Just a girl with a hammer: EMSWCD

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Want to build your own rain garden?

Hey Portlanders! If you've ever been interested in building a rain garden on your property, now's your chance!

There will be a free Rain Gardens 101 workshop on December 1st. I took this class last year and it was excellent. They give you all the tools to plan and build your rain garden and the presenters are great.

My friends have a phenomenon we call "hippie trump." You know when you go to a barbecue and someone asks if there are veggie burgers and you're like, "Yeah, I picked up some from Whole Foods," and then someone else is like, "You know, their oats aren't locally sourced. I made some from scratch. They have bulgar wheat and organic mushrooms," and then someone else is like, "Oh, that's cute. I brought homemade ketchup that I made from tomatoes and onions I grew in my garden, using a bike-powered blender."

You've just been hippie trumped. And they probably spelled ketchup "catsup," the big jerks.

Rain gardens are the ultimate hippie trump. You do our rivers and streams a solid all winter long, the birds and butterflies love them, and when your native purist friends ask why you're growing agaves (BECAUSE THEY'RE AWESOME. GOD.) you can be like, "rain gardens, bitches."

I also think they're pretty and topography changes in the landscape only up the interest. And they are really fun to watch fill.

Super blurry because it was POURING.

Can you believe my castor bean plant was ever that small? Can you see it?

Monday, June 6, 2011

Real yards have curves

We got our first real summer weather this weekend! It was sunny and 85 and perfect. Greg and I hit up the "Naturescaping for backyard habitats" garden tour through EMSWCD. They showcased six homes where people had achieved the gold or platinum status from the Audubon Society. There were some really beautiful gardens . . . and there were some really sloppy ones. It turns out I like my gardens a little tidier than some folks. I was sort of bummed about that at first, especially since I'm always telling people, "I like it wild!"

I like it wild but only in a controlled manner, apparently. This comes as a surprise to absolutely no one.

I did come away with an overwhelming need to obtain some meadow rue. It's the airy, lacy, beautiful stuff on the top of this photo and it makes me DROOL.

Thalictrum occidentale. Crappy photo courtesy of my phone.

Then I spent all of Sunday taking the leftover stones from the dogbone and using them to define the hillocks in the backyard. The grass has a way of trying to creep up into the beds.

Before:

And after:

As I'm sure you've noticed, my camera can't take a sharp picture to save its life. I keep cleaning the lens to varied effect. I think it's the universe telling me to buy a nicer one?

I packed the spaces between the retaining stones with mulch to try and stave off the encroaching grass. It won't work but it should slow it down.

It was tricky under the hemlock (Is it a hemlock? Shit if I know.) because you don't want to bury the roots of the tree or you'll suffocate it. And then it will fall on your house. I had already stupidly dumped soil and mulch on top of the area beneath the tree last summer. We wanted the stones to look like were actually retaining something, which meant scootching some of that soil and mulch down toward the stones, hopefully giving the root system more air. Or not. Anybody know how to remedy this?

The blurry photos, they make me so sad. The lack of varied color in this area makes me sad as well.

I'm liking the formality of the retaining stones so much that I'm tempted to continue some sort of boundary in the new raised bed area. It would really tie the whole yard together.