaminated foods – it’s worth growing your own or paying more for organics when buying peaches or bell peppers, for example.

The book then covers how to start and nurture 25 herbs, fruits and vegetables, with guidance on canning, freezing, dehydrating, and storing the produce. Several valuable recipes are provided for each herb, fruit and vegetable.

Now Jean Ann isn’t just a book author: she a veritable bundle of energy, writing blogs on food, on edible gardening, and on technology for entrepreneurs. The back-story to this book is that it was written in collaboration with three co-authors – none of whom had met in person. Instead, they were Facebook and Twitter friends and decided to see if they could put together a book about food and gardening in 60 days using recipes and ideas culled from their voluminous lists of social media contacts. This collaborative venture produced a lively, fresh book full of practical details that will help a total beginner get started – and inspire any food gardener with fun ideas and great recipes. A note to the computer-savvy – the authors are all still tapping away, writing informative gardening and cooking blogs – so the opportunities are there for continued interaction.

I was impressed by something Jean Ann said that afternoon when we plonked ourselves down for lunch (we hit one of my favorite quickie meal spots, Ole Ole on E. Burnside). When I asked her what really gets non-gardeners into gardening, particularly edible gardening, she said, “What it doesn’t take is an overblown idea of perfectionism. Gardening and cooking can be more relaxed, more accessible,” she said. “Gardening is too often presented as if it were an Olympic sport. It’s not that hard. We’re putting things in dirt, people!”

So let’s get past that all-or-nothing thinking. Don’t have the time or the space to dig a vegetable garden in your back yard this spring? Then plant some lettuce in a pot. Planting a seed is a metaphor for starting afresh, creating new life. It’s the easiest thing in the world and humans have been doing it for aeons. You can do it, too.

One pot with organic potting soil and a packet of seeds is all you need to start a vegetable garden. This pot’s big but you can start with almost any kind of container that has a hole in the bottom.

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Hellebore Season

it’s prime time!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Feb 26, 2010 at 02:20AM 0 Comments

Three particularly nice hellebores growing right next to each other at Honeyhill Farms Nursery

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A particularly lovely Hellebore at Honeyhill Farms Nursery (photo taken while lying in path looking up!)

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A double reddish Helleborus x hybridus at Honeyhill Farms Nursery

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Pale pink Helleborus x hybridus – older flowers fading to pale creamy pink. (Another photo taken while lying under plants.)

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A nice, apple green Helleborus x sternii – a hybrid between the Corsican hellebore (H. argutifolius) and the slightly tender H. lividus. H. x sternii seedlings are usually perfectly cold hardy.

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Seedlings of Cyclamen coum, a tough little perennial garden plant that is perfectly hardy in Portland, Oregon. It’s not a hellebore, of course, but it’s the one other plant sold at Honeyhill Farms Nursery and happens to be an incredible garden plant that more people should know about. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Hellebores produce some of the most treasured flowers of winter and early spring. There are many species and hybrids available, each with particular assets in the garden. Breeding efforts particularly focusing on the Lenten roses (Helleborus x hybridus) seen at left are creating ever-richer colors and the forms are increasingly refined every year, with doubles, semi-doubles, more pronounced nectaries and larger, more upward-facing flowers. Other types of hellebores offer beautiful, marbled, sheeny-silver and markedly serrated or plum-infused foliage. There’s even a double Christmas rose (Helleborus niger ).

Yet for all the apparent delicacy of the blossoms, the plants themselves are adaptable and tough garden plants. They are quite drought- and, shade tolerant, deer-proof and – best of all – they flower in winter, when we are longing for color and signs of life in the garden.

There are so many gorgeous hybrids that it can be hard to choose between them. But now is the time to do it – for within a few weeks, the flowers will have faded. And then, sadly, the opportunity to choose just the right color and flower shape will be gone until next February/March.

Local nurseries carry many beautiful varieties, from seed strains (these are the least expensive, as they are very variable in color and form – it’s especially important to select them while they’re in flower) to tissue-cultured varieties that are consistently identical. Helleborus x hybridus cultivars that are tissue-cultured tend to cost more – usually about $20 for a gallon plant. But they are so lovely and precious, you may discover that it feels truly worth it. I adore my plants so much! And pick bouquets from them all winter.

It’s nice to go to a retail nursery where you can find a wide array of hellebore species for sale – the tough, lacy-leaved bear’s foot hellebore (H. foetidus ), the sun-loving, green-flowered Corsican hellebore (H. argutifolius ), the rare and slightly tender Helleborus lividus with marbled silver and green foliage and shell pink flowers, the pure white, very early blooming Christmas rose (H. niger ), and the colorful, exotic Lenten rose (H. x hybridus ), as well as myriad hybrids between all the of the above. But you’re likely to find the best array of colors and types if you head directly to hellebore breeders and specialists.

In the Portland area, my top pick is Honeyhill Farms Nursery in the Raleigh Hills area. Jim and Audrey Metcalfe run this nursery attached to their home year-round but it is only open to the public during hellebore flowering season, usually late January, February and early March (depending on the weather). Jim Metcalfe bred two valuable hellebores, Honeyhill Joy and Honeyhill Peace. (Their photos and descriptions can be found on their website, here.) This lovely hillside is home not only to a variety of hellebores but also a gorgeous array of Cyclamen coum, a late winter-flowering hardy Cyclamen. (See slideshow for a pic.)

Another fantastic Hellebore breeder is Northwest Garden Nursery, which holds open house weekends during hellebore flowering season. Upcoming hellebore open garden days are: February 27-28 and March 5-7 from 10 am to 5 pm. Other open nursery dates are listed on the website. Ernie and Marietta O’Byrne used to sell all variety of woodland plants at their nursery and have turned their focus towards wholesale hellebore breeding in recent years. Their extensive display gardens alone are worth a trip to Eugene. They are responsible for the Winter Jewels TM series of hellebore hybrids.

Last but not least, I recommend a trip to Dancing Oaks Nursery in Monmouth to see the hellebores and many other winter flowering plants. Fred Weisensee and Leonard Foltz’s display gardens are carved out of a scenic hillside surrounded by native oak woods. It’s an extraordinary site. They hold their Winter Bloomers Open House Feb 27-28 from 10 to 4 pm. Dancing Oaks is a retail nursery and is open year-round. But the hellebores are only in flower for a couple more weeks so head out there soon. It’s a great trip and you can visit a winery or two on the way out.

Have fun!

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