Category Archives: Oregon garden
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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studying the June garden
Studying the back garden from under the overhang this morning (which has an electrical outlet, so typing as I study), I like the big blocks of growth I’m seeing, but it’s easy to predict more needed interventions ahead. The planted … Continue reading
Posted in Oregon garden
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two gardens in late May/early June
I spent two days at the end of May in Long Beach (garden USDA zone 10), readying the house for some friends’ upcoming stay. (The second day, May 30, topped 95F — what a homecoming!) The profligate weediness in the … Continue reading
rainy May
Believe it or not, I was worried I might miss the tail-end of the rainy season when returning to the coast in early April. I was hearing reports of a dryish winter, and I seem to remember 2024’s summer dry … Continue reading
Posted in journal, Oregon garden
11 Comments