Last month in this column, I talked about modern-day plant hunter Dan Hinkley. One of his favorite plants is the white dove tree (Davidia involucrata). This month, the white dove tree is blooming in my garden. Festoons of white-green bracts look like wings. They shelter round black inch-wide flowers that could resemble doves’ eyes. […]
Dan Hinkley’s suggestions turn gardeners into plant hunters Any plant Dan Hinkley likes, I want. And I’m not alone. When this world-class plant explorer spoke at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show on “Dan Hinkley’s Favorite 25 Plants,” the room was packed. As he reeled off the names of his choices, Dan never outlined cultivation […]
With trees, size matters. Sometimes towering behemoths block light to gardens and greenhouses. Pruning with a chainsaw may be the only option. Or sometimes a lack of trees results in homes and outbuildings bereft of unifying plantings. In both cases, the best garden design strategy—plant the right-sized trees now. I talked with Nancy Buley, Communications […]
It’s indoor seed sowing time! Whether you set up a small table, or a full-size greenhouse, seed starting can sometimes be fraught with challenges. Just when you think your seedlings are growing well, they can turn up their toes. It all comes down to the fungus among us, says Rose Marie Nichols-McGee, president of Nichols […]
Whether gardeners bring favorite houseplants to a sunny windowsill, or retire them to a greenhouse for winter enjoyment, the act of gardening still goes on in the colder months. So here are some practical—and often overlooked—indoor gardening gifts to add to your list. Cachepots: Humble pots can be slipped inside these beautiful containers. Choose them […]
Glass and gardens are great partners. The dynamics of blown glass capture the echoes of plant growth. I love to see the gleam of glass—small colorful float balls tucked into containers; robust spears stretching upward as focal points; bright dishes spreading open like lilies to capture rainwater among the foliage. But it wasn’t until I […]
Colin Cabot was standing at the edge of a steep ravine in the gardens of Les Quatre Vents (The Four Winds). A swaying Nepalese-style rope bridge hung in a downward arc between the ravine’s precipitous banks. “Who wants to go first?” Colin was leading forty of us garden writers and photographers on a private tour […]
It’s not often I get to interview two expert gardeners while they are actually gardening. On this hot Oregon summer morning, I meet Marietta and Ernie O’Byrne, developers of Winter Jewels™ hellebores, at their wholesale Northwest Garden Nursery. Next year’s hellebore crop is already sheltered in a row of greenhouses beside the garden where Marietta […]
Hunting for new ornamental plants? The web is a terrific place to start. But good, reliable sources don’t always pop up first in a Google search. So, here’s the Northwest’s best-kept internet gardening secret—Great Plant Picks. Started in 2001 as an outreach educational arm of the Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle, Great Plant […]
Who knew you could be an intrepid plant hunter in your own backyard? Ellen Zachos, that’s who. In her new book, Backyard Foraging—65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat, Ellen describes a variety of edibles, from the more common—Jerusalem artichokes, elderberries and crab apples—to those in the “who knew?” category. Written in an […]
Why consider a gardening app? Let’s compare: The New Sunset Western Garden Book costs $23.47 at Amazon, features 768 pages, and weighs four pounds. The New Sunset Western Garden Book mobile app costs $19.99 through Inkling, totals one gigabyte, and weighs—well, how heavy is your phone or iPad? While the Sunset Western Garden Book has long been […]
OK, I confess—I don’t know much about color design in my garden. I’m just pleased when my plants thrive. However, on visits to other gardens, I appreciate the bright (or subtle) combinations. How does that happen? Recently, I walked through Rebecca Sweet’s elegantly designed backyard in Northern California—a symphony of greens and blues, with accents […]
