A Growing Obsession

clippings 9/9/26

Posted on September 9, 2026 by Denise

Rumex sanguineous, the bloody dock, which I love saying and writing, has been flawless all summer. Which is gratifying because, as an edible, I assumed my battalions of snails and slugs would have made lacework of it. Apparently not to their taste. Full sun, happy in this heavy soil that’s on the dry side in summer.

If you allow the tall, brushy brown flowers to form, you will have lots of bloody dock. This year I cut the flowers off before they could form seed.

January 2022. In the beginning there were three stock tanks, now there are two.
Corner stock tank on the left with young Rhodocoma capensis in the gravel was removed recently. Billie had a lot of room back then!

Leaving bloody dock and on to some recent changes. Last Saturday morning I was pruning the Rhodocoma capensis at the Wonder Garden, something I do frequently with mine. Limbing it up into an arching, vase-like shape to give surrounding plants some breathing room. Maybe it was the size of the towering restio at the Wonder Garden that influenced what I did to mine Saturday afternoon when I got home.

July 2024 with Solanum laxum and Iris ‘Gerald Darby’ Rhodocoma capensis upright stems just visible behind the stock tank. And this is when tetrapanax still grew in this corner! Round scalloped leaves of Darmera peltata lower right before it started to weaken from lack of light and water.

I can become unreasonably attached to certain plants, I admit, but on Saturday something snapped and cold practicality won. It was obvious that this heavily trafficked corner closest to the back stairs needed some serious breathing room. (Marty had been saying this for months.)

Solanum laxum May 2026. When first planted I wasn’t sure it would be hardy. Great evergreen vine but rampageous. Nonstop flowers, no scent, no regrets.

The potato vine Solanum laxum was requiring such frequent cutting back to keep the walkways passable that I was leaving loppers permanently propped against the stairs. And a ladder was now needed to keep it off the roof. ( I hate it when ladders become part of routine care.)

After the purge. The molinia is a few years old. Some of the new Salvia sclarea were planted here once the tank was removed.

And once I started to look at this corner critically instead of emotionally, I realized the 6-foot stock tank wasn’t growing anything particularly irreplaceable and should be removed as well. Which left the restio. Without the tank holding it back, I knew I’d have to keep the loppers handy to clear the walkways of the arching restio in perpetuity.

Marty carefully removed the restio without damaging surrounding plants.

Once the decision was made the work was quick. Marty happily tackled the vine and dug up the restio while I hid in the house. Change is hard. But I love the result (even if the neighbor’s entire two-story house is now visible from the stairs instead of just half of it). We emptied the stock tank of soil and gave the tank and soil to a new home. The original idea for the tank was to grow the native moisture-loving Darmera peltata. Without adding water daily, the tank was impossible to keep moist enough for the darmera, which has been moved to the east under a downspout.

With the vine, stock tank and Rhodocoma capensis removed, a formerly crowded phormium and Eryngium pandanifolium are stretching out and enjoying the autumn sun. Pots have been moved to take advantage of the all-day sun here too.

In preparation for winter rain, Agave ‘Vanzie’ was dug up and potted so it can be moved under the overhang .

The plants get up to really interesting associations throughout the season. And even though they lean into and on each other, it’s amazing what intricate support systems they devise. Even after an afternoon of heavy wind, the garden moves together like a single organism.

Aster ‘Coombe Fishacre’ and Symphytum ‘Axminster Gold’ were buried under Sanguisorba ‘Red Thunder’ which I cut back to get a jump on spring jobs — I get antsy in fall.

autumn light is an event in its own right

Acacia pravissima contending with Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’

Lobelia tupa leaning in to demonstrate how fine it looks with Chionochloa rubra. Silver lacy leaves are Geranium robustum. I really like this rambling geranium in or out of bloom. Cutback midsummer for new leaves. Original plant from Secret Garden Growers, hardy I think to zone 8. It’s overwintered here.

Getting handsy with Chionochloa rubra. This geranium seems to be resseeding into the gravel

Is Euphorbia characias always this blue or is the rusty pheasant grass making it appear bluer?

I visited the local dahlia growing fields again last weekend, now in full bloom. Out of all the vibrant saturated colors Dahlia ‘Renoir’ still managed to make an impression

street view of a variegated azara in a garden visited last weekend, more on that soon

Lastly, a video (sorry about any ads!) with Rosy Hardy visiting Derry Watkins at her home and nursery Special Plants. Wonderful to hear Derry proclaim it’s okay if plants don’t live forever! It’s okay to make changes! Truer words…

More soon, AGO

Posted in clippings, Oregon garden | Leave a comment

Dairy Creek Meadows June 2026

Posted on September 7, 2026 by Denise

greenhouse, silo, new potting shed. Parking was just behind the garden shed

interior of new potting shed, through which visitors enter the garden

A couple of the gardens I’ve visited through the HPSO Open Gardens program this summer involved the owners’ experimenting with a naturalistic planting style as they gained more space to garden. Sometimes called the New Naturalism or the New Perennial Movement, sometimes simply “Oudolfian” after the Dutch designer most often associated with this movement in garden design. Generally, and very superficially, it’s a reliance on building hardy herbaceous plant communities. Developed in complex, successive layers, the garden surges through the growing seasons, beginning with bulbs and ending with the skeletal remains of grasses and blooms standing over winter. The style originated in cool, northern latitudes and has influenced gardens and been adapted, with varying success, all over the world. To fully engage the landscape, paths provide the tracks for an immersive and some say pastorally emotional experience.

grasses are essential to naturalistic planting

Dairy Creek Meadows is the dramatic result of the new owners exploring naturalistic-style planting on 30 acres of former dairy land. Craig Quirk and Larry Neill’s previous Portland town garden Floramagoria was an extravagant construct, with both horticulture and hardscape at full throttle. Working with designer Laura Crockett, the garden vibrated with a condensed intensity made up of assertively architectural planting, seating pavilions, intricate container displays, hot-colored furnishings, painted walls, inlaid mosaic rugs. It was a sensual surround of strong color and form that left me reeling — I took very few photos during my visit in 2014. House and garden changed hands in 2023, and Quirk and Neill retired to 30 acres to create Dairy Creek Meadows. (I was told the friends who took over Floramagoria have kept it relatively intact.) Laura Crockett has been involved with Dairy Creek Meadows as well.

Features like a mosaic welcome mat adorn both old and new gardens.

And a lot of the design flourishes that made Floramagoria such a unique experience have also been incorporated into Dairy Creek Meadows. The intensity and intimacy of the small jewel-box garden that was Floramagoria has been traded for big gestures, panoramic views and sweeps of planting, all anchored by that fabulous greenhouse and farm buildings, old and new.

the Hartley Botanic greenhouse and crevice gardens

If I understood correctly, the first order of business was installing the Hartley Botanic greenhouse. Along with the farm buildings and silos, it is the main structural point of reference for the new garden and takes command of the surrounding meadows beautifully.

Crevice gardens by Kenton Seth and Chris Dixon

white flowers in the distance are Perscaria polymorpha, a big plant so good I even added it to my small garden

distant turquoise ceramic totems by Dustin Gimbel, with pieces by him also in the greenhouse

Along with the crevice garden, there’s a vegetable and cutting garden, pond, and large containers for bog plants — a carryover feature from Floramagoria. Gardens surround the owners’ private home as well. Guessing from my lack of photos, the private home may have been off limits this tour.

I asked about the interesting salvage grates and bits added to the paths and was told that Laura Crockett sources them

The same strikingly bold taste and confident touch that made Floramagoria special is here at Dairy Creek Meadows, with the experimental planting scaled to suit the vast spaces. Visit if you get the chance. More soon, AGO

Posted in design, garden visit, Oregon garden | 6 Comments

Sean Hogan at Western Hills 9/25/26

Posted on September 3, 2026 by Denise

Visiting Cistus Nursery over the summer, I was struck how walking its paths was so reminiscent of visiting Western Hills, a Northern California garden and nursery founded by Lester Hawkins and Marshall Olbrich in 1959, and which I visited regularly in the ’80s and ’90s. After the inevitable ownership changes began in the 2000s, Western Hills fortunately weathered the evolution from a beloved private garden and nursery to now a non-profit educational institution of inestimable horticultural value.

weeping katsura *Cercidiphyllum japonicum*

And that strong connection I feel between Cistus and Western Hills is not all in my nostalgic imagination. Sean Hogan knew the original Western Hills through his work in Bay Area botanical gardens in the ’80s and ’90s and is currently on Western Hills’ Horticultural Advisory Committee. If you can go, I wouldn’t miss the chance to hear him speak at this garden he knows so well.

There are still some great gardens with nursery operations, and the PNW has a fair share of them, including Cistus. If you have such a destination available to visit, you know what a treasure these places are. Walking the garden, dashing to the plant tables to check availability, chatting with staff about horticultural minutiae and new plant acquisitions. There is no other garden retail experience that can match it.

Perhaps more important than the benefits to personal gardens, these horticultural hubs educate and inspire future gardeners and nursery people. Visiting Western Hills last July it was clear the current owners and board members are making the most of the legacy opportunities the garden offers for building a thriving horticultural community. You can sign up for their monthly newsletter here and apply to their horticulture intern position here.

archival correspondence of the original owners

Western Hills currently offers a few plants for sale, but nothing like the offerings in the heyday of Hawkins and Olbrich. And I’m not clear if that will eventually be part of the vision of the nonprofit foundation. If you go to the talk, ask Sean!

Posted in garden travel, plant nurseries, plant sales | 6 Comments

last weekend of August garden touring

Posted on August 31, 2026 by Denise

I attended a couple HPSO Open Garden tours last weekend, one close to home in Manzanita on Sunday, and the other on Saturday about 60 miles east.

some of the wonderful containers in the Kuestner garden in Manzanita on Sunday August 30

From the first garden visit on Saturday I took home only plants, no photos. The exact inverse result of most garden tours! The owner has been recovering from medical mobility issues that unfortunately began in spring. For decades the garden had absorbed the owner’s horticultural passions, first for penstemons and now with salvias. We both go way back with salvias, so there was lots to discuss.

Salvia broussonetii in my Los Angeles garden 2011

And then I stumbled on the table in back staged with 4-inch nursery pots. Of course I had to inquire about this small nursery operation. Not for sale, take them, please, he said. I thought he was joking. No joke, he said, you have no idea how hard it is to give away plants. (I’m still trying to process this remarkable assertion that runs completely contrary to my simple world view.) And yet he couldn’t stop propagating. There were some nice salvias, including some Canary Islanders like broussonetii that I was pretty sure would become large, non-blooming shrubs for me in Oregon and then die over winter. I wouldn’t bring it home to the Los Angeles zone 10 garden either, where regular irrigation is uncertain.

But I could definitely use hardy biennial Salvia sclarea, which I had been trying to grow from seed. Now I had two more to add to the one that successfully germinated. Take more, take more, he pleaded. I grabbed a Salvia ‘La Trinidad Pink’ just because its reputation precedes it, and also because I’ve never grown this microphylla found by the Yucca Do nursery near Nueva Leon in Mexico some years ago. I hope next year will be easier for this generous household and keeper of so many salvias.

Senecio cristobalensis, one of many in the Kuestner garden, including one that has wintered over in the ground in this coastal Zone 9-10ish garden

The garden I visited on Sunday I had seen just a few weeks before, but I really wanted to check out the progress of Mark’s tithonia, which was way ahead of mine. I took a few photos of this garden but not as many as I would if Mark wasn’t also a friend. And Billie was with me roaming the paths too, as if that’s not enough distraction. But you could point a camera anywhere in the Kuestner garden and come out a winner. It’s a mostly shade garden filled with rare evergreen trees like eucryphias that Mark dotes on, with pockets of sun carved out for summer stuff.

the tithonia in question, unlike mine, was heavily watered and fertilized. Manzanita gardens are built on sand. Mark continuously adds lots of compost to beef up the free-draining conditions. This tithonia is just getting going and should blaze on until frost.

happy aeoniums in summer on the coast — I really need to bring up some of mine from the Los Angeles garden. Mark does have a small greenhouse to shelter these in winter

Seems like everybody I know is growing Windcliff begonias this summer — sorry, didn’t get the name

on an arch the very elegant Berberidopsis corallina, an evergreen climber from Chile

lower down a passiflora also shares the same arch

Grevillea victoriae, part of a boundary planting, photo taken from neighbor’s driveway

also taken from the neighbor’s driveway — so many abutilons in the Kuestner semi-shaded garden. Overhanging shrub on the left is a very large flannel bush

More soon, AGO

Posted in garden visit, journal, Oregon garden, pots and containers | 5 Comments

clippings 8/23/26

Posted on August 23, 2026 by Denise

standing out among the crowd, dark-leaved Dahlia ‘Bishop of Llandaff

I checked out the local dahlia grower’s fields yesterday, but it’s still very early for much of a show. In local gardens around town, dahlias left in the ground have been up and blooming for a couple months. The grower doesn’t risk leaving the tubers in the ground over winter, so late August/September is when his fields start showing more than a smattering of blooms. But some varieties were well advanced in growth and bloom over others.

The qualities I look for in a dahlia are rarely mentioned in catalogues. Size, color and shape of flower are included in print descriptions but not the overall habit of growth. Walking the fields really clarifies what makes a good garden dahlia from one grown for a vase.

long dark stems of ‘Phyllis Farmer’ made a strong impression as useful as a cut flower and in the garden. Graceful, lightweight habit of growth, without massive leaves or thick awkward stems. A waterlily type

My feet and sandals were covered in raw sienna-colored dirt by the time I walked the extent of the fields without another soul in sight. Just me and the dahlias.

‘Pam Howden’ was another standout in the field for number of blooms, long stems, also a waterlily type

I grew ‘Verrone’s Obsidian’ a couple years ago with mediocre results and spindly flowers. Here’s how it looks grown well

very floriferous single, elegant in habit ‘Sunny Side Up.’

This morning the downpipes were gurgling from a heavy mist almost veering into a light rain. Probably nothing measurable though. A morning like this is why the boardwalk is much appreciated.

Rather than keep cosmos in pots like last summer, the seedlings were moved here. ‘Rubenza’ and ‘Apricotta’. No surprise, they make bigger, better plants in the ground

Kniphofia northiae backed by Hedychium ‘Tara’. Tall grey shrub is corynabutilon with tiny mauve flowers in early summer

Parahebe perfoliata with fresh growth and flowers after mid-summer cutback. Grass is Calamagrostis brachytricha

Have a great Sunday. AGO

Posted in clippings, cut flowers, journal, Oregon garden | 5 Comments

the view mid-August

Posted on August 18, 2026 by Denise

Here’s the view of the Oregon Coast back garden through the sliding doors, a view I look at a lot. Like both my gardens, it’s small and densely planted. It’s still exciting to throw back the curtains every morning and head outside, just as it was opening the kitchen door onto the LA/Long Beach, CA garden all those years. Everything in Oregon has to survive the winter while I’m gone, without protection, just as the zone 10 garden has to survive the summer while I’m here, with minimal supplemental irrigation. (Marty is in Long Beach right now and watering liberally; the garden is definitely showing the stress. I think the neighbors who promised to water occasionally went camping.)

looking east down the length of the small patio. I can’t wait to see what a young Euphorbia ceratocarpa and Grevillea ‘The Precious’ planted along that fence look like next year.

taken about a week ago, before I moved the potted single orange dahlia closer to the hose. Keeping the container watered in August became a daily job. The dahlia definitely needs to be removed from its galvanized tub and split up next spring. When I split Sanguisorba ‘Red Thunder’ then too I may try some of this dahlia in the back border.

I think this is pretty much peak summer 2026, with nothing else waiting in the wings to make an appearance. All the early performers are submerged under the growth of mid to late summer.

Dahlia ‘Windcliff Peach’ and a very dozy bee

the dahlia tank was sitting in front of Persicaria ‘Blackfield.’ Both the sesleria and persicaria are forgiving plants that accommodate squeezing in any summer containers. I’ve plunged in pots of cosmos here too. Yellow sprays of Verbascum roripifolium have continued all summer. It tends to grow horizontal, so cutting back the top growth makes more side shoots that create the cloud effect.

I’m always mentally toggling back and forth between the two gardens, so some quick context might be helpful. This is my sixth summer here playing in a new garden on the Oregon Coast zone 8-9, after 30-some years in LA’s zone 10 frostless garden. But old habits die hard — I still mostly plant for a dry summer. It’s the cool summers on the coast that make all the difference as far as quality and length of bloom. Even easy stuff like cosmos was a struggle in zone 10 summers.

leaving the back porch and into the garden looking east. Tithonia towers over the lobelia now but still no blooms — maybe September. The cool climate has its strengths as well as drawbacks

On the coast I stick to small simple flowers that make a wash of color and avoid more resource-intensive things like roses, peonies, clematis and others whose growth habits and down time I find difficult to handle in a small garden. If there’s one constant between the two gardens, I’ve always been a “community organizer” type of gardener, preferring the overall effect to showcasing a certain plant, even making agaves and aloes share the spotlight with grasses and shrubs down south.

at the foot of the lobelia some oregano is coming into bloom with nearby rock gardenish tanks and Mangave ‘Whale Tale’

This little erodium has been in bloom since June, ‘Fran’s Delight’ from Xera Plants

in June before the reds of persicaria, sanguisorba and Lobelia tupa dominated

today, with a single eucomis bloom backed by persicaria

Calamint in bloom, the sterile ‘Montrose White.’ Another plant that grows well in both north and south gardens, extremely dry tolerant. Releases wonderful minty scent when brushed which makes it great for narrow paths

zone 10 garden September 2016. Both Salvia uliginosa and calamint are included in the Oregon coast garden this year as well

Mid-June with penstemons and geum, showing an example of the successions rolling through the garden.

mid August with persicaria and Scabiosa ochroleuca dominant. Funnily enough, both of these plants are the rare perennials that performed in summer in the zone 10 garden too. The scabiosa is famously dry tolerant (and a vigorous reseeder). The persicaria is usually recommended for moist conditions but if your soil is heavy, like mine in LA and Oregon, it handles dryish conditions well and doesn’t seem to require a winter rest to bloom.

persicaria in the zone 10 garden August 2013. In winter in zone 10 I always begrudge the space given to summer-performing plants and usually reclaim it for another aloe or agave. Now that I’m in Oregon for summer, the Long Beach garden no longer has to entertain me both winter and summer

in the narrow beds on the east side, the “community organizing” style and succession planting that I find a lot of fun is less effective, a good place for standouts like Rubus lineatus

Joe-pye weed was removed from the back garden and added to the narrow borders on the east side

so cool — low tide at Cape Meares yesterday morning

More soon, AGO

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 6 Comments

more San Francisco Botanical Garden in July

Posted on August 7, 2026 by Denise

It’s Friday. We’ve been up to our eyeballs in weird all week. How about a walk through the San Francisco Botanical Garden?

At the southern entrance was a searing melange of annuals that was repeated beyond the gates throughout the entrance plaza. Beautifully grown as far as gradation of heights, etc. The bodacious planting had me imagining the staff brain-storming this splashy summer display to knock the socks off visitors, and then the methodical work of ordering seeds and planting out hundreds of annuals. The saturated color impulse was so aggressively retro it felt brand-new. A horticultural middle finger to San Francisco’s typically overcast summer skies.

Jack Kerouac-style hat in a nice touch at the entrance

A standout among the petunias and ageratum was a tall, silver-leaved orange daisy, maybe an arctotis of some kind. Wasn’t there once an annual called Venidium ‘Zulu Prince’ or has it now changed names?

After looking around at seed catalogues, I’m fairly certain this is Venidium ‘Orange Prince.’ Looks like a scorcher, right? From my reading, it actually prefers a cool summer like San Francisco (or my Oregon coast garden, maybe next year).

inside the plaza with tibouchina topping the fence

And that marigold was a nice choice too, a simple tall-stemmed single, color of burning embers, maybe ‘Cinnabar.’ The kind that Christopher Lloyd made acceptable again, along with tall-stemmed ageratum. No dwarf varieties, no Victorian bedding-style blobs allowed.

And don’t panic, the entrance plaza is filled with all the cool plants that thrive here year-round, like cussonia, beschorneria and agave.

The first day we arrived was a hot muggy mess. What had become of my San Francisco, with its unsurpassed weather for long cool city rambles? The next day the city mercifully returned to its baseline overcast conditions.

Now we’re wandering into the garden, through the Mediterranean, South African and Australian sections.

tree with the rounded leaves reminds me of the Robinson Crusoe tree Dendroseris litoralis that used to be available through Annie’s Annuals

The cactus and succulent garden is not large but the gravitas leant by its age and maturity make up for size.

like a lot of its tribe, Euphorbia lambiii is a robust reseeder

the Pewster Bush was dotted around quite a bit, Strobilanthes gossypinus

fuchsias leave their heart in SF year-round

Brugmansia sanguinea. Because of this visit, I was primed to admire this in a friend’s garden over the weekend, and of course he had a rooted cutting to share…

A couple standouts not frequently seen were the hardy gloxinia Incarvillea arguta and francoa. The latter I grow in the front garden and mine was in bloom in July as well. From Chile. Great stiff evergreen crinkly leaves, loves a cool summer. Makes an incredible container plant too.

whether white, pink or purple flowers, I believe all are Francoa appendiculata var. ramosa

Have a great weekend.

Posted in garden travel, garden visit | 5 Comments

crocosmias and smoky skies

Posted on August 4, 2026 by Denise

‘Limpopo’ spreads fast and benefits from division every 3-5 years

Crocosmias bring a freshness to August, particularly in the early bud stages when the whole plant embodies something plump and juicy. Looking at them gives me a craving for nectarines. But we’ve all seen them at their worst, in overgrown, disheveled clumps, so there’s no arguing if you’ve decided to steer clear of them. I will say that growing them hard against a boundary where they can’t overspread and not mid-border has worked well for me. And some varieties like ‘Solfatare’ are much less vigorous than, say, ‘Lucifer.’

Selinum wallichianum getting its umbels on

Anemone ‘Dainty Swan’ in bloom since June

Geranium ‘Mary Anne’ new this summer, wandering habit like ‘Ann Folkard’

We’ve been heading to the beach at low tide for fresh sights, fresher air. 20% of the Northern Hemisphere is currently impacted by wildfire smoke

Take care, more soon, AGO

Posted in climate, Oregon garden, Plant Portraits | 5 Comments

revisiting the Courtney garden June 2026

Posted on August 2, 2026 by Denise

I first visited Mary and Harlan Courtney’s garden in late July 2022 and wrote about it here. It is a strikingly unique, materials-driven, artfully idiosyncratic approach to managing a slope, where the retaining infrastructure designed by Harlan is as prominent a feature as the plants.

new guest house addition on the left has been completed since my last visit, fresh paint to match on the main house

I’d heard that the garden was to be included in a book, and The Spirited Garden was released this spring. After this June visit I ordered the book, which I highly recommend for the generous amount of photos and knowledgeable writing on 17 PNW gardens. Along with the Courtneys’ garden, PNW touchstones like Cistus are included. (If you’ve attended a PNW “Fling” garden tour, the book covers in-depth some of these featured gardens e.g. the Kuzma garden, but also includes rare treats such as a tour of Ann Amato’s home and garden sanctuary.)

This garden unabashedly wears its hardscape on its sleeve. Along with Harlan’s free-standing sculptures, there are painted culvert pipes, varying heights of undulating Corten retaining walls, experimental types of gabion. The engineered design solutions contain and counterpoint Mary’s adventurous planting, and any visit is an overwhelming eyeful.

The Sulphur Cypress, Cupressus glabra ‘Sulphurea’

Mary’s planting is wide-ranging and robust enough to balance the visually arresting hardscape. This June visit differed from the last one in July in that the cutting garden filled with cosmos and dahlias as well as mid-summer perennials were still gaining strength. This visit I was struck by all the stunning conifers that Mary had been planting that are large enough now to make a statement. You never know who’s going to be a conifer fan! A winter tour of the garden to see the conifers would present an entirely different mood, magical in its own way — especially if the surrounding meadow is dotted with the local herd of grazing elk.

sulphur cypress with Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Blue Surprise’ Port Orford Cedar on the left

80375960124__8017DF3C-3C14-46FC-AC0C-47B207E2F555 — Abies concolor ‘Wintergold’ White Fir for its incredible color in winter

I’ve never seen the New Zealand Bur better grown — a solid mat of Acaena inermis ‘Purpurea’

future site of the geothermal-heated greenhouse — keep an eye out for the next tour date!

Closing with a photo of the workshop. Thanks again to the Courtneys for opening their stunningly imaginative garden. More soon, AGO

Posted in garden visit, Oregon garden | 8 Comments

mid-summer miscellany

Posted on July 29, 2026 by Denise

By the end of July the garden is definitely over the top. A surging, buzzing, no-holds-barred spectacle I’ve been looking forward to since spring.

By mid-summer the only place to rest your eye is the sky. (And fences and houses…) My motto is the eye can rest when it sleeps.

Alstroemeria ‘Third Harmonic’ rampaged through the zone 10 garden, but surprisingly behaves much more meek and understated on the Oregon coast

Even Alstroemeria ‘Third Harmonic’ can barely keep up. The Silver Spike grass, Achnatherum calamagrostis, seems to keep it in bounds. The grasses are the glory of this very windy coastal garden.

I do have to brag about the clean lines of my Eryngium pandanifolium. I pulled off so many splaying, crosswise, thorny leaves in spring that I wasn’t sure it would be strong enough to bloom. And here it is with three shoots forming. If you want to grow this big eryngo in a small garden, cleaning up the leaves in spring is the only way. And no lie, it’s a nasty job requiring long sleeves and gloves. Otherwise it will be a sprawlingly annoying and scratchy mess that you will grow to hate as passionately as you once admired it.

Marty has been staring at our overstuffed garden for so long, after visiting another recently he asked, Where are all the plants? And why are the paths so wide? Ha, I’ve made a convert!

persicaria has become the bees favorite, bumping the butterfly verbascum from the top of their list

While I was away for a week the persicarias swung into action. Obviously preferred by the bees to all else, the persicarias have added incredible vibrancy to the scene. Just standing next to all the noisy thrumming action gets me buzzing with energy too.

Dahlia is ‘Windcliff Peach’ with the yellow scrim provided by the butterfly verbascum, V. roripifolium. With Persicaria ‘Summer Dance,’ veronicastrum, allium, Crocosmia ‘Limpopo’

Lobelia tupa is a hummingbird battleground by July. Leafy tower on the left is tithonia, which depending on ultimate size may be too much for this little corner to bear.

I like how Lobelia tupa gets leavened a bit by the variegated figwort

First order of business next spring is dividing Sanguisorba ‘Red Thunder.’ After several years’ growth, its falling-off-the-barstool, lush and leaning ways would be impossible to manage without bronze fennel for support.

Bergenia ciliata in the concrete tank. Digitalis grandiflora, phygelius, thalictrum

This little corner near the east fence somehow became filled with buttery yellows for mid-summer, a gratifying bit of serendipity.

yellow and orange foxgloves that bloom later in summer are my preference over the spring kinds like purpurea

Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum seems too delicate a thing to join the mid-summer rumble

When it became apparent that this kniphofia was not the dwarf torch lily I thought I purchased (K. hirsuta), it was moved out of inappropriately tight quarters. So what was it? This summer has indisputably revealed its identity as Kniphofia northiae, the Octopus Red Hot Poker. The polar opposite of K. hirsuta, the dwarf poker, K. northiae is the giant in the group. Apart from pulling off a few tatty lower leaves, it comes through winter looking like this. (At least last winter, which was mild.) It produced a flower in spring, but it’s really more about the shape and scrollwork of the substantial leaves. And it likes my heavy, wet soil too.

My sole hydrangea, picked up at the local farmers market a few years ago. Dark leaves, picotee flowers give it a novelty look that leaves me uncommitted, but it pretty much grows itself. I could fill the east borders with them, they love the coast that much. Silver-leaved Argentina lineata was moved to the less crowded east side of the house this spring. Over the years I’ve made repeated attempts to get the spinach substitute purple-leaved orach established enough to self-sow in both north and south gardens. Maybe this year does the trick.

Dahlia ‘Crazy Legs’ picked up at Swan Island Dahlias a few weeks ago, same day as the Cistus Plant Fair

seen around town, white breadseed poppies noted for next year

While in the Bay Area we visited a Gravenstein apple orchard, a fruit that goes back to the 17th century

at the orchard I met a sweet pup named Presley who loved lounging in the thyme

I finally secured the sheet of die-cut salvage metal I’ve been eyeing for years at the local welder’s. The owner was never there, no one knew what to charge, etc. etc., but yesterday the stars aligned and we agreed to pay per pound. Tucked out of the way for now. More soon, AGO

Posted in journal, Oregon garden | 10 Comments

A Growing Obsession

clippings 9/9/26

Dairy Creek Meadows June 2026

Sean Hogan at Western Hills 9/25/26

last weekend of August garden touring

clippings 8/23/26

the view mid-August

more San Francisco Botanical Garden in July

crocosmias and smoky skies

revisiting the Courtney garden June 2026

mid-summer miscellany

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