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Remember Willow

  driving north on I-five, Mount Hood out the passenger side window– awesome– but it’s the budded willows that draw me again and again, in road side ditch, furred golden-gray bright against the bleak stems of winter scrub, a small bird alights from one, later, a plump red-tailed hawk and my attention … more

Honored by Morpholio

I was honored as a top landscape designer by the good people at Morpholio. And they made this for me!

Some new ideas for garden ‘screens’

I recently published an article in Pacific Horticulture about “screens.” What is a screen? It’s a display as well as a boundary that hides what’s behind it. If you crave organized beauty and privacy, you may need screening to fill in — sooner rather than later. Check it out here: “The Solution Sparkles … more

Celebrate the Pleasures of February with Osoberry Ecology at Home

Oemleria cerasiformis – Plant of the Month     Celebration In bleakest February a vigor entered my life, no, it was a cucumber. The scene is fogged, speared by low-angled light igniting small flames of vegetal green. A zig right and up, switchback, engage legs, strength to propel away from lawn, parking … more

I discovered a flower one nimbus-mooded day

1. What plants go here? Imagine the rare valley snow has thawed and the garden shows it’s face again—the crisp leaves of fall long-turned a sluggier shade of brown, the ground sodden, muddy. Imagine a new blue-sky day with long, low rays of warm sun. What plant catches that light and reflects … more

Plant of the Month – Oregon White Oak

when I describe the limbs as muscular, do you see it? the oak, the Oregon White Oak, standing solitary in its golden savanna? or if I say scrub, do you know you’re on lean land and the oak grows to fit? a tree that makes its home from Southern California to Vancouver … more

and you, Camellia sasanqua

1. Clean white flutter atop a luster of green, Setsugekka, I’ll find a home for you, close in near outdoor kitchen conjured from steel and craft, with you becoming a leafy wall in a fresh young garden, a new room to inhabit, your scent lifting on November’s breath. You captured her heart … more

Fall into Rhythm – Rethinking Garden Cleanup

Stormy gusts in the night woke me briefly with thoughts of the raging sea. Come sunrise, all was speckled gold. Walnut leaves, their individual leaflets torn from the stalk, patterned the gray of the flagstone patio as well as the rag rug at the threshold of my open sliding door. And the … more

Plant of the Month – Oregon Ash

Fraxinus latifolia     Grays skies of October welcomely wet, wool sweaters and boots return, dust and wildfire smoke retreat. And under this muted lid, a pool of green gold in the lay of the land, the lowland fold. Bright against moody Doug fir and dark oak bough, singing clear near bleached … more

The Art of the Open Air Living Room Garden

“If beauty’s understood as a form of order, its elements perfectly self-regulating, then an orderly day is not a worn circuit, or rote, but a haven and a habitat.” Lia Purpura Too often the habitat garden, the wildlife garden, the native garden appears a mess, chaotic and uninviting to the human animal … more