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Roses in Five Senses

  “Recently, I spent a day at the cottage where I used to live, and noted with a pleased surprise – to be exact, it was a feeling of having done good unconsciously – the progress of the things I had planted nearly 10 years ago.” George Orwell   Arms heaped with … more

The Allure of Forest Gardens

A forest garden, no matter how small, can be an opportunity to create a garden architecture that invites you to stay awhile. There can be many ways to wander through the trees and even more places to sit. If you watch a frisky dog in a forest garden, you quickly see that … more

May Muse – candy flower

Claytonia sibirica Early morning traffic streams by on 1st avenue. The dog reads the morning news, sniffing mown, tightly edged grass and rank, pollen-scattering grass with equal attention. We pass creosoted utility poles, auto service lot / squat, one lone tent on the roadside, men in muted colors shouldering their few possessions, … more

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

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