Blog
Habitat Hedges – the Friendliest Screening
Imagine stepping from the walled-in experience indoors, out your back door, to a view of multi-textured green, a foreground green that blends into the far view of hazier green. Your neighbor’s trees, the distant hills, appear as they are—connected to the land where you now stand. Read my latest contribution … more
Honey-Rose Colored October with Habitat-Rich Chokecherry
Waiting out front for Aaron to grab his down vest, I noticed geese flying overhead in a V. The smell of fermenting figs swirled with the first fallen leaves. Both scampered down the street to chase an orange tomcat. The sky was clear blue. It hadn’t rained for days, maybe … more
The Gentleness of Yarrow
I need softness: tiny feathers curved to catch my eye atop garden stone, and another, elongated but tiny still, on a broad elk clover leaf; a cat whisker left to grant my small wish for magic, for ease; real rain dampening all sound but its own patter and ping on patio … more
August Day by Cascara
alias: Frangula purshiana, Rhamnus purshiana, Cascara sagrada, Sacred bark Before Morning extends her fingers to warm my lowest trunk, down where grasses tickle, I’ve already lifted my summer-leathered leaves to the song of her. The song of Morning spoken by all the winged ones: Robins, Wrens, Sparrows, and eager Bees. … more
Checkermallow Love–for Beauty, Conservation, and Pollinators
Living, gardening, and hiking in western Oregon, I was bound to meet up with this wildflower sooner or later. Rose checkermallow has a range that extends through the Willamette Valley and southward to the California border. It took a sleeping bee to draw me in and I haven’t stopped looking since. … more
The Sweetest Groundcover: Wild Strawberries
Strawberry-scented Memories My hair still smells like strawberries from the air bnb shampoo I used yesterday. It reminds me of childhood and the scented hair of my Strawberry Shortcake doll. With her round, freckled cheeks and ruffled pinafore, her charm roused her lazy friend Huckleberry Pie every time. I was out … more
Buttercup Brave
Once upon a time, in earliest spring, when golden moments of sunshine played at rainbow making between intervals of storm showers, a young snail extended their tentacles out to the waking world. Snail, hugging cold ground with mucus-slippered foot, felt little beyond the plodding cycle of clouded day becoming night and … more
To You, Street Trees
Curbed in concrete and asphalt, rooted beneath impermeable surfaces of human engineering, yet still, you tower, you arch overhead, tickling third-story windows, holding nests and sunlight in your crowns. Thank you. Thank you street trees for the visual rest of your complexity in a straight-lined urbanity. Your branches trace dark lines, earth’s … more
Garden Design for the Greater Community
For my latest Pacific Horticulture article I had the pleasure of talking with seven different designers and gardeners about their public-facing, community-engaging projects. Read Garden Design for the Greater Community to hear their stories. You’ll learn how your own efforts to reclaim vacant ground, even if that’s just your own front yard … more
Wild Ginger Love
privacy a sheltering hood of shining green, shaped in the symbol of love two lobes atop a point, heart overlapping heart, like boudoir sheets unmade, the leaves cover, they drape, hiding and revealing what’s bare and what’s blossoming below. the name: Wild Ginger, an erotic personality, confirmed by musky spice when … more