PLANTWISE Blog

things to do

Yard Garden & Patio Show 2011

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Feb 10, 2011 at 09:20AM Speech Bubble 1 Comments

A funky chicken from last year’s fabulous Cracked Pots area. I fell in love with this. Yet somehow, I don’t have one. What gives?

The Oregon Association of Nurseries’ spring gardening “bash” – The Yard, Garden & Patio Show – is happening Friday February 18 through Sunday February 20, 2011. Held at the Oregon Convention Center directions here), this event brings together vendors of plants, tools, gardening gadgets and non-profit gardening education groups like Oregon State Master Gardeners and Cracked Pots (recycled garden art). There are also demonstration garden displays showing off seasonal plantings and talks and gardening demos all day long.

YGP SHOW HOURS:
Friday Feb 18: 10 am to 7:30 pm
Saturday Feb 19: 10 am to 7:30 pm
Sunday Feb 20: 10 am to 5 pm

This event gets better every year, pulling in smaller, more interesting nurseries and offering more adventurous display gardens, livelier talks and demos, and more non-profit organizations. It used to be stodgy but it gets hipper every year. Yet it still has enough of that crusty, old-school vibe (displays with silly multi-colored primulas planted 1 foot apart in a sea of bark dust, for instance!) to keep it from drifting towards an excess of Portlandia hipness. Highlights this year include talks by Amy Stewart, author of “Flower Confidential” and “Wicked Plants”, as well as an array of local and national gardening talent. Personally, I’m heading straight for the booth with the Tillandia (air plants). I scored some unusual specimens last year and am – apparently – in the process of turning my bathroom into a Brazilian jungle.

Maryellen Hockensmith, multitalented gardener, organizer and Hardy Plant Society of Oregon volunteer, hones in on a little red Uncinia grass with her iPhone. Cistus Design Nursery created the most fantastic display at last year’s YGP Show, with dazzling trunked Yucca rostrata and Restio plants, fantastic pottery and native licorice fern growing from logs. And this year…?

Visit Dennis’ Seven Dees soon and buy YGP tickets for $7 (instead of $12, at the door). Supplies are limited.

Lake Oswego: 1090 McVey. 503-636-4660
SE Portland: 6025 SE Powell Blvd. 503-777-1421
Cedar Hills: 10455 SE Butner Blvd. 503-297-1058
Seaside: 84794 Hwy. 101. 503-738-6980

And for a sneak-peek into the behind-the-scenes machinations of the YGP Show, join the Oregon Association of Nurseries’ lively Ann Murphy for a guided tour, two days before the doors officially open. Visit her blog, Random Acts of Gardening to read about it and sign up.

The behind-the-scenes event is Wednesday Feb 16 from 4 to 6 pm and takes place at the Oregon Convention Center’s VIP lounge.

See you there!

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Tags: Gardening Events, Gardening Events

things to do this weekend

Spring Garden Book Soiree & Hellebore Open House

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Feb 04, 2011 at 11:05AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

While I’m not quite ready to stick my shovel in the sodden ground, I’m definitely hot to trot when it comes to gathering inspiration and – well, okay – buying plants. Especially hellebores. In fact, this is the time to shop for the hellebore of your dreams, since they are just coming into flower now (Feb and March). If you are buying seed-grown plants – and many are seed-grown and therefore all different from one another – it’s crucial to see the flowers when you buy them.

Here are two springy, inspiring events taking place this weekend. And there will be a veritable fiesta of hellebores available at both nurseries.

WHAT: Dancing Oaks Nursery’s Open Weekend for Hellebores, Witch Hazels and Early Bulbs
WHEN: Saturday February 5th 9-5 and Sunday February 6th 10-4
WHERE: Dancing Oaks Nursery – Dancing Oaks Nursery, 17900 Priem Rd, Monmouth, OR 97361 Tel: 503-838-6058

The Lenten roses (Helleborus x hybridus) are in full swing, a little early this year, in fact. Witch hazels are in full flower and snowdrops are sparkling out in Monmouth. It’s a fantastic time of the year to take a drive out through fields and past stands of picturesque Oregon oaks, stopping at a winery or two on the way. Warming tea and snacks will be on offer to enjoy while wandering through warm, flower-scented hoop houses and meandering garden beds.

Dancing Oaks’ regular hours – Tues to Sat 9 to 5 and Sun 10 to 4 – begin in March, but call them at 503-838-6058 to make a visit (other than the open house) before then.

WHAT: Spring Garden Book Soiree & Open House
WHEN: Sunday February 6 starting at 1 pm
WHERE: Garden Fever Nursery, 3433 NE 24TH AVE. ~ on NE 24th, just south of Fremont Tel: 503-287-3200

Featured speakers:

1 pm: Tom Fischer, Editor in Chief at Timber Press and superb blog-writer and author of PERENNIAL COMPANIONS:100 Dazzling Plant Combinations for Every Season and THE GARDENER’S COLOR PALETTE: Paint Your Garden with 100 Extraordinary Flower Choices. Tom will be presenting Timber Press’s new gardening titles for 2011 (including Amy’s and my terrarium book!). Listen to his descriptions and browse through a new year’s worth of gardening titles.

1:30 pm – David George Gordon, author of THE SECRET WORLD OF SLUGS & SNAILS: Life in the Very Slow Lane. Here’s David’s blurb:

“David is a professional science writer with a total of 18 books in print and has spoken at the Smithsonian Institution, the American Museum of Natural History, the California Academy of Sciences. He takes his slugs seriously, but not too seriously. He has also appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, To Tell the Truth and The View.”

He will be speaking about his latest book and discussing how to tell the good, the bad, the ugly and the NW native slugs from the “invaders”.

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Tags: Gardening Events, winter-interest-plants,

things to do

Nature Night at the Audubon Society

European Ecoroofs: Lessons in Biodiversity

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jan 10, 2011 at 11:22AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

So many free gardening-related events in Portland year-round – how lucky we are! Here’s yet another wonderful free offering, providing information on cultivating biodiversity in Portland’s own cityscapes through a slide-show field trip to several European cities.

Tuesday January 11, 2011, 7 pm to 8:30 pm

“Jim Labbe, Urban Conservationist at Audubon Society of Portland, will share stories and slides of the biodiverse ecoroofs he encountered while abroad in 2009–2010 in London, England and Basel, Switzerland. He’ll discuss some of the latest design approaches being applied in Europe to promote insect diversity and habitat for ground-nesting birds. Jim will conclude with an audience discussion about the challenges and opportunities of expanding biodiverse roofs in the Portland metro region.”

Nature Night is free and open to the public.

Location: Heron Hall, Audubon House, 5151 NW Cornell Rd, Portland

UPDATE:
Due to the predicted snow and freezing rain this evening, Labbe’s presentation has been rescheduled for Wed, March 9 from 4-5 pm at Portland State University’s Cramer Hall 271.

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Tags: Gardening Events, Garden Design, ecoroofs

things to do

HPSO Fall Plant Sale, Queen of the Sun (Bee Film) and More

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 17, 2010 at 08:48AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Sean Hogan of Cistus Design Nursery dispensing his usual blend of wicked and wonderful horticultural wisdom from the Cistus booth o’ treasures at last year’s HPSO Fall Plant Sale and Garden Festival

Some interesting horticultural stuff to do this weekend!

HPSO Fall Plant Sale and Garden Festival
First, the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon’s Fall Plant Sale and Garden Festival takes place this weekend: Saturday & Sunday, September 18 & 19, 10 am-3 pm. All the most wonderful Oregon and Washington specialty plant nurseries will have booths brimming with interesting plants, plus there’s a garden art area (furniture, recycled art, glass baubles, pots, etc) and a full roster of talks and seminars by local gardening smartie-pantses. Plus unhealthy yet tasty junk food like hot dogs and Ruffles potato chips at the Expo Center cafeteria-like windows. I love that stuff! (About once a year, anyway.)

BEE FILM
An exciting and long-awaited film project, Queen of the Sun, a documentary on bees, directed by Taggart Siegel (award-winning director of The Real Dirt on Farmer John) opens tonight, Friday September 17, at the Hollywood Theatre. Plants from Cistus Design Nursery will be raffled off during intermission. Learn more about the film here.

DEADLINE TO REGISTER FOR FULL-MOON WALK
Today – Friday September 17th @ 5 pm – is the deadline for reservations for the Wednesday September 22nd Moonlight Garden Walk at Dancing Oaks Nursery in Monmouth. If you haven’t been to Dancing Oaks Nursery, this would be an incredible time to visit. Show up early and you can shop for plants from one of the Willamette Valley’s premier specialty plant nurseries. (If you’d like to meet the lovely owners of Dancing Oaks and check out their plants, they’ll be at the HPSO Sale this weekend.) Tickets are $25 and include catered hors d’oeuvres, Airlie wines for tasting and sale, music by harp guitarist John Doan, and of course a moonlit walk through a deliciously-scented, scruffily romantic country garden at its late summer peak. Please call the nursery to register: Dancing Oaks Nursery, 17900 Priem Rd, Monmouth, Oregon. Tel: 503-838-6058

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Tags: Gardening Events, Plant Sale, Garden Visits

profile: good businesses

Ferguson’s Fragrant Garden Nursery and Heirloom Garden Roses

An easy half-day jaunt in the St. Paul, OR area

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 13, 2010 at 02:47PM Speech Bubble 2 Comments

Ferguson’s Fragrant Garden Nursery display garden

View Slideshow »

I was out in the Aurora/Donald/St. Paul area for work this weekend and decided to poke around a bit afterwards.

Turns out it was a big weekend for garden centers in the valley: GardenPalooza was going on (September 9-12 2010) and I was smack-dab in the middle of it. There were scads of gardeners driving to the various nurseries for sales, talks and hands-on classes.

But my goal – apart from finding a fantastic burrito at a cart in Carlton (correction: NEWBERG!!), which I did – was to visit a nursery I know and love – Heirloom Garden Roses – and one I’d never been to – Ferguson’s Fragrant Garden Nursery, both in St. Paul, OR.

I love to visit Heirloom Roses because I’m crazy about the scent of old-fashioned roses. I sniff my way through the extensive display gardens, as focused as a professional wine taster, trying to figure out all the elements of each rose’s scent. Because I like to pick roses and keep them nearby, scent is incredibly important to me. Yes, I really enjoy certain rose plants in the garden, but it’s the scent that usually drives me to shell out the bucks for a plant. Heirloom’s roses are all own-root, which means they are not grafted on a different, faster-growing root stock. Their plants are small when you buy them but grow better in the long run, as they take off quickly and you never have to worry about pruning them below the graft union (’cause there is no graft union!). All their roses are $16.95, although they have near-constant sales on certain categories of roses if you sign up for their email newsletter.

I’d never been to Ferguson’s Fragrant Garden Nursery but a nursery devoted to deliciously-scented plants could only be a wondrous thing. And indeed, it was! The selection of fragrant plants and their companions was excellent. The display gardens were lush – maybe a bit too lush in places (leaky irrigation pipes will do that) – and they were planted with an ebullient mix of perennials, shrubs and trees.

It’s a beautifully tended and handily organized nursery. And the employee I hammed it up with was knowledgeable, helpful and genuinely friendly. Impressive!

There were some hot-off-the-presses plants and everything last weekend was on sale at 40% off – that’s about as great a deal as you can get at a retail nursery these days. The crazy-good sale’s over but starting tomorrow there will be another sale – 25% off through the month of September – that will usher in the autumn. Check their website for details.

And all this within a 45 minute drive from Portland. Add in the Mexican food carts in Carlton (no! NEWBERG!) and surrounding towns and you’ve made a fantastic day trip of it! And check out the slideshow (above) to get a taste (virtual sniff?) of what I experienced. Too bad I forgot to get the name of the AWESOME food cart…

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Tags: Gardening Events, Slideshow, Flowers, Nurseries

things to do

Dahlias and More Dahlias!

Florid, frothy fluff-ball flowers!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 03, 2010 at 04:55PM Speech Bubble 4 Comments

Swan Island Dahlias field, late August, 2010

View Slideshow »

Immerse yourself in bright, gaudy, over-the-top color at the Swan Island Dahlia Festival this weekend, Sat and Sun Sept 4 and 5, 2010. It’s a beautiful drive out to Canby and you’ll come home with armloads of fresh cut flowers for $5 a bunch. Plus, you can pick which varieties you like and pre-order for next spring. Swan Island Dahlias’ fields are open through the month of September from 8 am to 8 pm. The festival runs 10-6, with indoor floral arrangements, clowns, music and food, too.

If that isn’t enough for you or you want to stick closer to town, the following two weekends will be chock-a-block full of dahlia fun, too. Old House Dahlias is having their fall dahlia fiesta Sat and Sun Sept 11 and 12, 2010 and again the following weekend, Sat and Sun Sept 18 and 19, 2010 from 10 am to 5 pm at Old House Dahlias, 8005 SE Mill Street, Portland, OR 97215. Tel: 503-771-1199. You can check out hundreds of flowering varieties and pre-order the ones you like. Fresh-cut flowers and potted plants are also for sale. Check or cash only. Call Mark at 503-771-1199 or visit the website for more info.

I went to the Swan Island Dahlia Festival last weekend and snapped a bunch of show-offish photos. Spiky, modern, gray-leaved plant lovers – stand back! – this is an unapologetic paean to the florid and frothy fluff-balls of the plant world. Just click on the slideshow, above, to see images of some of my favorites from a few hours of wandering the fields…

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Tags: Gardening Events, Slideshow, Flowers, weekend picks

things to do

Planty, Gardeny Things to Do This Weekend

Swan Island Dahlia Festival, seed-saving class, plant your winter veges and score some good sale plants at your local retail nurseries!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Aug 27, 2010 at 09:55AM Speech Bubble 1 Comments

Japanese Bishop Dahlia. Photo courtesy of Swan Island Dahlias.

Looking for fun/interesting plant- and garden-related things to do this weekend? Here are some ideas:

Swan Island Dahlia Fest in Canby, OR
When: Saturday Aug 28, Sunday Aug 29 and Monday August 30 plus next weekend, too: September 4, 5, and 6 (Sat to Mon) – 10 am to 6 pm daily.
Where: here
Admission: Free
All variety of food, fun, clowns – hopefully not scary clowns. You can also order dahlia tubers for next year and go home with buckets of gorgeous cut flowers.
Phone: (800) 410-6540 OR (503) 266-7711

Take a class on seed Saving with Vern Nelson, The Hungry Gardener columnist, and garden consultant. Long-time vegetable gardening expert and cook will explain how to save seed of your favorite crops for next year. He’s a great teacher and most enjoyable speaker.
Where: Portland Nursery, 5050 SE STARK
When: Sunday August 29 at 1:00pm

Plant your fall and winter vegetables, if you haven’t already done so. I’ve been a slacker (working on a book – more on that soon!) so I have some seed-starting to do myself this weekend. There’s time to plant greens still and I might try carrots and beets, too, although it’s getting a bit late. But I’ll be stocking up on vegetable starts from my local nurseries, too – must get that purple-sprouting broccoli in the ground asap!!!

And while you’re out and about, scan nurseries’ sale tables now. This is the time of year when plants that suffered in the recent heat spells are showing up on the 50% off tables. I’ve seen some fantastic plants with minor cosmetic damage on sale tables lately. There are also lots of pots on sale (thanks for that tip, Lauren Hall-Behrens!). In short, it’s a great time to shop at retail plant nurseries, particularly if you’re looking for late summer/fall blooming plants like asters, salvias, and those tall, statuesque perennial lobelias. And within a matter of weeks, it will be an idyllic time to plant, as the fall rains are just around the corner.

Planning ahead: here’s a future weekend event (sign up now, as space is limited and it’s likely to sell out):

Chicken Coop Building Workshop.
When: Saturday, September 25 from 10am-3pm
Details: Learn how to build a secure, happy home for your hens in this hands-on workshop with John Carr of The Garden Coop. Participants will build The Garden Ark mobile chicken coop. At the end of the workshop there will be a drawing and one lucky participant will go home with the coop. All participants will go home with a copy of the plans and the hands-on know how to build a coop.

This workshop is in partnership between “Growing Gardens”: and Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply

The cost of the workshop is $40 and the deadline to sign up and pay is Monday, September 20. Proceeds from the workshop benefit Growing Gardens’ programs. For more information or to sign up contact Rodney Bender at 503-284-8420 or rodney@growing-gardens.org

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Tags: Gardening Events, Flowers, Chickens, Plant Sale

things to do

Hot Summer Bloomers

no, not naughty Victorian undergarments – flowers, silly!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Aug 09, 2010 at 10:22AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Perhaps he’ll discuss this hot little number: Agastache ‘Apricot Sprite’

The talk I’m suggesting you attend is actually titled “Fanfare of Trumpets,” but I look for any excuse to mention “bloomers” – formative years spent watching Monty Python would do it to you, too!

Maurice Horn of Joy Creek Nursery is one of my favorite speakers on plant subjects. He’s charming, funny and well connected to the philosophical and sensual sides of gardening.

Tuesday August 10, he’ll be showing pictures of his favorite long-blooming, trumpet-shaped perennial flowers (think fuchsia, Penstemon, Phygelius and Zauschneria), describing their culture, answering questions and even selling an assortment of fine specimens for your garden.

The Genius Program is an informal lecture series put on by the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon. The topics are great, there are door prizes (you could win free plants!) and the talks are as cheap as can be: just $5, with tickets available at the door (cash or checks only). You do not need to be a member of the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon to attend. But attending might make you want to join up.

What: Fanfare of Trumpets talk by Maurice Horn of Joy Creek Nursery

When: Tuesday August 10 @ 7 pm

Where: Multnomah Center, 7688 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland 97219

Cost: $5

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Tags: Gardening Events, Flowers

horticultural ed

Design Tips from Dan Hinkley

notes from the 2010 PPA conference in Portland

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jul 25, 2010 at 04:20AM Speech Bubble 1 Comments

Plant explorer, gardener and witty fellow Dan Hinkley giving a talk at Cistus Design Nursery in 2009. I was so rapt listening to him talk the other day at the PPA conference that I forgot to pull out my camera.

I try to avoid joining groups and engaging in activities where I have to wait in lines, sit in chairs for hours at a time and dutifully clap between endless rounds of announcements.

But late last week, I got a call from the plant-savvy Dan Heims, owner of Terra Nova Nursery, breeder and wholesale producer of new perennial plants (especially famous for Heuchera and Echinacea). He was at the Doubletree Hotel at Lloyd Center where the Perennial Plant Association was holding its annual conference. “You need to get down here,” he said. “there are some really cool containers in the lobby that you should see…”

This is not the first time Mr. Heims has egged me into getting my sorry self to attend an official horticulture-related conference – and I must say, I’ve always been glad I went when all was said and done. So I huffed over to the Doubletree Hotel at Lloyd Center lobby on Thursday, only to learn that Dan Hinkley – superstar plant explorer and lecturer – would be speaking that afternoon. I had no option: I joined the PPA and forked over an additional $75 to hear the afternoon’s remaining lectures. All previous plans fell by the wayside.

As well as the containers designed by local nurseries on display in the lobby, there were several other lectures to attend before Dan Hinkley’s time at the lectern: I learned about the best performing garden bamboos from wholesaler Boo-Shoots owner Jackie Heinricher (good resources on that website, especially about good clumping bamboos) and about the complexities of fern nomenclature from the irresistible and outspoken Judith Jones of Fancy Fronds. (She’s the ultimate fern advocate and her website fern descriptions are enough to make even the most mediterranean-oriented gardener fall in love with ferns.) But I’m a sucker for Dan Hinkley’s talks because he always sneaks some crazily beautiful rare plants into his presentations and, well… he’s so funny!

His talk was titled “Plant Marriages: Exceptional Combinations Using Foliage Aspects”.

He opened his talk by asking: How do you place plants to make them sing?

He showed slides from his old garden at Heronswood: the first, what he called “a vomitous combination” of perennials in a border, with no structure or grace. It was, he said, “like a large whale had washed up on shore and rotted”. He showed an image of the same border a year later, when he’d made some improvements. It was okay but, as he pointed out, no great shakes. His third image, taken a few years later, demonstrated what he’d learned in the intervening years: to build balance, height differentials, foliar texture, and repetition (of color or plant form) into his gardens. So how did he do it?

His talk outlined three simple garden design principles he had used to make his borders “sing”:

- Punctuation (a bold-leafed plant)
Sometimes adding just one bold-leafed plant like a cardoon (Cynara sp., Gunnera sp., Darmera peltata, Nicotiana sylvestris, or Fatsia can completely shift the look from drab to dazzling. For his audience, he digitally altered the photo of the garden, adding and subtracting various large-leaved plants to show what a difference its presence made. Wow!

- Exclamation (a “statement” plant)
Whether used as a single statement (look at me!, says a dramatic clump of bright red, 5-foot tall Lobelia tupa) or a sustained conversation used throughout the garden to break up the sky (scattered Green Arrow Chamaecyparis nootkatensis or narrow holly (Ilex crenata‘Sky Pencil’), exclamation plants need breathing room and will lose their punch if crowded. But are brilliant at creating the sense of height and dimension in a space by drawing the eye upward. Again, he popped plants in and out digitally and the difference was extraordinary.

- Accentuation (repetition of particular plants or plant colors or textures)
This is the hardest principle to enact for those of us who are plant collectors. But it’s one of the best – and easiest – ways to tie a garden together by creating a common link and knitting the whole together. I liked his observation that you can actually borrow a color in a neighbor’s yard and build on it in your own yard. He also added that repetition doesn’t have to come from plants but can be created by placing similarly colored pots throughout a garden, hanging buoys or lanterns, stoneware balls, or other objects that are meaningful to you and the site. The digital appearance and disappearance of objects helped illustrate his point.

If you haven’t done it before, remember that the old-fashioned method of simply shifting potted plants in and out of your own garden to see how they look in various spots works perfectly well when designing. It’s nice to give yourself a few days to live with something in a particular spot to see if you like it there. Just remember to water it while you’re deciding!

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Tags: Gardening Events, Garden Design, Plant People

plant of the week

Relax – It’s Lavender Time

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jul 07, 2010 at 11:14AM Speech Bubble 1 Comments

Photo: Andy Van Hevelingen

Spanish lavender

Early July is the height of the lavender flowering season – the perfect time to learn about the many different lavender types.

Lavender is a plant of many virtues. It’s a beautiful evergreen herb with a scent that leaves some of us susceptible types weak-kneed. It has interesting culinary uses – not just in jams and jellies but in pastry and savory dishes, as well. (A friend of mine makes a delectable lavender shortbread.) The scent of lavender is said to be relaxing – and actually, has been proven to be so (in part because we associate it with being relaxing – the human mind is a wondrous thing!) As a landscape plant, lavender is tough, drought-tolerant, fast-growing and useful in myriad garden settings, particularly low-water, mediterranean-style plantings.

But there’s even more that’s interesting about lavender. For one, there are over three hundred species and varieties in cultivation and, within those 300 some plants, there’s great variety in flowering time, form, flower and foliar color and even fragrance.

I asked herb expert and grower Andy Van Hevelingen of Van Hevelingen Herb Nursery for a summary of the three main types and their best uses.

1. Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas types)
Blooming in May, Spanish lavenders make 3-4 foot free-flowering landscape plants producing pine cone-like flower with two “flags” or “rabbit ears” on top – striking in bouquets and in the garden. Flowers range from pure white to purple, pink and reddish purple and bicolors with blues, whites and various shades of purple. It has a resinous, camphor-y scent.

2. English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
Flowering in June and July, English lavenders make perfectly mounded, knee-high shrubs to 8-10 inches high with relatively short flower spikes rising just above that height. Flowers range from pure white to pink, blue, purple and deep purple. Flowers may be dried, enjoyed fresh in bouquets, and used in cooking and oils. These are also the cold-hardiest lavenders – at least one down to -25F without cover. English lavender, with its classic, sweet scent, produces the most desirable oil and is used in higher quality lavender products.

3. Lavandin (Lavandula x intermedia)
Flowering in July, lavandins are hybrids between L. angustifolia and L. latifolia and don’t produce seed – instead, plants are propagated by cutting. Colors are limited to pure whites and medium purple shades. These are big, dramatic shrubs, reaching hip or chest height when in flower. Because they are larger, they produce more flowers and oil and are important commercially. A classic lavandin, Grosso, is the source of 70% of the world’s lavender oil market, much of which is used in detergents and soaps.

Andy’s lavender tips:

Plant lavender in full sun (6-8 hours of sun keeps plants compact and free-flowering)

Provide excellent drainage to improve longevity and survival through extra-wet winters such as the one we just experienced.

Shear or trim lavenders back directly after flowering. For Spanish lavender, cut it back in late June (or now); for English lavender, cut it back in a week or so; and the lavandins can be cut back in about 3 or 4 weeks, as they finish blooming.

Additional thoughts: Hedge shears speed up the job. Go for a slightly rounded yet flattened, pancake-like form. Lavenders rarely respond well to cutting deep into old wood so light annual shearing works better than a radical haircut when the plant’s already too far gone.

Visit Andy Van Hevelingen’s booth at this weekend’s Yamhill Lavender Festival in historic Yamhill running Saturday July 10 from 10 – 9 and Sunday July 11 from 10 – 5. Since it’s in the heart of wine country, be ready to tipple – there will be local wine tasting, as well as booths with specialty lavender treats, crafts, and bouquets.

Or check out this list for lavender destinations all over the greater Willamette Valley during the Oregon Lavender Festival. Lavender farms will be open from Hood River to Sauvie Island and the West Hills nearly down to Southern Oregon. During the festival, each farm will offer its own lavender specialties, whether plants, crafts, or bouquets.

Final note: I’ve been asked about the beautiful, deep purple, compact lavenders flowering around town right now. These are English lavender types – Andy said some of the darkest include the old-fashioned Hidcote, as well as some seven or eight other dark purple cultivars including Royal Velvet, Lodden Blue, Baby Blue and a new (patented), very compact dark purple called Thumbelina Leigh.

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Tags: Gardening Events, Gardening Tips, Garden Visits, Herbs

plant sale

Hedgerows Nursery to Close

…last chance to pick up some of their fantastic plants at 50% off

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jun 20, 2010 at 04:21AM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

From a visit in the autumn of 2007 – sweet fall colors at Hedgerows Nursery, McMinnville, OR

David Mason and Susie Grimm opened their small but beautifully curated retail nursery in the early 1990s. They traveled nearly every year to England in search of superb new plants that would thrive in Western Oregon – with a particular eye out for drought-tolerant plants. Their small nursery display gardens were a pleasure to explore, as David also practices garden design and has a magical way of creating structure with plants. I enjoyed the tall, semi-formal hedges of wild lilac (Ceanothus) between the garden and driveway, and the 15-foot tall rose hedgerow screening the nursery from the house – so English but with a good Pacific Northwest twist. Best of all, their plants were impeccably grown in deep pots with hefty root systems.

I’m sad we are losing this wonderful resource run by two unique and lovely souls, but wish them the best in their next foray in life and horticulture.

Hedgerows Nursery – no website but directions here – will be open for one final weekend:
Friday June 25 to Sunday June 27th from 10 to 4 both days. Plants will be for sale at 50% off.

To get to Hedgerows from Portland, Oregon, take I-5 to Highway 99 west exit. Take Hwy 99 to Hwy 18 (the signs say: Ocean Beaches). Go 16 miles to Belleview/Hopewell road (the sign points to Amity). Take the first right on Deer Creek Flats Road. Turn right on Christensen road (about a mile). Hedgerows is the first house on your left.

David Mason & Susie Grimm
Hedgerows Nursery
20165 SW Christensen Road
Mcminnville, OR 97128-8811
(503) 843-7522‎

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Tags: Gardening Events, Plant Sale, Drought-Tolerant Plants

things to do

Upcoming: Nature Writing Class, Garden Tour, Plant Sale!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jun 16, 2010 at 06:50AM Speech Bubble 2 Comments

Three great events popped up on my radar this week – all look so good to me, I could eat them.

First, this weekend: an Open House at Rare Plant Research – a chance to buy super-sexy succulents, tropicals and just take a joy ride in the country. (Anyone who lives in Oregon City would laugh at my ridiculously urban perspective on “the country” – but then again, I watched a mare give birth to a foal in a field across from Rare Plant Research last spring. So it really is the country!)

What: Rare Plant Research Open Garden & Nursery Event The nursery and garden surrounding the house – which is a replica of a 12th century Catalonian monastery – will be open for wandering. And to boot, plants will be 10% off.
When: Saturday, June 19th from 10 am to 1 pm (just three hours!)
Where: here

Next up, the following weekend, a garden tour and art sale…

What: Fifth Annual Seeding Our Future Garden Tour & Art Show – a benefit for the Foundation for Tigard-Tualatin Schools. This tour of eight private gardens located throughout Tigard and Tualatin kicks off with a garden art show with 40+ Northwest artists selling garden and garden-inspired art.
When: The Garden Art Show is Friday, June 25, 2010 from noon to 8 pm and Saturday, June 26, 2010 from 9 am to 3 pm. The Garden Tour is Saturday, June 26, 2010 from 10 am to 4 pm.
Where: The Art Show is at Fowler Middle School, 10865 SW Walnut St., Tigard OR 97223 and is free. The Garden Tour takes place in Tigard and Tualatin area gardens – details are available once you purchase your ticket.
Tour cost: $20.

I get a preview tour this week and will give you a taste of what’s to come, should you be in need of inspiration. Tickets are available here or at Al’s Garden Center, Dennis’ Seven Dees, Ferguson’s Fragrant Nursery, Gardener’s Choice, Hughes Water Gardens, McCann’s Pharmacy, The Garden Corner, Tigard High School, Tualatin High School and the Foundation for Tigard-Tualatin Schools office – or call 503-431-4024.

And finally, in mid-July, an excursion/writing class offered through the Multnomah Arts Center:

What: Writing “Nature” – taught by writer Allison Cobb
When: Saturday, July 17 from 10 am to 2 pm
Where: Lower Macleay Park (entrance to Forest Park); meet at the picnic shelter.
Cost: $20.

Allison Cobb

Here’s the class description:

— "What does “Nature” mean to you? How does the concept of “Nature” inform your writing practice and your lived experience? We’ll meet at one of the most popular entrances to Forest Park and begin the class by exploring our own first experiences of nature and the natural world. We’ll also consider how other writers have navigated the “nature” vs “culture” divide. Then, we’ll walk the Lower Macleay Trail (a short hike of less than one mile on relatively flat ground), to the WPA Stone House. Participants will be asked to notice, along the way, what to them represents “nature” and what “culture.” We’ll also pause for writing breaks. At the Stone House we’ll take a writing, lunch, and discussion break, and participants will share their impressions. Then, we’ll head back down the trail. We’ll reconvene at the picnic shelter to conduct a final writing experiment and process our impressions.

Allison Cobb is the author of Born2 (Chax Press) a collection of poetry, and the just-published Green-Wood (Factory School), a work of poetic nonfiction about New York City’s famous nineteenth century Green-Wood Cemetery. The book chronicles the loss of the American forest in the nineteenth century and the rise of the garden cemetery movement.

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Tags: Gardening Events, Plant Sale

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