Just a girl with a hammer

Author: Heather

  • How Bloomtown changed my life (with only a tiny bit of hyperbole)

    How Bloomtown changed my life (with only a tiny bit of hyperbole)

    Seven years ago Portland Metro hosted a “Gardens of Natural Delights” bicycle tour that showed off pesticide-free gardens. A lot of the gardens were focused on food production and they were fairly utilitarian. There was a lot of straw mulch and a slant toward function over form. The gardens were pesticide free but they weren’t very beautiful.

    Then we pedaled over to a different garden and my brain imploded.

    My first garden

    At the time I had a raised veggie bed at home that a boyfriend had built for me. Standing outside of the brain-imploding garden I remember thinking, “Gardens can be like THIS?!?” This garden was layered and exuberant and stuffed with both edible and ornamental plants and it was beautiful. I wanted a garden just like it. I think that was the moment I became a gardener, for real.

    I recently spent a Monday evening dragging Greg to a bunch of HPSO open gardens. One of the visits we made was to Darcy Daniels’ garden.

    I met Darcy on the Garden Bloggers’ Fling and as we approached her house she called out, “Have you been here before?” and I told her no.

    Vegetable beds zigzag through her side yard

    As we stepped into the back garden I realized that I had been there before; THIS was the garden from seven years ago. This was the garden that ignited that passion for gardening.

    My camera got so excited that it crapped out and I had to take most of my photos with my phone.

    I loved Darcy’s garden just as much the second time. It’s cozy and intimate and she has an incredible number of conifers tucked in everywhere (which I find so difficult). And it’s infectious! Gardening has been one of the most wonderful, life-changing things to happen to me, so I’m thankful Bloomtown was on that tour, so many years ago.

    If you’re an Oregon local (or close-in Washington) and haven’t joined HPSO, you’re missing out. It’s only $35 to join and you won’t be too late to get a summer tour book. Every single week there are open gardens that you can tour for inspiration. And they bring in the best speakers during the winter. It’s an incredible deal.

    Has anyone else had such a lightning bolt moment with gardening? And is there a joke we can work in about de-flowering your garden innocence that won’t make Darcy feel icky?

  • We are officially no-mow in the front yard

    We are officially no-mow in the front yard

    In the list of Things I’ve Spent the Majority of My Life Doing, removal of sod is quickly catching up to sleeping, reading, and perusing the Annie’s Annuals website. For the record, those latter three things are way more fun than sod removal.

    Despite the fact that everyone I know loves smothering, I have not had good results with it. The neighborhood cats dig up my newspaper, things never properly decompose, and the sod always seems to come back to life. I’ve read reports online from people who claim that, within six weeks of applying the smothering layer of choice, they had lush, crumbly topsoil. I call bullshit.

    Anyway. I had very little sod left in the front garden but it needed to be removed very carefully with a pickax, so I wouldn’t disturb the roots of the 75 year old dogwood tree. I had this stupid strip along the new pathway just to make mowing awful for Greg. You’re welcome, buddy.

    I used the same rock I’ve used throughout the garden and did a terrible job preparing the ground. I want people to know that I DIYed this.

    And along the property line . . .

    The hope is to give my neighbor a level surface to run his lawnmower along. And I’ll have a clear demarcation of where wood chips or mulch should begin.

    Now I just need to fill in this area in with dry shade plants. I have three Amsonia hubrichtii planted around the dogwood, along with Geranium macrorrhizzum, which will hopefully disguise the abrupt transition from fine hemlock mulch to cedar chips.

    I planted a tiny variegated flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum ‘Variegata’) in this area (just to the left of the pouty Sesleria autumnalis), since that native can take an awful lot of abuse. I’ve also got a smattering of random hellebores and volunteers like Persicaria ‘Lance Corporal,’ Phlomis russeliana, and Parahebe perfoliata. Anybody have a favored 3-4 foot dry shade subshrub or evergreen plant? I need some variation in height.

    I also need a bench or comfy chair so I can sit under the dogwood with a glass of wine in the evening. And groundcovers. I need something to knit this mess together.

    Before

    Who needs lawn? The whole front garden was designed to be watered twice a month or less. It’s crazy but it’s fun and we have zillions of pollinators.

    June of this year

    We don’t miss mowing at all.

  • Garden bloggers’ bloom day July 2014

    Garden bloggers’ bloom day July 2014

    My god, where has the year gone? Did you know it’s July? Despite the fact that I celebrated the 4th of said month with fireworks and all that, and the Fling came and went, I was sort of floored to realize that it’s not June anymore. And July is that wonderful time of year when I stand in the garden, swearing at myself for not better documenting the 900 kinds of lilies I planted in the spring. And why did I plant one that will get eight feet tall smack dab in the front of the bed?

    Everything is blooming right on schedule except for my Eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgandy,’ which is shy this year. We’re all lilies and grasses right now, which is just fine by me.

    Silk Road is wonderfully scented. One stem decided to fall over so I just had to cut it and bring it inside. You can smell it all the way in the back bedrooms from the dining room. It’s worth the allergy flair-up.

    Silk Road
    ‘Alchemy’  has a much less perfumey scent and is citrusy. It’s wonderful.
    ‘Conca d’Or’ is enormous!
    ‘Scheherazade’
    ‘Miss Libby’ looking a little past her prime.
    Good old ‘Stargazer’

    Some other newer additions for the garden this year:

    Clematis Jackmanii
    Plume poppy (Macleaya cordata) has a dusty pink bloom I normally wouldn’t like.

    Helenium ‘Mardi Gras’

    Eryngium giganteum ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’

    Eucomis reichenbachii

    Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’

    Coreopsis ‘Limerock Ruby’ improbably survived the winter.

    Tithonia rotundifolia
    Chionochloa rubra is blooming for the first time!

    A very happy (late) bloomday to you! Thank you, as always, for hosting Carol!

  • The winner of the ANLD tour tickets!

    Random.org was used to pull a winner for the ANLD tickets and congrats go to Matthew of The Lents Farmer (who entered on my Facebook page)! I'll contact you about picking them up.

    Thank you to those of you who entered–I've never done a giveaway because I was worried that no one would enter. You've saved me some anxiety and I appreciate it!
  • Want to attend the 2014 ANLD Tour?

    Want to attend the 2014 ANLD Tour?

    I had the good fortune to attend a sneak peek of this year’s Association of Northwest Landscaper Designers’ (ANLD) Tour, which will take place next Saturday, June 28th. Six gardens were showcased, with designers flexing their muscles to combat challenges like tiny urban plots, bad drainage, and the need for a beautiful garden that could accommodate a tractor driving through it (!).

    The Best garden

    The Malone garden

    The Malone garden

    There was plenty of great hardscaping to ogle and a hefty dose of plant porn, especially in the Ernst and Williams gardens.

    The Ernst garden, which will be featured in this year’s Garden Bloggers’ Fling

    Podophyllum ‘Red Panda’? in the Ernst garden

    Aloe suprafoliata in the Moore garden

    I came away with a lot of ideas I’d like to steal and a profound respect for the association. The passion and support those members in the ANLD show for each others’ work in incredible. All proceeds from the tour benefit the ANLD scholarship fund. Tickets for the tour are available at Portland Nursery, Cornell Farms, Dennis’ Seven Dees, Garden Fever!, and Xera Plants. If that’s not tempting enough, I’m giving away two tickets for the tour. Just head over to Facebook and like ANLD, then leave a comment here saying, “Count me in” or something to that effect. I’ll announce the winner on Thursday morning!

  • Garden bloggers’ bloom day June 2014

    Garden bloggers’ bloom day June 2014

    I was reading some snarky garden article the other day about the overuse of salvia by landscape designers and I looked out into my yard in horror . . . you guys, I have SO much salvia. In my defense, I was sent 21 of them by High Country Gardens in the weirdest order mix-up ever, but I’ve still got a lot that are my doing.

    Salvia sylvestris ‘Blue Hill’

    I love them and the bees love them. And they smell so good and sweaty. ‘Caradonna‘ and ‘May Night‘ are still going and will go on all summer.
    Salvia ‘Indigo Spires’ is just getting going
    But the most exciting thing right now is that my Yucca recurvifolia bloomed! Hot damn.
    Lilium martagon ‘Arabian Night’
    Helenium ‘Mardi Gras’
    Eremurus ‘Lemon Meringue’ are just finishing up
    Verbascum epixanthium
    Fuschia magellanica ‘Hawkshead’

    Scabiosa caucasica ‘Fama Blue’

    Asclepias speciosa

    Penstemon x ‘Enor’

    Agastache aurantica ‘Navajo Sunset’

    Callicarpa bodinieri ‘Profusion’

    Papaver ‘Drama Queen’

    Papaver hybridium ‘Lauren’s Grape’

    Verbena boariensis

    Clarkia amoena ‘Aurora’

    Agrostemma githago

    This summer has really snuck up on me . . . I feel like I’ll be putting the garden to bed for winter if I don’t stop and enjoy things. Happy bloom day and thank you to our host Carol!

  • Getting that privacy back

    Getting that privacy back

    I think in my version of hell I’d be running a daycare out of my house and those commercials for Video Only (“You’ll be sooooooorry!”) would be playing on a loop overhead. I don’t dislike children as much as I can’t handle disruption in my home, and a bunch of kids are more destructive than bears. 
    The house next door is finally on the market, which means I can start worrying about what our new neighbors will be like instead of worrying about garden damage and lead exposure.

    This is our new solution to the flippers next door clearing every shrub from their property, giving them a clear view into our backyard. I’m not totally in love with it right now because it’s a gigantic galvanized tub, right as walk into the yard, but I think as the grasses grow in I’ll like it better.

    Before:

    And now:

    Right now the area in front of the tank looks ridiculous.

    Eryngium planum ‘Blue Hobbit’ and Sedum rupestre ‘Lemon Ball’

    Little blibs and blobs that will someday fill in and not look so silly.

    There was a whole incident with the flippers hiring one of the kids from down the street to power wash the house, which deposited paint chips all over . . . then the wind picked up and blew them all into my yard. They cleaned them up but informed me they never did a lead test. They were totally unconcerned about it and one of their subcontractors informed me, “It’s naturally occurring in the human body and it’s not that harmful.” Both of those things are false, especially for kids. Did I mention they had the eight year old from down the street picking paint chips out of my mulch? So irresponsible.

    It’s been stressful and I will be happy to never see them again. And hopefully I won’t see the new owners . . . from the backyard, at least. Keep your fingers crossed that they want to plant a hedgerow between our houses. And that they’re bakers or cheesemongers and that they don’t have a garage band.

  • Competing for natives

    Competing for natives

    Before I bought my house I knew I wanted a garden; in fact I kept announcing to people, “I need a big yard because I’m a gardener.” I had but one season of vegetable gardening under my belt but I just knew I was destined for great plant lust.

    I’d never landscape gardened before so I checked out every single gardening book from the library where I worked and kept them for the better part of a year. If the east county was lacking in new gardens that year, you can blame me. I took every single one.

    Backyard in 2010

    Before I replaced the fence and had the slab removed

    My favorite to read was the Encyclopedia of Northwest Native Plants for Gardens and Landscapes. The pictures are beautiful and plentiful and the descriptions are thorough. I also signed up for the Backyard Habitat program, so I could buy native plants on the cheap. It was a good way to get my garden started at a time when I had no money. At one point I thought I’d have a 100% native garden but then I discovered that other plants exist. Really great plants that I like a lot!

    I like you too, Oregon iris. You can stay.

    I got certified as “backyard habitat” at the silver level in 2011, which awarded me a metal sign, continued participation in plant sales, and bragging rights. It also nourished the part of me that enjoys meeting arbitrary goals.

    Did you know that Geum triflorum is native to the PNW? I bought it
    because it was pretty.

    The volunteer they sent to evaluate my yard in 2011 didn’t have the broadest plant knowledge and I had to bicker over some plants with her. She was also hellbent on me removing my bamboo. I exacted my revenge my planting a lot more of it in subsequent years.

    Dichelostemma ida-maia is another plant that I bought without realizing it was native.

    I had to get recertified this year and I didn’t want any quibbling so I came armed with spreadsheets and a diagram. I printed the map Greg created of our yard and labeled where all the natives lived. I cataloged every native in our garden and I was shocked to discover that we had 59 unique species. I ran out and bought Thalictrum occidentale so I could round it out to 60, because . . . math? even numbers? I don’t know.

    Meadow rue (Thalictrum occidentale)

    The volunteer who judged my garden this time was much friendlier and didn’t give my bamboo the side-eye. He also informed me that I had easily qualified for gold certification and was this close to platinum, which made me crazy. You just gave me a new arbitrary goal and informed me I’d failed!

    Clarkia amoena, one of our prettiest native annuals

    Maybe platinum is in my future or maybe I won’t care anymore. I think this is a great program, even if I have a few quibbles with it. The plants I’ve purchased through them have been terribly root-bound and they don’t perform as well as plants I’ve bought from nurseries, though they certainly cost a lot less. It’s been a couple of years since I bought from them, so I hope they’re improving. I also wish there was room in the program for certain non-natives.

    Hummingbird feeding from non-native Mahonia x media ‘Arthur Menzies’ on January 7th.

    My mahonia hybrids provide food for hummingbirds and insects in December and January, when nothing else is blooming. I think year-round nectar trumps native purity in certain cases.

    My last complaint, because I am nothing if not a complainer: don’t take pictures of people with a wide-angle lens. It’s so unflattering.

    Do you have native plants in your garden? What’s your favorite? The pointlessly competitive part of me thinks I should incorporate more, so I can get to 75 species. Maybe then they’ll give me a wristwatch or a commemorative clock.

  • Garden bloggers’ bloom day, May 2014

    Garden bloggers’ bloom day, May 2014

    Man, I totally get why Carol dreams of May. I was looking at my garden today thinking, Do I have too many flowers? Is it too much? I just checked last year’s entry and some things are late to bloom, like my Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and my Verbascum bombyciferum ‘Arctic Snow,’ but everything else is right on schedule. I’m going to try and limit my listings here to things that are new or particularly nice looking right now.
    Camassia quamash, the straight species, blooms later than ‘Blue Danube’

    Spiraea betulifolia var. lucida

    Aquilegia chrysantha ‘Flore Pleno’

    Nicotiana alata ‘Lime green’ and Viburnum plicatum ‘Watanabe’ (I think)

    Lessertia montana

    Allium jesdianum ‘Early Emperor’

    Allium schubertii

    Deschampsia flexuosa

    Geum triflorum

    Camassia leichtlinii

    Amsonia hubrichtii

    Unknown sedum

    Thalictrum ‘Black Stockings’

    Disporum cantoniense ‘Night Heron’

    Salvia ‘Flame’

    Lonicera ‘Major Wheeler’

    Ceanothus thyrsiflorus has a washed out color that I don’t love but the bees seem to.

    Salvia ‘May Night’

    Dichelostemma ida-maia

    Cotula hispidula and Lewisia cotyledon

    Allium christophii
    Salvia ‘Amistad’ died this winter so I bought a replacement. Totally worth it.

    Angelica taiwaniana

    Whew! Thanks for hosting Carol. Summer is practically upon us; I guess I should think about mulching soon?

  • Agita in the garden

    Agita in the garden

    My elderly next-door neighbor recently went into assisted living and her grand-niece sold her home to some friends who want to start a business flipping homes. I’m very relieved that the home isn’t going to fall into developer hands, which would result in the house being torn down and replaced with two or three skinny houses. This is happening all over Portland right now and I hope the developers responsible get shunted to the really humid part of hell. No dry heat for you!

    This weekend the flippers, in their infinite wisdom, removed all but two of the mature (mostly native) shrubs in the back yard and limbed up the Doug fir. And because they decided to have some beers on the back deck afterward I realized that we no longer have any privacy between our two yards. This was my view:

    Fun fact: if you google “jerkface” this weightlifter’s mug pops up.

    I was trying to work in the yard but the fact that I could see these guys and they could see me got me all worked up. I was practically hissing at them and I think I had a tiny stroke when one of the guys tried to engage me by yelling, “Hey, gardener!”

    WHAT THE FUCK, I’M IN MY BACKYARD, WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO BE PRIVATE. I HATE YOU, I WISH YOU WOULD DIE.

    Greg got home and I informed him that we needed to erect some sort of blind and also I wanted to move to the country so we wouldn’t have to have neighbors. Back in the glory days, this was the view of this area:

    My garden looks like shit but it’s private!

    Nice canopy cover, lots of mature shrubs perfectly obscuring that area. Those shrubs (one a flowering quince) weren’t just trimmed this weekend, they were completely removed. So they won’t grow back to obscure the area.

    I went into burn it down! mode and decided that not only did we need a screen right there right now but we needed to make a point while we did it. So I headed out to Bamboo Craftsman and explained my problem. He steered me toward Green Temple bamboo (Semiarundinaria fastuosa ‘Viridis’). This is a tall bamboo that is very erect, with most of the fullness at the top. You can read more here. It’s excellent for tall, narrow screening. It fills in quickly and thickly.

    The best part is that the plants I bought are already tall enough that they’ll screen out that area immediately.

    We’ve knocked out the little pony wall that used to have a gate attached to it. I liked having it there but Greg wanted to remove it to open up the entrance to the garden. I liked the slow reveal.

    It’s gone now. You win, Greg.

    The plan is to install a stock tank here (it’ll be ready for pickup on Wednesday) and soften the area in front with pots and grasses.

    Behold my MS Paint skills!

    Any advice on making this look not-dumb is welcome. I want my garden to say, “Welcome to my garden! Unless I haven’t specifically invited you; then you can get the hell out!” I need my quiet space.

    More to come once we get everything installed!