Category Archives: Oregon garden

the littles

This longer east view of sunrise-haloed Chionochloa rubra was not available two days ago. Stipa gigantea spilled onto the rock at the west end making the path impassable, comprising overall about 5′ in circumference with half of that path obstruction. … Continue reading

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 7 Comments

town and garden

Sometimes I get the sense from an offhand comment that gardens are considered escapist entertainment. My experience has been the opposite, and maybe this is what comes with small gardens in crowded neighborhoods. Because I’m constantly outside, I know to … Continue reading

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 6 Comments

give it up for Lobelia tupa

Any description of Lobelia tupa is bound to contain words like “huge,” “robust,” “monumental,” and it’s all true. Which would seemingly indicate it’s not a perennial for a small garden like mine. Except this mega-perennial here at the Oregon Coast … Continue reading

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 5 Comments

first week of September

The garden’s third September of its fourth year. The biggest change September brings is this mid level fizzy layer provided mostly by deschampsia, sesleria and Scabiosa ochroleuca that envelopes the plantings in a gauzy champagne scrim. The scabiosa is an … Continue reading

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 8 Comments

sometimes you just gotta rip it out

Feathertop Grass, known as the least robust of the fountain grasses, is everything I want in a medium-sized fluffy grass. Admired daily, I watched how the circumference of the clump expanded and stretched into the gravel and grew more and … Continue reading

Posted in Oregon garden | 7 Comments

topping the fence

It’s mid-August, when the south fence disappears under a tsunami of summer growth when viewed from the back porch. (We had the best kind of tsunami-warning experience recently after the record-making 8.8 earthquake near the Kamchatka Peninsula. We packed a … Continue reading

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tweaking August

I can easily reach all of my back garden with two hose lengths fastened together, so that’s something to be said for a small garden. (But if I had the money, I’d buy up any adjacent property that comes up … Continue reading

Posted in Oregon garden | 8 Comments

grasses for the win (wind!)

This summer seems windier than most I’ve experienced here. Only in July have the winds finally dialed down from fierce to breezy. (July also marks the end of the disgusting but mostly harmless reign of the spittlebugs too.). I imagine … Continue reading

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 11 Comments

time to sow biennials

Just one seed of this angelica germinated out of a packet sown February 2024, and to be honest, one angelica is all I have room for, but a couple of backups for insurance would have taken off the pressure of … Continue reading

Posted in clippings, Oregon garden, Plant Portraits, shop talk | 6 Comments

summer & dieramas

The SoCal garden churned through a lot of attempts at growing dieramas. I’d figure they’re South African, I’m zone 10, we should get along famously. So many plant fails are due to faulty assumptions. Matching growing zones is only the … Continue reading

Posted in climate, journal, Oregon garden | 8 Comments