PLANTWISE

Planting for Pleasure

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jun 10, 2010 at 01:24PM 6 Comments

What a surprise — it’s raining torrentially again today!

Instead of being out making gardens, I find myself inside the house, staring balefully out at the rain and cursing.

A little while ago, I opened the back door to shake a fist at the sky, in good family tradition, and noticed something wonderful… the poet’s jasmine vine (Jasminum officinale ‘Affine’) that I planted about three years ago is finally doing what I originally fantasized it would do: twining voluptuously up the old ladder leaning against the back of the house and around the back door stoop, as well as up and around my bathroom window.

What’s so great about this twining business, you ask? Well, sitting on the back stoop with a cup of tea or glass of wine or soaking in the tub on a June evening while basking in the heady, intoxicating scent in jasmine provides a direct line to happiness in my book.

While the rain is miserable and we are all saying we are done with it – as if our wishes on this subject mattered one iota – at least being stuck in the house allowed me to notice that this fabled plant, beloved to Cleopatra (the fragrance neroli is derived from jasmine – oops, correction: neroli is derived from orange blossom, not jasmine! – but jasmine was reputedly beloved to Cleopatra!) is blossoming and twining as I’d always hoped it would.

So what’s to learn from this story? You can feed your appreciation for and connection to the garden by planting what you love in the places you where you spend your most precious time. This is one very important facet of gardening: cultivating beauty, appreciation and nourishment of the soul and senses.

Rich purple new growth in spring, soft pink buds and pure white, intensely fragrant flowers – there’s clearly much to love about cold-hardy, semi-evergreen Jasminum officinalis ‘Affine’. Once established, it’s also tolerant of summer heat and drought – perfect for a climate like Portland’s.

For you, maybe stepping out the back door and plucking ripe grapes from the vine would be the height of gardening pleasure. Or gathering bunches of fresh herbs for dinner or admiring the imposing, muscular architectural forms of spiky succulents. For me, it’s inhaling the scents of the Mediterranean – jasmine, as well as plants like Cistus and thyme, all producing floral or foliar scents that send me back to happy experiences with family and friends. That’s why the three plants closest to my back stoop, where I love to sit, are… jasmine, Cistus and thyme.

To create more joyful spaces in your garden, start small – perhaps just with your own back stoop. There, plant the beginnings of an oasis that will nourish you from the inside – something you can experience right when you step outside your door. What might that be? Then – and this is most important – take the time to appreciate it and drink it in as it grows.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Flowers, Outdoor Gardening, Gardening Tips

Plant a Summery Container

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jun 08, 2010 at 08:50AM 2 Comments

I saw this planter a couple of years ago at Cornell Farm Nursery, which sells lovely ready-made planters. Apparently, that hot coral color in the zonal geranium is very fashionable right now!

View Slideshow » Photo: Kate Bryant

Even estate gardeners at the Biltmore let themselves go a little bonkers sometimes. The plant is golden pineapple sage (Salvia elegans ‘Golden Delicious’), which often flowers until December in Portland, though it rarely survives January and February.

View Slideshow » Photo: Kate Bryant

I ran into garden designer Lucy Hardiman and gardener extraordinaire Nancy Goldman at the Portland Nursery last week, as they gathered plants for a joint container planting spree. What did you do with all those plants, ladies?

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Designer Lucy Hardiman has this trio of pots in her front garden that I love for its summery lushness. Variegated hosta, golden Japanese forest grass and the cold-hardy perennial Impatiens omeiense, with exquisite marbled foliage and apricot or pale yellow flowers in summer. Divinely simple.

Planting a summery container is pretty easy: at its most basic, you pick your container, then add soil, plants and water. But as with most things that sound easy, there are a few fancy little tricks of the trade to know about if you haven’t done it much before.

First…

1. Pick your pot. You can start with an existing planter and then find the plants that will suit it or start with the plant and pick a container. But chances are, you already have a pot, window box or urn that’s left over from last year, waiting to be filled.

If you’re working with a smallish pot (say, 12” diameter or less), try planting just one fine, summery flower or foliage plant in it. An ordinary coleus, succulent or geranium can be perfectly charming, even rather clever – when it’s featured solo. Just make sure you’ve picked a plant that will survive in the amount of sun or shade you’re offering. More than one or two plants in a small pot and you’ll be on frequent watering duty in hot weather.

A larger pot (=more root space) expands your options, although most seasonal plantings (vs permanent plantings) really only need 6-10 inches of soil depth. Consider using a planter insert ($5 to $13, depending on diameter) or light-weight pot filler ($20 for small/medium pot -$30 for medium/large) to minimize the weight of larger pots, decrease the amount of soil you need to use, allow you to move pots more easily, and improve drainage.

2. Add potting soil. Most quality commercial potting soil combines peat moss, compost or worm castings and pumice or perlite. Some also include ground bark, coir to improve moisture retention, slow-release fertilizer (“organic” or petroleum-based, depending), or micorrhizae to feed plants’ roots.

For good drainage (think succulents, pines or lavender), choose potting soil with plenty of pumice or perlite. Ground bark can be a helpful addition for potting up trees and woody shrubs, as well as conifers. The debate rages on about whether peat is “renewable” – it seems like an old-growth product to me, and too slowly renewable, so I avoid it where possible. Coir (derived from coconut hulls) is a good lightweight alternative but very moisture-retentive (perfect for, say, fuchsias, ferns or begonias) so not as good for plants requiring quick drainage. Buy organic fertilizer and micorrhizae separately (try Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply or Concentrates and custom-blend them or just buy organic potting soil containing those materials pre-mixed. Help drain holes stay clear in smaller seasonal pots by placing a square of air-permeable frost cloth over the bottom of the pot to prevent pumice or wood chips from clogging it. Avoid using gravel, soda bottles, Styrofoam peanuts or any other “junk” at the bottom of pots, as these materials are difficult to remove or clean and the latter two materials compact.

3. Pick out your plants (the fun part). Combine seasonal summery flowers that tickle your fancy – fragrant, dark purple petunias with chartreuse licorice plant (Helichrysum petiolare ‘Limelight’) and hot coral zonal geraniums or perhaps quaint orange Cuphea or hot pink, velvet-budded Salvia involucrata to attract hummingbirds. Or plant perennials that will look better and better as the summer turns to fall, like tall sedum, ornamental grasses like Shenandoah switch grass (Panicum virgata ‘Shenandoah’) or mixed pots of herbs (try rosemary, sage, thyme and a peachy calendula, with chives in the middle).

If you’re having trouble deciding what to plant, bring the pot to a well-stocked local plant nursery and tote it around on a cart while hunting for inspiration. If the pot’s too big or fragile, bring a photo of it with you (with measurements). Some local nurseries like Cornell Farms , Seven Dees and Portland Nursery have some talented people who can provide solid container planting advice.

Finally, add non-toxic slug bait (Sluggo) and scratch in organic fertilizer a couple of times in the summer to keep plants fiesty.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Flowers, Container Gardening, Get Dirty

Wine and Roses – Seriously!

Heirloom Old Garden Roses’ Rose Days – this weekend

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jun 02, 2010 at 08:24AM 1 Comments

Rain-drenched Rosa ‘Swan’ – a rose I found at Heirloom a few years ago and which has been a stalwart in bouquets ever since.

It’s been a couple of years since my last visit out to Heirloom Old Garden Roses. And there’s no better incentive to get me to do something than to mention that there will be wine so I might just head out there this coming weekend Saturday June 5 and Sunday June 6 from 9 am to 5 pm for Heirloom’s annual Rose Days, timed to coincide with the absolute abundance of roses coming into flower right now.

Heirloom Rose Nursery in St Paul, Oregon sells old-fashioned new roses as well as the gorgeous and historic old roses. They are all own root, which means they are not grafted onto a different root stock, but grown directly from cuttings. Own root roses are smaller when you buy them but once established, result in healthier plants that never “revert” to the grafted rootstock. Now that I’ve grown them, I’m a bit of a snob about grafted roses, which are basically only grafted to produce larger, cheaper plants faster, for consumers who don’t know the difference.

The selection at Heirloom Roses is astounding and there are extensive, labeled gardens through which you can wander and see the roses doing their magical thing. Guided tours will be offered both days. The weekend’s events include:

- Wine by Hip Chicks Do Wine
- Chocolate by Honest Chocolates
- BBQ lunch (probably hot dogs and hamburgers)
- Music by Rio Con Brio
- Non-rose perennial plants for sale by N&M Herb Nursery
- Garden art, a demonstration on gardening tool use, etc.

Note that pets are not allowed in the gardens.

Heirloom Roses is about 25 miles from Portland – it takes about 30-45 minutes to get there from downtown. (Directions). And although I can’t say what the weather will be doing, I will say that if you bring your umbrella, gum boots and a good friend or two, you’ll have fun no matter how much it rains.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Gardening Events, Flowers, Outdoor Gardening

Salvia greggii

Autumn sage – one of the earliest sages to flower in spring

Posted by: Kate Bryant on May 26, 2010 at 04:55PM 0 Comments

Salvia greggii

Who doesn’t have room for a drought-tolerant, forever-blooming, small shrub that comes in all variety of bright, lipsticky colors?

Salvia greggii is often hybridized with other closely related salvias to produce a dizzying array of brightly colored flowers ranging from fire-engine red, coral, purple, hot pink, pale pink, and apricot to white and various bicolors. The delicate flowers appear from May to October on semi-evergreen sub-shrubs reaching about 3 feet tall and wide, with highly aromatic leaves. Plants have an airy, twiggy habit and can range from upright to sprawling and irregular in form. They tend to be rather brittle but, if broken by passersby – as often happens to the plant in my parking strip – renew themselves quickly.

Native to rocky areas in parts of Texas and Mexico, Salvia greggii is often hybridized with other salvia species, including Salvia microphylla, to create even more deliciously colorful hybrids, including my favorite, the subtle Salvia x jamensis ‘Sierra de San Antonio’ – a two-toned, soft peach and pale yellow flowered plant that seems to make everything around it look great.

Salvia greggii is tough, long-flowering, adaptable, and extremely attractive to hummingbirds. Although some selections are more hardy than others, most survive Portland area winters, as long as they have good drainage. Plants often look pretty shabby by late winter. That’s the time to cut it back to a sturdy framework (4-12 inches) to keep it tidy – or just let it go and avert your eyes until May, when they come back into flower.

One interesting thing about this plant is that, if you do prune it in late winter, you can take some of the thinner, younger woody branches and just poke them back in the ground. With any luck, some will take root. It’s a great, easy way to get more plants. If you try it, you’ll know within a month or two whether they have rooted. If so, just wait until their root system has developed reasonably – by late May or so – to transplant it.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Flowers, Habitat

Bearded Iris

Take a new look at old-fashioned bearded iris (Iris germanica)

Posted by: Kate Bryant on May 19, 2010 at 10:07PM 2 Comments

Iris ‘Edith Wolfort’

The bearded iris is a common plant and for some, that makes it uninteresting. It is seen as a dowdy, old-fashioned plant. And while it’s dramatic in flower, its flowers fade to squishy brown blobs and then it does nothing for a year – until the following spring. All this is worsened by the fact that hybridizers have done some truly bizarre things to bearded iris, creating unlikely, often gaudy color combinations that don’t always play well with other plants.

But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!

There are many beautiful hybrids that blend really nicely into gardens, from classic, old-fashioned pastels, subtle bicolors and some frilly-margined little confections to bold, elegant purple, orange, black and even brown flowered selections that look modern and dramatic in single-color drifts. If the flowering stalks are cut down after flowering and any dead leaves pulled off in the fall and spring, the blue-green, blade-like foliage can look rather attractive.

I can picture a drift of this iris looking fantastic in front of an apple-greenish house.

It’s really just a matter of selecting your color carefully and then clearing out the dead stems and leaves the minute they start to bother you. That, plus dividing the plants every few years, is pretty much all that’s required in terms of maintenance.

As far as their general needs, bearded iris like good drainage, a half day or more of sun, and moisture during the growing season (fall to spring, provided courtesy of Mother Nature around here). Normal, unimproved garden soil doesn’t faze these iris, as long as it drains okay. I’ve never done it but you can sprinkle general purpose organic fertilizer in (best time=when tulips are blooming) and scratch in a little lime to sweeten the soil – or plant them near concrete paving, which leaches lime into the soil. They are truly the easiest of garden plants to grow.

Which is what I told a writer for the Women’s Wear Daily publication, “Beauty Biz,” who interviewed me for a piece she was writing recently about the use of iris in cosmetics and perfumery (she writes a nice monthly column on plants that are used in the beauty industry). Iris grow nearly as well back east as they do here so I could confidently say iris are dirt-easy from coast to coast. (Humid parts of the South are the only areas of the continental US where they don’t thrive.)

Iris and alliums are a great combination!

You can see acres and acres of bearded iris in glorious flower right now by heading down to Salem to Schreiner’s Iris. Their display gardens are open May 7 – June 6 from 9 to 6 daily. You can wander their 10 acres of well-labeled display gardens and buy iris for your garden – or just take home luxurious bouquets for $6 per dozen stems.

The next couple weeks are peak bearded iris blooming time. If you’re looking to get out of town to see iris – and get far, far away from the urban grind – check out these events:

The Keizer Iris Parade, May 22 at 10:30 am. The parade begins at the corner of Lockhaven and River Road in Keizer, Oregon and proceeds south along River Road to Glynbrook. For more information, go to the Keizer Chamber of Commerce’s iris festival site.

Schreiner’s Iris Gardens Annual Memorial Day Chicken BBQ – May 31, 11:30 am to 4 pm. Features the culinary delights of the Gervais Knights of Columbus, and offering the lively music of the Capital City Jazz Band from 1 to 5 pm. I’ve never been but I hope to go this year – it could be pretty snazzy.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Gardening Events, Flowers

Blanche Rock Rose

Cistus ‘Blanche’ (properly known as C. ×aguilarii)

Posted by: Kate Bryant on May 11, 2010 at 09:10AM 2 Comments

If you love fragrant plants, try Blanche rock rose (Cistus ‘Blanche’) in your garden. Interestingly, it’s not the flowers that are fragrant – it’s the gorgeous, resinous foliage that gives off this sweet, piney-spicy perfume, particularly when the sun hits the leaves. If you’ve ever traveled in the Mediterranean, the scent of this plant’s leaves will transport you to the region faster than a cold glass of fino sherry.

The long, slender leaves are dark green with crimped, ruffled margins. Plump, rusty rose-tinted buds appear in clusters at the end of the new growth. And the flowers themselves are gigantic – I just measured one at 4 inches across. The petals are pristine, almost translucent white and have a satiny, tissue-paper appearance, with yellow, orange-tipped stamens.

Flowers open in the morning and are cast off the plant and fall to the ground as the day wears on. It’s very romantic, the way the flowers cycle through birth and senescence daily through the month of May, until the last flowers of the season appear in early June.

After flowering, rock roses go into a summer rest, as do many plants from summer-dry regions. These are ideal for drought-tolerant garden schemes: once established, rock roses need little to no water in summer except in the driest spot.

They require good drainage, full sun, and a warm position (reflected heat is fine). Blanche is cold-hardy to around 10-15 F,. Mine sailed through last winter without a sign of damage but was a little frazzled after the previous winter, due to the cold winds.

Blanche rock rose reaches about 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide. It has a nice upright habit, although any rock rose will need a bit of pruning after flowering to keep it tidy unless its grown in very lean, dry soil.

For lots more information about rock roses, click here, where you will find the results of extensive testing by OSU researchers on this diverse group of plants.

Update:

For more information on rock roses, head over to a Hardy Plant Society of Oregon lecture on the subject by one of Oregon’s premier rock roses experts, David Mason of Hedgerows Nursery in McMinnville. David will speak about rock roses (Cistus and Halimium , plus x Halimiocistus and sunroses ( Helianthemum) at 7 pm tonight (Tuesday May 11) at the Multnomah Arts Center, 7688 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland 97219. It’s only $5 and members and non-members alike are welcome. Sign up here.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Gardening Events, Flowers, Drought-Tolerant Plants

Berry Botanic Garden Classes

last call

Posted by: Kate Bryant on May 03, 2010 at 09:40AM 0 Comments

Berry Botanic Garden’s rock garden

The Berry Botanic Garden is closing – but not before it offers a finale of great hikes, tours and classes at reasonable prices, from now to mid-June, when they close their doors. I’ve taken a number of their classes in the past and can recommend them highly.

Here’s the May catalog of classes – and June, here. There are openings in all but one classes and hikes. I’m signing up for some myself. The wildflower hikes are fantastic. Classes include flower ID, mosses and lichens, and botanical illustration. The two remaining garden tours are the Platt Garden and Wallace Huntington’s garden, both profiled in previous issues of Portland Spaces Magazine.

If you want to torture yourself with a list of past classes, here’s a comprehensive class catalog showing what Portland is about to lose forever. To read a history of the garden, click here.

If you can swing a visit in the next month, go visit – quick, before it is sold. While perhaps in need of some TLC now, the garden is nevertheless a place of great beauty, with woodland paths, a damp garden, perennial and shrub beds, and an extensive and richly planted rock garden.

The site was purchased and was first gardened by Rae Selling Berry beginning in 1938 so there are beautiful old trees and shrubs that have been there for 70 years. This is a spectacular time to visit, as the rhododendron collection is coming alive. In June, the gorgeous Stewartia tree will be in flower. Berry also collected unusual primula species and alpine plants.

Berry Botanic Garden’s primrose bed

The garden’s doors close officially on June 30, 2010.

Newsbreak – I’m told my vegetable garden will make a brief appearance on KPTV Channel 12’s Better Portland program today (Monday) between 1 and 2 pm. This is the segment I wrote about last week in which Chef Blake Van Roekel prepares a delicious mâche omelette (recipe here). Tune in!

Add a Comment »

Tags: Gardening Events, Flowers, Trees

Ceanothus thyrsiflorus ‘Oregon Mist’

a star in the May garden and great for wildlife, too

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Apr 28, 2010 at 05:45AM 5 Comments

Ceanothus thyrsiflorus growing in the wild, Siskiyou County, OR – courtesy of Josh McCullough, Phytophoto.com

If you love blue flowers, look no further than Ceanothus – absolutely no shrub rivals it for vibrant blue color saturation. Also known as California wild lilac – but called Ceanothus (“see-ya-no-this”) by Oregonians in-the-know – these dramatic flowering shrubs are also drought-tolerant and wildlife-friendly.

There are some 50-60 species of Ceanothus, native from southwestern Canada down to Guatemala and in the Rockies but with the greatest concentration of species in California. Several are native to Oregon, although the most intensely blue-flowered species are from the region to our south.

Oregon Mist was selected by wholesale nurserymen Paul Bonine and Greg Shepherd of Xera Plants from a wild Ceanothus thyrsiflorus plant growing at the northernmost part of its range in Coos County, Oregon. I profiled Oregon Mist Ceanothus for Portland Monthly’s May issue here.

This selection produces showy sprays of tiny, honey-scented blue flowers in late April and May. It grows into a small tree to about 15 feet high if let go – or, with annual pruning, can be maintained at 8-10 feet tall. West Coast Ceanothus species are fast-growing but short-lived shrubs, maxing out at 10-15 years in the garden. Give them well-drained soil, avoid fertilizer and provide minimal (or no) summer water – they’re perfect for that hot, sunny corner, out of reach of the hose or sprinkler system. (Just remember to supply water during its first couple of years in the ground.)

I love the aromatics of Ceanothus – their flowers are honey-scented and some species’ foliage have a faintly resinous scent. (Or, in the case of one of our natives, Ceanothus velutinus, the foliage smells like vinyl car seats – a scent I’ve come to love, thanks to this shrub.)

Pollinating insects adore Ceanothus and hummingbirds are said to relish the nectar, although I personally haven’t seen it yet. A large Ceanothus shrub will hum with the sound of insect wings when in flower – it’s an incredible sight – and sound.

Oregon Mist is a low-maintenance but high reward plant that quickly fills in space and attracts myriad valuable native insects. It’s available wherever Xera Plants are sold including Cistus Design Nursery, Garden Fever, and Dennis’ Seven Dees. Also check with these retailers for availability.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Flowers, Native Plants, Drought-Tolerant Plants

Tulip Time

- a great time to decide which tulips to plant for next year

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Apr 17, 2010 at 04:40PM 5 Comments

This lovely tulip – a Triumph type – has a powerful, deliciously citrusy fragrance, in addition to being a nuanced shade of orange. I think it pairs well with the apricot flowering currant bush (Ribes x gordonianum, to left) and the orange-twigged dogwood (Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’, to right).

View Slideshow » Illustration:

This lovely tulip – a Triumph type – has a powerful, deliciously citrusy fragrance, in addition to being a nuanced shade of orange. I think it pairs well with the apricot flowering currant bush (Ribes x gordonianum, to left) and the orange-twigged dogwood (Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’, to right).

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Lipstick pink lily-flowered tulips look fantastic against the chartreuse flowers of Euphorbia and chartreuse-leafed Stachys ‘Primrose Heron’. These tulips persist year after year in my dry parking strip.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Creamy Maureen tulips (single late type) look great in a gravel garden with steely blue oat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens), a blue-leafed conifer (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Blue Surprise’) and a white-flowered rock rose (Cistus sp.).

View Slideshow » Illustration:

I’ll be darned if those Queen of Night tulips don’t make everything look good!

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Foreground: Tulip ‘Prinses Irene’ (Triumph type, orange with purple flames)
Background: Tulip ‘Little Princess’ – a petite species tulip

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Only a few inches high, Little Princess is a species type tulip that loves sun, heat and good drainage. It’s perfect near a gravel path where it receives reflected heat and can go completely dry in summer. On sunny spring days, the flowers open wide like little orange stars…

April is tulip season in our region – and definitely the best time to see tulips in bloom at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm’s Tulip Fest in Woodburn (I recently wrote about Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm here). It’s also the perfect time to look at your own garden and think about where you’d like to add some tulips, daffodils or other spring bulbs. Best to do it now, while the memories of what you liked or didn’t like are still fresh in your mind.

Tulips are diverse in color and form. They range from diminutive species just a few inches high to two-foot tall plants with dramatic flowers. A scan through the tulip section of Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm, Brent & Becky’s or Van Engelen’s will quickly give you an idea of the diversity of forms and colors that are available.

The best time to plan your tulip planting for next spring is now, while the bulbs are in flower and you can see what they look like. By the time fall rolls around and the tulip and narcissus bulbs show up in the garden centers ready for planting, it’s sometimes hard to remember what colors and types you wanted where. As further incentive, spring is also a great time to buy them, as the selection is best and many bulb companies offer early bird discounts.

Tulips are not difficult to grow but here are a few useful things to know about them.

They come from southern Europe, North Africa and Central Asia, where winters are cool and wet (or cold and snowy) and summers are hot and dry.

Tulips do best when planted in well-drained soil in areas of the garden that don’t receive extra water in summer. If you plant tulips in heavy clay soil or in gardens where they receive summer irrigation, the bulbs often decline in size, rot and – in short – may not stick around much longer than a season or two.

So when you’re thinking of where to place them, think of warm, sunny places where they can bake dry in summer. After all, tulip bulbs were born to thrive in summer drought – their roots develop in the fall and winter when the rains come, flowers appear in spring, and then the tops dry up and their energy is stored underground during the hot, dry summer… until the rains come again in fall. Replicate a dry hillside in the Caucasus and your tulips should do well.

Luckily, our climate is naturally wet in winter and dry in summer so good perennial tulips tend to do pretty well for us anyway, as long as they dry out in summer and have reasonably good drainage. In my garden, tulips grow best planted in the drought-tolerant Mediterranean beds, where I have amended the soil with pumice and rarely water in summer.

If you must plant them in garden beds that receive summer water, just think of your tulips as springtime annuals. And if they come back next year, it will feel like a bonus.

Having said that, some tulips are more “perennial” than others. In general, “species” tulips (wild-growing types, not hybridized for color or form) tend to persist well in the garden and increase over time. These include tulips like Tulipa humilis, with hot pinkish-purple or red cupped flowers opening wide like stars and only 3-6" high or fragrant little Tulipa batalinii, with yellow or apricot flowers reaching 4-6" high. (These can be found in some of the bulb catalogs I list above.)

Another type that grows well in the garden are Darwin tulips – mostly nice, sturdy reds like the classic Apeldoorn and yellows like Golden Apeldoorn). When you see old Portland gardens with huge drifts of red and yellow tulips that look like they’ve been there forever, they are usually old-fashioned Darwin tulips that have naturalized.

On the other end of the spectrum are tulips like Prinses Irene and Gavota – these are Triumph tulips, considered the most short-lived types. After all, they are bred by the floral industry to be grown and sold as flowering bulbs in pots for a season and then thrown away. I too plant them in pots for myself and clients but I also plant some directly in my garden – I just refresh the plantings with some new bulbs every year so that there are always strong new plants growing amidst the older ones.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Slideshow, Flowers

Things to Do – Plants to Buy

plant sales going on every day for the next week

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Apr 12, 2010 at 10:29PM 1 Comments

Take your pick – or maybe go wild and pick both.

There are two great plant sales coming up – one running Monday through Friday this week and the other running Saturday and Sunday.

COMMUNITY TRANSITION CENTER’S SPRING PLANT SALE

When: Monday April 12th to Friday April 16th from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm daily. Where: 6801 SE 60th & Duke St. in Greenhouse #1

This plant sale features an array of perennial, annual and vegetable starts grown using organic methods, at fantastic prices (cash or check only) – for example:

- Canna lilies, chrystanthemum, gal. pot – $3
- Foxglove, oxalis, licorice fern – $1-3
- Daylilies, assorted colors – $2
- Flowers including sweet William, California poppy and phlox plus vege starts including broccoli, kale, lettuce, collards, chard, sorrel,
spinach – 6-pack tray $2

The Community Transition Center is a Portland Public Schools program for young adults focusing on vocational experience and life skills. Students in the program are responsible for starting, caring for, and maintaining the plant stock in the greenhouse. Purchases support the greenhouse program.

For more information, call 503-916-5817 or email sgoforth@pps.k12.or.us

HARDY PLANT SOCIETY OF OREGON SPRING PLANT SALE & GARDEN FESTIVAL
The other plant sale coming up takes place this weekend – it’s the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon’s wondrous and amazing Spring Plant Sale. Held at the Expo Center (readily accessible by light rail), this Queen of Oregon’s Spring Plant Sales runs from 10 am to 3 pm Saturday April 17 and Sunday April 18. It is the premier gathering of local specialty nurseries from all over Oregon and Western Washington. It’s also a marketplace for locally made garden art. And, this year, there’s a gardening book shop where you can find relevant, regionally-appropriate gardening books – some written by local authors.

If you take light rail, bring some of those fabric grocery bags. You’ll be amazed by how many plants you can fit into those things.

Details of Spring Plant Sale & Garden Festival:
When: April 17 & 18, 2010 from 10 am to 3 pm both days
Where: Portland EXPO Center – Hall C. The Interstate MAX Yellow Line goes right to EXPO. See TriMet web site

No wagons, strollers or carts in the sale – the aisles can be tight. There is a hold area, though, so you don’t have to stagger around loaded down with plants unless you have a particular need to wave your brilliant scores in front of other possibly covetous shoppers.

You can go to the website for a list of vendors at the sale (many, many!) and for a map of the site.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Gardening Events, Flowers, Garden Stuff, Plant Sale

Tulip Fest!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Mar 29, 2010 at 10:29AM 3 Comments

I wanted to roll around in this field of glowy, sunshiny Tulip ‘Candela’, but it was too muddy. Fie! I settled for a bouquet.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

I wanted to roll around in this field of glowy, sunshiny Tulip ‘Candela’, but it was too muddy. Fie! I settled for a bouquet.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Most of the rows are labeled so you can take notes if, like me, you’re so inclined.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

It was pretty rainy while I was there so some of the tents closed up shop. But all the kids stuff was happening and the wine was certainly flowing. Apparently it was jam-packed on the sunny Saturday before…

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Everything was fine until the rain hit. But five minutes later, it was gone… Handily labeled tulip display beds in the foreground.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

It’s nice to see different types side-by-side for comparison. As I mentioned, I’m a bit of a collector…

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Manning a booth at the Tulip Festival, these fellers from the local Mt Angel Sausage Co will soon attempt to create the Guinness Book of World Records’ longest wiener. Hopefully they’ll post it on their website when they do: http://www.ropesausage.com

I love getting out of town. After many years of living car-free, it’s still an extra-special treat to take a drive in the country or go on a road trip – however short a ride it may be.

If it’s for plant-related purposes, all the better.

This past weekend inaugurated the start of the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm’s Tulip Fest. This Festival is a great excuse to get out of town and admire the rural beauty of the Willamette Valley. It’s a good half-day excursion that takes about 45 minutes each way from Portland.

I would have written this post yesterday but as soon as I sat down to begin, I got antsy, jumped in the car and – how sweet to have it! – hit the gas. I was turning into the gate at Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm 45 minutes later, amidst waving fields of brightly colored tulips and late-flowering daffodils.

Running for a month, from March 25 to April 25 from 9 to 6 daily, the Tulip Festival is touted as a day of family fun. But there were people of all ages there, from young city couples and cyclists to car loads of families and people who had clearly been coming to the event for years and obviously knew where the fun was.

For the kids, there’s a cow train, hay tend, slide, and horse swings, as well as steam tractors and tram rides. On weekends, grown-ups can enjoy wine tasting and beer swilling, music and a crafters marketplace. I admired an elderly gent carving wooden shoes. Weekdays are toned down a little, without the craft booths, music and booze but with pony and cart rides for the kids and tulips galore for flower-gazers. Wooden Shoe’s blog provides more information about daily activities.

Not to over-share, but I get all fetish-y about tulips at this time of year and engage in embarrassingly detailed comparisons of flower shapes, colors, size, bloom time, foliage color and other qualities. For people like me, there is a sample garden with labeled examples of various tulips and daffodils they sell in their catalog. (See slideshow for some purdy images of all this.) You can also buy pots of forced bulbs for $8 each which can later be planted in your garden, as well as lovely, inexpensive tulip bouquets – bundles of which now adorn my place. The main business of Wooden Shoe, though, is their bulb trade. You can order bulbs for autumn planting now or wait until September or October to pick them. Buying them now ensures the best selection and they do run out of certain varieties every year, such as the gorgeous black tulip Queen of Night.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm is one of only a few remaining bulb growers in the Pacific Northwest. While most spring flowering bulbs sold today are grown in Holland, Wooden Shoe actually grows their own tulips, daffodils and other traditionally “Dutch” bulbs in the fields of their family farm.

Another wonderful thing about Wooden Shoe is their commitment to sustainable agricultural practices. They are one of only a handful of Oregon growers who are certified by Veriflora for adhering to sustainable practices throughout their business. I hope to see sustainability certification spread in the cut flower industry, which has a less-than-stellar record of minimizing toxic hazards, with dire consequences to workers, as well as consumers and the fields, greenhouses and surrounding environment. Support certified businesses and look for organic or sustainably-grown cut flowers and plants whenever possible.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm
www.woodenshoe.com
1-800-711-2006

Add a Comment »

Tags: Gardening Events, Places to Go, Flowers, Plant Sale, Family Fun

Festival of Fragrance

Portland’s Classical Chinese Garden’s spring plant sale

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Mar 17, 2010 at 08:41AM 0 Comments

Not a fragrant Camellia (pictured). But there are some sweetly scented species and hybrids worth hunting for. If you see the winter-flowering Camellia transnokoensis at the sale, snap it up! It’s gorgeous. Check it out in person (hopefully still in flower) inside the NW corner of the garden.

This weekend, the Portland Classical Chinese Garden begins a two-week celebration, now dubbed the Festival of Fragrance, with a plant sale and Camellia display from the Oregon Camellia Society kicking things off this weekend, and talks and workshops during the week.

Featuring more than 20 local specialty nurseries, the sale itself will take place outside the walls of the Garden (at the corner of NW 3rd & Flanders) this coming weekend. There is no admission fee for the sale. Inside the Garden walls, plant enthusiasts from the Oregon Camellia Society will be on-hand to discuss and showcase their camellias, as well as providing information for self-guided tours of the Garden’s camellia collection.

Some of the events over the next two weeks include aromatherapy talks, flower arranging workshops with fragrant plants, and tours with the Garden’s horticulture staff of fragrant plants inside the Garden. Go here for the schedule of events.

Plant Sale (& Camellia Society events): Sat and Sun March 20 – 21 from 10 – 3
Members First Pick: Saturday, March 20, 9 – 10 am

The sale focuses on plants of Chinese origin including orchids, rhododendrons, camellias, Edgeworthia, daphne, and bamboo – many found within the Garden’s own collection. The new format (with outside vendors) means there will no longer be member discounts but members get first pick on Saturday morning from 9 – 10 am. The sale is a benefit to support the plant collections at the Garden.

Arisaema candidissimum. Can’t guarantee you’ll find this there. But it is a Chinese plant. And there are sure to be Arisaema for sale. So, you might! If you don’t you can always order it later from Plant Delights Nursery (where I found this lovely image)

Vendors include some of the Willamette Valley and Southern Washington’s finest including Collectors Nursery, the Bamboo Garden, Dancing Oaks Nursery and more. I was excited to see that Woodland Way nursery will be in attendance (specialty Arisaema and woodland orchid growers). Ferguson’s Fragrant Nursery will be there (naturally), as will the magical Pomarius Nursery located in the NW Industrial District. There are some fantastic organizations offering plants as well including the American Rhododendron Society and the Oregon Camellia Society. For a full schedule of events and list of plant sale vendors, visit the Garden’s website.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Gardening Events, Places to Go, Flowers, Plant Sale