This is the year of the vegetable garden—from the White House to local front lawns—everyone is planting crops. However, even seasoned gardeners can have disappointments with veggies. So I asked my friend, Rose Marie Nichols McGee, owner/ president of Nichols Garden Nursery in Albany, Oregon, what to do about the most common edible errors. Rose […]
We gardeners all rely on the common wisdom passed along through books, magazines, blogs, or the neighbor down the street. However, John Fischer, a retired meteorologist, Master Gardener, and garden writer, offers this—make your own observations. Throughout his career as a television meteorologist, John always tied together the weather and gardening. When horticulture questions arose, […]
Outside,Oregon gray skies dump cold and windy rain-it’s that moment of no-color, before spring’s panoply of blossoms. But inside my sunroom, I’m greeted with colors-not only shades of green, but reds, yellows, blues and bright whites. This month I celebrate my top reliable winter bloomers for greenhouse or sunny windowsill. These are the toughest survivors […]
The summer’s too dry, or the summer’s too wet—weather swings across the U.S. are dramatic. Now more than ever, gardeners should consider steady and efficient water delivery for the times when plants need it. In the past, a permanent installation involved a choice—either underground pipes with sprayer heads, or drip with flexible half-inch pipe and […]
In the colder months, birds bring color and motion to gardens at rest, whether you watch them from a kitchen window or enjoy their antics through the glass of a cozy greenhouse. When I have questions about feeding my winged denizens, I turn to Dan Gleason, owner of Wild Birds Unlimited in Eugene. Dan taught […]
Finally—after a notably cold spring, it’s time to shift my sun room plants outdoors. Over the years I’ve noticed that certain plants make the move more easily than others. Some show their displeasure by dropping leaves (the brunfelsia), getting sticky indoors before winter’s end (the Meyer lemon) or simply not thriving outside (the dracaena). So […]
If you’re a gardener like me, who read The Secret Garden as a child, the longing for a place of enclosure was planted early. Of course, a greenhouse is one of the best ways to satisfy our desire for an indoor/outdoor life-among-the-plants kind of space. Another is a courtyard. I was reminded of this recently […]
