Author Archives: Denise
9/20/25 Wonder Garden Fall Plant Sale
An in-depth article on the origins and evolution of the garden recently appeared in Manzanita Today here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15nPmWR_pZV7KrmEUPQa56DhIPrWTdhv4/view .
Posted in plant sales
4 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
thoughts while strolling a local dahlia grower’s field
On a visit to a local dahlia grower’s field in August, I find the range of flower shapes and colors head spinning. Apart from the variety of shapes and sizes, what amazes me is the range of color on offer … Continue reading
Posted in commerce, cut flowers, design
6 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
Posted in Oregon garden
7 Comments
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