Succulents and More™

It’s almost mid-June. Don’t get me started on how quickly time is flying by! After a weird winter and a long and mild spring, summer is here with a vengeance. Temperatures above the century mark are forecast for the next few days. I did some advance watering to help the garden handle the unaccustomed heat. To make matters worse, it’s pretty windy, too. Think convection oven. Fortunately, this heatwave looks to be fairly short. Back into the low 90s next week. Remember the rat(s) that nibbled on my Astrophytum cacti a while ago? I caught one in early May and foolishly let myself be lulled into complacency. Of course that wasn’t the end of it: Another Astrophytum asterias nibbled on in the greenhouse Oddly enough, the cacti that were chewed on were all astrophytums. Nothing else. I have no idea what it is about astrophytums in particular, but clearly rats and mice prefer them over anything else in my greenhouse. With two electric rat zapper traps going, it was only a matter of time u...

On my April trip to Portland , one of the destinations I was most looking forward to was Bella Madrona. I’d been there once before, during the 2014 Garden Bloggers Fling , and had fond, if hazy, memories. For some reason, I never finished my post that I started 12 years ago, but here is a good one about Bella Madrona and the Fling written by Pam Penick on her blog Digging . Bella Madrona defies description. There are trees and shrubs and flowers, art pieces and found objects, a stream and a bog, several meadows, and even a secret forest inhabited by gnomes. As I was reading up on what others have written about it, I came across a term that captures its essence perfectly: pleasure garden. It makes me think of something grander, something that goes beyond plants; a space designed to bemuse, entertain, and thrill. When you look at the photos below, you’ll see what Bella Madrona is: lush, eclectic, playful, romantic, serene, mystical. I’d even call it whimsical if the w word wasn’t so wor...