Baptisia: My Favorite Spring Perennial

Tom Fischer of Timber Press gets extra credit for getting me hooked on false indigo, or Baptisia. Until he wrote about them for the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon’s Quarterly, I had no idea that there were so many new introductions, in colors way beyond the original blue-violet. Once I began growing yellow, white, lavender,…

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Clematis Tour this Saturday!

“Anything I do, I do a lot of,” says Mike Snyder, confessing that he has planted more than 150 clematis in his Beaverton garden. All his climbing roses have at least one clematis companion. Clematis scramble through his shrubs, climb up trellises, twine their way up sixteen arches and travel up several obelisks. Mike will…

Geums Glow in My Spring Garden

Many of you who have been to my garden in summer have enjoyed the huge splash of color from daylilies, roses, and hydrangeas. But right now the Geums are exploding. Orange, red, peach, and yellow, they’re the first big wave of spring color, right on the heels of earlier spring-flowering Epimediums. Beyond their adorable flowers…

Rainy Day Pleasures

When the edges of my garden beds have standing water and the lawn is as soggy as a sponge, deadheading hellebores seems less urgent, even though it’s on my to-do list. Instead I go for breakfast with a dear friend whom I haven’t seen for weeks. Two hours later we emerge from the warm restaurant,…

Gathering My Crayons

I can’t help myself. When I see a gorgeous plant, I buy it first and figure out where to put it later. I stand there, bowled over, amazed by each one’s beauty. And yes, I do talk to my plants, sometimes whispering, “Just look at you!” or “You are so beautiful!” Lately my passion for…

Hummingbirds Love Lungwort

Hummingbirds don’t care if the lungwort (Pulmonaria) they visit are the specially bred varieties like ‘Benediction’, ‘Roy Davidson’, or ‘Excalibur’. If the flowers are blue, pink, or rose color, if the leaves are green, spotted or silver, it just doesn’t matter. I can imagine them chirping, “Just gimme some nectar!” I love to watch the…

Kedi: A Cat Lover’s Dream Film

If you love cats, you might like to see the Turkish movie, Kedi, probably more than once. Honestly, I can’t wait to watch it again. I just viewed the trailer to get another little taste of the euphoria I experienced the other night at Cinema 21. This is a documentary, but it’s really a series…

I Get By with a Little Help

At least once a year, definitely in the spring and sometimes in the fall, I hire some garden help for a massive cleanup. Just this morning, when my saviors, the Queen Bee Landscape crew, arrived in a pickup truck with an ample trailer, I breathed a sigh of relief! Three strong men strode into the…

Grassroots Efforts Save Nerd Night

When a certain radio station cancelled In the Garden with Mike Darcy, the garden community objected stridently. But all our letters and emails didn’t help. The last show aired at the end of December 2016. Since then Mike continued to send his newsletter, but the big question was, what would become of Nerd Night? This…

Impulse Buying is Just Fine!

“You’re just too deliberate, too conservative, and too much of a planner,” my husband Tom said. “Why can’t you be more spontaneous?” How embarrassing! However, he’s never shadowed me at a nursery or a garden center. Once in the presence of plants, all these qualities melt away. Passion for plants drives me to lose all…