The mood is gray-black lit by gold-yellow. The month is April. Daffodils reign. Under atmospheric river storms, sodden snow, and great big inhales of sunshine, we dig the ground and plant. Looking up from the squelch squerch beneath my boots, golden bright daffodils beam pure joy. Popping out in their hundreds … more
There’s only a few plants of which I’d say, “Everyone needs this!” In the interest of diversity, and to keep my work new and engaging for myself, as well as for my clients, I don’t repeat plant palettes. However, almost every garden has a dark pocket of dry ground, that tough … more
It was on one of those dim, fogged mornings when the remaining leaves on the trees appear to yearn for the ground, heavy like newly washed hair, limbs blurred with mist, the lines of them made more distant, remote, out-of-reach, and the grasses and tall perennials on the ground slump, arch, and … more
Overhead, a sheet of dim white, and ragged complexity of dark and light lace, moving, shifting with the wind. The clouds, a landscape mirrored in the small scene of remay-covered trays in my nursery, porous cloth peaked where plant tags stand and valleyed with collections of withered buddleia leaves and blown, black … more
wet spring followed by this, a parched, dry fall. crush of katsura leaves underfoot releasing toasted warmth, buttery, cozy, smell of fall. catch a whiff of gardenia-scented silverberry blossoms, of sweet perfumed eternal fragrance daphne, or salad freshness of sasanqua camellia, and rotting figs, fermenting apples, wildfire smoke on the wind. dry … more
“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
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
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
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
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
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