PLANTWISE Blog

plant explorations

Oh Terrariums, How I Love You!

fantastical terrarium creations at the Vallarta Botanical Gardens

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jan 14, 2011 at 06:00AM Speech Bubble 3 Comments

One of Robert’s counter displays: this one includes a moist terrarium (far right) with humidity-loving plants; a still-life shell and stone terrarium (center) and a terrarium habitat with a live, active tarantula creeping about in it (far left).

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Another happy discovery I made at the Puerto Vallarta Botanical Gardens – fun terrariums made by the garden’s founder and curator, Robert Price. My photographs do not do them justice! Hopefully you can see beyond the abysmal light and reflective glass to gain a glimpse into the interior of these magical creations populated not only by Vallarta area plants, stone, and shells but also giant, colorful living beetles and spiders. One terrarium contained an enormous, hairy, and beautiful creeping tarantula. Like Mexico’s sometimes rickety city buses and 8-foot high sidewalks without handrails, terrariums containing tarantulas are certainly not something you are likely to find in an American shop!

There are so many kinds of terrariums out there – a rudimentary on-line search will bring up an astonishing array of styles and components, including kitchy figurines and toys, miniature beer cans, plastic plants and garishly colored sands and rocks. But for me, the loveliest terrariums somehow manage to distill nature, allowing people an opportunity to see and relate to the natural world in an intimate way. Thanks to months of close work with Amy Bryant-Aiello for our upcoming book Terrarium Craft, I admit I’ve become a little prejudiced: I’m less fond of fussy, kitschy styles and more partial to earthy, subtly-colored terrariums made from natural – and even local, when possible – materials including plants, mosses, lichens, bark, and insects. Not only are natural terrariums aesthetically delightful and a joy to make; they can also help us all develop a closer relationship to the natural world. And that is a good thing.

Enjoy!

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Tags: Slideshow, Plant People, terrariums,

plant explorations

Travels in Mexico

Puerto Vallarta Botanical Gardens

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jan 12, 2011 at 11:14AM Speech Bubble 7 Comments

The lily pond at the Puerto Vallarta Botanical Garden

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Ah, Mexico! I just returned from two weeks in the Puerto Vallarta area and – as I do with any trip – worked in some plant expeditions, amidst time spent ferreting out incredible food, wandering towns and villages, and peacefully resting on sunny beaches with cocktail in hand. (By the way, there are some incredible airfare deals this month so if the sound of warm sand, sunshine and fresh fish tacos sounds appealing… well…?)

Meantime, here’s something I discovered: while you wouldn’t think there could be great horticultural thrills in an area known for its touristic beaches and hotels, in fact the Puerto Vallarta area has much to recommend it to plant-lovers – including a lovely botanical garden.

The Puerto Vallarta Botanical Garden is easy to get to from the city via a super-cheap city bus (take the “El Tuito/Botanical Gardens” bus) – a winding, scenic drive of about 20 minutes, from the historic district directly to the botanical garden gate.

Founded by Robert Price and his mother Betty in 2004, the garden was originally intended to provide a means to protect and conserve endangered native orchids that were being poached from their habitats. But the garden soon grew in scope to include many types of plants, as well as a great restaurant that serves day-visitors and hosts events – all of which helps fund the 501c non-profit garden.

The site consists of 20 acres of natural jungle ranging in elevation from about 1,100 to 1,300 feet above sea level and bisected by streams and trails running down the sometimes steep hillsides. The garden’s features include an orchid conservatory, tree fern grotto, trails through the jungle and a hillside of planted blue agaves, a native Mexican plant collection, a palm collection, tropical fruit trees, and butterfly gardens.

The garden has recently hired a new executive director, Neil Gerlowski, who plans to tackle the important task of developing the site and creating consistent records and labeling for the growing plant collections. The place is already an engaging destination for the general public, thanks to Robert’s aesthetic eye and skill in gathering plant materials: on display are sophisticated mixed terrariums, creative potted plantings, striking vines dripping from arbors, and playfully designed garden beds incorporating bones and skulls, quixotic plants and hardscaping. Now it looks like they’re ready to take the garden to the next level, turning a lovely destination into a serious botanical resource equipped to provide real collection and conservation resources for plants, including endangered species.

The restaurant, Hacienda de Oro, is a wonderful place to linger and enjoy a cold jamaica drink (made from red hibiscus flowers), spiked with flowers and herbs picked from the garden.

All in all, the garden is a visual treat, with lots of dramatic terrarium and container displays for flower lovers plus great food, fine walking and hiking opportunities, spectacular views from the restaurant, and even bird-watching opportunities for bird geeks (like me!). And based on my conversations with the Robert and Neil, I’d say it will only be growing more exciting for plant collectors and plant nerds as time passes.

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Tags: Slideshow, Garden Visits, tropical gardens, terrariums,

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

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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

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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

garden tours

A Garden With Chutzpa

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jul 18, 2010 at 11:23AM Speech Bubble 3 Comments

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Last weekend’s ANLD garden tour included a garden that really captured my interest and my heart. The garden’s husband-and-wife creators – Marina Wynton, artist/landscape and interior designer and Mike Pajunas, artist and tile/stone contractor – have made a remarkable outdoor space that integrates natives and exotics in a way that is both intelligent and fun. And definitely gutsy: it takes real chutzpa to paint your house magenta with lime-green trim, don’t you think?

The garden has just about everything I love in a garden in one place: great lounging spots, lots of sparky color, crunchy paths and patios (river rock, in this case – not gravel), site-appropriate planting and a diverse array of plants to support native insects and birds.

The day of the tour was hot. I stumbled around the garden for a while, snapped some pictures, and eventually plunked myself down in a shady chair and absorbed. When I found Marina and Mike, we chatted about the ingenious structures, the diverse collection of native plants and more. Mike, who built the new driveway, shed, fences, and pretty much every other structure and bit of hard-scaping in the place, enthusiastically showed me some of their native plant treasures including some local Willamette Valley natives. I appreciated how the native plants were layered so well (understory, mid-story and canopy) – it was nice to sit in a chair opposite it and just stare into the layers of plantings.

I loved the rich purple-blue hydrangeas against the pink house, the hot pink bee balm (Monarda), and many other punchy and colorful plantings. And several other interesting features of the garden (and there are many) were mentioned in an earlier article in Portland Monthly Magazine.

The native garden in particular captivated me. I loved how the plants fit together much as they do in nature – not only the layering of individual plants in relationship to each other but also the siting of the plants in places where they were destined to thrive (sun-loving plants in hot spots, moisture-loving plants in low-lying areas etc). It always surprises me how easy it is for avid gardeners to forget that we must take our cues on what to plant where from the environment itself – rather than choosing plants based on what we want to see in a particular spot! We all do it sometimes – and sometimes it even works – but there’s a special grace and beauty in a garden where plants are growing in proper relationship with the environment.

Their garden has earned quite a collection of wildlife, habitat and environmental certifications – testament to their commitment to land stewardship. See the slideshow to get a better sense of the many environmental features of this garden.

The garden will be open (free) three more times this year to members of the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon – one more reason to join up for a mere $35 per year.

Marina Wynton and Mike Pajunas, Garden and Interior Designer: Olivine Landscape Design

Hardy Plant Society of Oregon

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Tags: Slideshow, Native Plants, Garden Visits

Get Dirty

Pruning Lavender

here’s how to do it – plus highlights from the Lavender Festival

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jul 11, 2010 at 06:22PM Speech Bubble 2 Comments

This image shows the flowering lavender on the far right (still purple). To their left are several rows of lavender whose flowers have been harvested for processing – bundles are grasped with one hand, clipped with the other, then tossed into baskets to be distilled into oil. On the left, the worker is pruning the recently-harvested lavenders into compact “pillows,” the perfect form to keep plants tidy.

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My Sunday was spent out in Yamhill County at the Oregon Lavender Festival at Beulah Park in the town of Yamhill. It was a gorgeous day and my friends and I learned a ton about lavender production and crafts as well as the lavender plants themselves.

There was unexpectedly good music while we were there (vocalist Mary Kadderly with Dan Gildea, guitar) in addition to the many lavender craft booths. We checked out the lavender still set up by Oliver Springs Lavender, where oil is pressed from the flowers. Apparently, they custom-process lavender; call Butch Bochart at 503-538-5791 if you’re interested in their distilling services for your own lavender flowers.

We also stopped by wholesale grower Van Hevelingen Herb’s booth, where we found an astonishing array of lavender plants, both unusual and classic, as well as penstemon, hardy fuchsia, scented geranium, salvia, and culinary herbs. He’s the fellow I interviewed the other day about various types of lavender and how to grow them. His booth contained a variety of compact, dark purple lavenders, several of which came home with me.

A short ride from the park site was Willakenzie Lavender Farm. Willakenzie has production fields of lavender, as well as labeled rows of different lavender cultivars, ornamental gardens, and alpacas – each alpaca is sheared differently, as poodles sometimes are – some with fluffy “booties,” some with puffs on top of their heads, etc. (I thought it would be cool if they sheared the alpacas like lavender and the lavender into alpaca-shapes. But they didn’t go for my idea.) The gift shop sells rather fine lavender and alpaca products, some locally made. I was fascinated to sniff the different essential lavender oils: there were several types of English lavender and lavandins – the differences were truly distinct and remarkable to my nose.

Out in the fields, a young woman was pruning the lavender into perfect little pillows, providing a great example for those who would like to know how to keep their lavenders shapely and tidy over time.

Click on the slide show (above) to see how it’s done.

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Tags: Slideshow, Flowers

things to do

Visit Luscher Farm

Oregon Tilth Organic demonstration gardens, a clematis vine collection, community gardens, Three Rivers Land Conservancy trails and more

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Jun 30, 2010 at 06:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Photo: Kate Bryant

There is a huge City of Lake Oswego community garden on the property – I’ve never seen so many creative and beautifully-maintained plots!

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Looking for inspiration or want to learn more about organic vegetable gardening? Interested in seeing a diversity of clematis vines in a lovely, cottage-garden setting? Or perhaps you’d just like to take a walk on one of the metro area’s Three Rivers Land Conservancy trails.

There’s a lot to do and see at Luscher Farm in West Linn. It’s a great field trip, including with kids – there is a historic bird house with cavorting chickens, pigeons, and small game birds, and plenty of room for kids to run and play.

During my visit with photographer friend Josh McCullough of Phytophoto, I took in the Oregon Tilth Organic Education Center and demonstration garden, the Lake Oswego Community Gardens and the Rogerson Clematis Collection. The Hazelia Field Dog Park is also on the property, as well as an athletic field and several CSA farms.

Click on the slide show (above) to get a little taste of what’s there – and do visit Luscher Farm soon. It’s a remarkable site, with sweeping views in all directions and so much inspiring vitality and diversity in the food gardens. There’s a fantastic story to the place posted on the wall of the historic bird house. Apparently, the property (including house, barn and outbuildings) was donated to the City of Lake Oswego by a retired farmer. It seems to me it’s being put to the best possible use by its current caretakers. You’ll leave feeling inspired.

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Tags: Slideshow, Flowers, Vegetables, Edible Gardening, Vines

garden tours

Porterhowse Farms

colorful conifer cones

Posted by: Kate Bryant on May 07, 2010 at 11:26PM Speech Bubble 2 Comments

Acrocona Norway spruce (Picea abies ‘Acrocona’) with gorgeous hot pinky-purple new cones

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I recently visited Porterhowse Farms, a small retail nursery – nestled in a surprisingly large arboretum and garden – specializing in conifers and conifer companion plants. Porterhowse Arboretum has well over 2000 conifer species and cultivars in the collection and a lovely selection of those plants are for sale in the retail area.

Winter is the best time to admire conifer foliage – conifers really “pop” visually once the deciduous trees and shrubs have dropped their leaves and the wintry monotone landscape provides the backdrop. Many conifers also develop rich colors in cold weather, turning gorgeous shades of smoky burgundy, rust, brighter yellow, or more powdery blue. But spring is the best time to see conifer cones because you can observe the distinct and often colorful male and female cones in their springtime colors.

All conifers species have male and female cones. (See this link to note the difference between male and female pine cones.) Both male and female start out small but the males never really grow and are fairly inconspicuous – once they release their pollen, they are shed from the plant.

The first to appear are often the male (pollen-bearing) cones. They are usually orange or tan but are sometimes red or purple. Female (seed-bearing) cones grow large after pollination. On some species, they start out dramatic red, purple or hot pink in youth before turning green, then age to the familiar dry, brown cones we know and love. If you’re unsure which is which, you can gently shake the cones: when mature, males release a cloud of yellow pollen. (Don’t try this if you suffer from conifer pollen allergies!) Maturation time can range from months to years, depending on the species. Mature female cone size can be less than a quarter inch long to over 2 feet in length.

Most conifer species produce male and female parts on the same individual plant but a few, including yews and junipers, appear on separate plants. Yews and junipers actually don’t produce cones: instead, their seed lies within a fleshy covering called an aril. I remember squishing juicy red yew arils when I was a child. (They are reputedly poisonous.)

There was a wild diversity of brightly-colored, prominent cones on the conifers at Porterhowse Farms when I visited. (See Slideshow for some dishy examples – if any aren’t identified and you want to know what they are, email me – or just wait: I’ll be loading the names presently.) But I’m sure my photos do not do them justice – and some of the more dramatic purple female cones were just too high on the trees for me to sensibly photograph.

There is much to learn and love about conifers. Many conifers are tough and drought-tolerant plants, as well as providing year-round interest and a diversity of colors and forms.

For more information on the morphology of the cones and how conifer reproduction takes place, there’s a nice, quick introduction on the American Conifer Society’s conifer introduction page.

A fantastic and informative conifer blog can be found here.

For information on specific conifers, Porterhowse Farms has a database of plants in the arboretum, with descriptions and some photos, as well as an availability list and a links and publications page with a link to the American Conifer Society.

Porterhowse Farms is about an hour from Portland in Sandy. Visitors are welcomed by appointment only – just call to arrange a time to visit. You will need at least an hour to visit the garden – we took over three hours and shopped afterwards. Retail offerings include unusual conifers in sizes ranging from small tubes (I got a tube of silvery cultivar of the lacebark pine, Pinus bungeana ‘Silver Ghost’) to specimen-sized plants. There is also a surprisingly good collection of Sempervivum and Jovibarba (hens-and-chicks) in ruby, burgundy, and nearly black shades, as well as green and red-rimmed green.

To arrange a visit the nursery and arboretum, contact Don here.

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Tags: Slideshow, Nurseries, Trees, Conifers

plant files

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 Speech Bubble 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 »

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.

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Tags: Slideshow, Flowers

places to go

Bishop’s Close Garden

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

Magnolia sargentiana var rubra

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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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Tags: Slideshow, Places to Go

Yard, Garden & Patio Show Redux

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Feb 14, 2010 at 04:00PM Speech Bubble 2 Comments

One of the Cracked Pots artists made some lovely metal animals

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In case you didn’t make it, the Portland Yard, Garden & Patio Show was a lot of fun this year. We’ll have the numbers soon enough and will know just how well it did… but after my sally around the show floor today, I’d say there was solid visitor turnout and clearly some vendors did very well. It will be interesting to see which types of businesses did best – post-show analysis always provides an interesting reading on current trends.

I was drawn to a few of the displays: particularly Hughes’ Water Gardens’ natural-looking pond garden (view slideshow!) The plants growing around the make-believe pond were well-suited to the (imaginary) water’s edge conditions – a great example of the principles of Right Plant, Right Place. Viewers could look at that display and glean real ideas about what to plant around their pond. That’s my idea of good service! Colorful red-twigged dogwoods grew in delicious clumps at the water’s edge, with sword ferns providing an understory to the silvery-trunked birch trees. Leaves carpeted the ground instead of bark dust. It was a look well worth replicating.

Large, trunked specimens of Yucca rostrata made a dramatic statement in Cistus Design Nursery’s display garden

Sean Hogan’s Cistus Design Nursery display was also memorable for its good looks – and for the good gardening principles it promoted. I loved that the plants were displayed in a layered fashion, with a ground-cover carpet and a “canopy” of drought-tolerant shrubs and trees, much like you’d find in a well-designed garden. No need for a thick layer of bark dust on the ground – plants provided the layering. I also appreciated that the plants on one side of the display were drought tolerant, requiring no supplemental summer water (manzanita, yucca, cypress and such) while on the other side were plants which thrive with only occasional summer water (New Zealand flax – Phormium – for instance). The “take-aways” in this display are that layering works to create a natural-looking garden and that, in a summer-dry climate such as ours, it’s smart to segregate water-needier plants from those that neither need nor want summer water.

This exemplifies the opposite aesthetic:

Primroses floating in a barkdust sea

Everyone I spoke with enjoyed the talks. Rose Marie Nichols McGee’s talks on growing vegetables in containers and new vegetable varieties were enjoyed by all attendees I spoke with.

And of course, there were fantastic plants available, from premium dahlia bulbs from local growers like Swan Island Dahlias to stunning hellebores and lots of sedums and hens-and-chicks (Sempervivum ). Everybody was talking about – and touching – the living walls. Some of the living walls on display were brimming with drought-tolerant succulents (nice ) and others (naughty ) were brimming with a strange combination of grasses and invasive plants like Vinca, which shouldn’t be planted anywhere, much less in a living wall where everyone can see it up close and personal.

So there you have it – my take on the show. Now, what about you – what did you think of the show this year? Did you see anything new? Did anything stick with you as particularly inspiring or motivating? Did you even go?

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Tags: Gardening Events, Slideshow, Places to Go, Garden Stuff, Plant Sale

Seattle Flower Show Rundown

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Feb 06, 2010 at 01:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Seattle garden shop Ravenna Gardens created this display titled ‘Urban Nest’

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I had a fleeting but action-packed trip North to the Northwest Flower & Garden Show in Seattle on Thursday. We headed up before dawn and returned after midnight – a non-stop, 18-hour fiesta of total plant immersion. The show runs through Sunday evening so there’s still time to go if you’re inclined. The end of the final day of the show is actually a good time for bargains, as some vendors sell off their display plants at great prices.

My companions and I downed coffee at the nearby Bauhaus Cafe before hurrying back to the Convention Center for an 11:30 am talk by SF Bay Area landscape architect Andrea Cochran. Her gardens are sleek exemplars of modern design, characterized by large swathes of single species of ornamental grasses, shrubs or trees. Rectilinear lines, sweeps of plants (mostly shrubs and grasses or groups of diaphanous white Japanese anemone) and expanses of gravel or stone create planes against which a single shapely tree – often native evergreen oak – can shine. Her images were amazing; I was particularly smitten with her use of large Shoji-like screens that permit light through while blocking a view.

Next up, at 1 pm, was a talk by Fergus Garrett, head gardener at the renowned, very quirky and in some ways “un-English” English garden Great Dixter. I’d visited Great Dixter many years ago and have since often read Garrett’s garden articles in English gardening magazines. To my dismay, the tickets were gone two hours before his talk. We decided to wait at the door, in case there was standing room and – as luck would have it – there was. His talk focused on the ongoing, fruitful editing process that takes place when one maintains a garden over the years – and how valuable it is to rework plantings over time. “Editing is very important – that’s how gardens move ahead and improve,” he noted. Good advice in an era of TV garden make-over shows and insta- garden designs. He is a firm advocate of the idea of “Right Plant, Right Place” – in other words, it’s important to know what your plants need and position them correctly so that they are “not just happy but impressive”. In his words: “you must understand your plants and be creative”.

I liked how he explained his priorities when working new plants into the existing design at Great Dixter:

*Rule #1: Make sure plant is happy.
*Rule #2: Consider shape: contrasting forms of plants foliage and flower heads
*Rule #3: Consider flower/plant color.

It’s all too easy to do it in reverse order, though, prioritizing the look of the plants – particularly flower color – and considering the plants’ needs last. But as he tried to underscore, to avoid disappointment, we must not ignore “basic ecological rules” (ie, Right Plant, Right Place!)!

Garrett’s talk was funny and charming and the images were inspiring, with examples of both successful and unsuccessful plant combinations. It takes considerable gumption to show combinations that don’t work (particularly from your own design files) and I love that he did it.

By the time we got out of two seminars, we had to be extremely efficient to take in as much of the Show as possible in the time we had left. We speed-walked through the display gardens – most of which used far less bark dust than in days of yore and were, in fact, quite creative (click on the slide show for some photographic highlights). Next, the sales areas with suppliers of garden tools, garden art, some plant-themed clothing and jewelry, and – my favorite – plants. There were tons of summer bulb vendors and – a new thing – many vendors sold dormant perennial plants in bags rather than growing plants in pots.

Because the Yard, Garden & Patio Show is coming up next weekend in Portland (Friday Feb 12 to Sun Feb 14), I was restrained. All I bought were three gorgeous air plants (Tillandsia sp.) from Owens Nursery to grow in my bathroom and also a gorgeous little blackish-burgundy hardy garden bromeliad Dyckia (seedling from Burgundy Ice). That was enough to whet my appetite!

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Tags: Gardening Events, Slideshow, Places to Go, Flowers, Garden Stuff

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