Succulents and More™

Can you write a love letter to a garden? I suppose if Robert Burns can compose an address to a haggis , I can create a visual love letter to a garden I visited on our Pacific Northwest trip last month. If anything I’m even more in love with this garden now, four weeks later. Maybe the fact that it’s 105°F (41°C) in our backyard as I write this has something to with it—just looking at the photos I took in this lush jungle makes me feel cooler. Schefflera delavayi dwarfing Peter The garden I’m swooning over is in Tacoma, Washington, and it belongs to Peter Herpst. He’s one of the most prolific garden bloggers out there, and many of you follow his blog The Outlaw Gardener . What makes him the Outlaw Gardener? The answer is right there on his blog: Why Outlaw Gardener? I like to break the rules of good taste, plant placement, and plant hardiness. Also, I have received periodic "love notes" from the city code enforcement officer telling me that my parking strip plants enc...

I must admit that I’m stuck in the summer doldrums at the moment. I’m not feeling much motivation to work in the garden, either because it’s too hot or because the garden is in its brown phase—the color of summer around here. Summer is my least favorite season, and I long for cooler weather and hopefully some precipitation in the fall. But I still have plenty of photos from our recent Pacific Northwest trip where, in spite of unusually hot weather, green was still the dominant color. Today, let’s go back to Portland, Oregon. After touring Doug and Bruce’s garden , Doug took me to see the garden of a friend, Pat Moore, a few blocks away. Even though it would end being another hot, sunny day, at 9 a.m. the sky was still overcast, providing the kind of even light that’s perfect for garden photography. This is the first thing I saw of Pat’s garden as we were approaching on the sidewalk: Lush, leafy, and very Portland. Abutilon megapotamicum

I know as much about water gardens as I do about growing orchids, but from reading posts on favorite blogs like It’s Not Work, It’s Gardening! and Danger Garden I have at least heard the word “duckweed.” It seems that for folks who have a pond or water garden, duckweed ( Lemna and other genera) is something desirable although in some circles it’s considered invasive . Yesterday I joined my friend Ursula for a walk through the UC Davis Arboretum , and we saw some pretty impressive carpets of duckweed in Putah Creek. According to signs posted along Putah Creek, gray water from campus is released into Putah Creek during periods of drought to raise the water level. Whatever is in that gray water sure is good fertilizer for duckweed!

On our recent Pacific Northwest road trip I had the opportunity to visit the garden of Doug Norseth and Bruce Hegna in Portland, OR. I’d met up with Doug and Bruce at the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, CA in early June, and they’d stopped at our house on their way back to Portland. Doug had sent me photos of their recent backyard makeover so I knew to expect frosted glass fence panels and raised beds made of weathering steel (COR-TEN). But in reality the changes they made were far more extensive than I’d thought. Let’s start at the curb. From there the house looks no different than most others in the neighborhood. The front yard is what I would call classic Portland. Seen from the phone company parking lot next door, however, the traditional vibe changes to something much more contemporary. In front of and below where the glass-panel fence is was a row of arborvitae just like the ones you can see at the very left edge of the photo. Doug and Bruce haven’t made a final dec...

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night with this image fresh in your head: At best you feel uneasy. At worst you're afraid of going back to sleep. Why is it that we find this image so disturbing? Probably because disembodied eyeballs and creepy dog faces are not part of our reality. Computers don't see it that way. Eyeballs, dog faces, cacti or agaves, it's all about shapes and patterns to them--one no more or less strange than the other. NOTE: Please click on each image to see a larger version that shows much more detail.

Like many of you, I’ve been a long-time reader of Loree Bohl’s blog Danger Garden . During and after the 2014 Garden Bloggers Fling , I had the opportunity to visit Loree’s garden in Portland, OR not only once, but twice. I was in heaven! In my October 10, 2014 post , I raved about the slice of paradise Loree has created with help from her husband Andrew and under the ever watchful eyes of Lila, the Danger Dog: The Danger Garden is both a botanical testing ground that pushes the boundary of what can be grown in Portland’s zone 8 climate and a case study in designing an intensely personal, yet universally engaging garden on a small lot. It masterfully juxtaposes the down-to-business spikiness of succulents with the ethereal softness of large-leafed exotics. The result appeals to both people who love desert plants and those who prefer a more tropical look. It’s what you might get if Arizona and Hawaii had a love child. Fast forward almost a year to June, 2015. The first stop on our P...

I know you’ve been waiting with bated breath for the next installment in my ongoing saga centering on the Agave desmettiana ‘Variegata’ near our front door. It began to flower about nine months ago. The last time I wrote about it, on May 13 , the first bulbils began to emerge. Now there are so many, I can’t even begin to count them—there are possibly thousands!   Agaves take a long time to produce flowers. How long depends on the species. But even my Agave desmettiana ‘Variegata’, which has a reputation for flowering young, took about seven years. Other agaves grow to be twenty or thirty years old before they send up a flower stalk.

With almost a million visitors a year, Butchart Gardens is the most popular botanical garden in all of North America. Talk to friends and relatives, and you’ll be surprised by how many of them have been there, even if it was a long time ago. Some of the infrastructure may have been upgraded (like the gift store and the coffee shop) and a few attractions may have been added (like the Rose Carousel) but the gardens themselves have most likely changed very little. With good reason. Why mess with success? When Butchart Gardens was started in 1904, it merely reflected the tastes of the time, ranging from the timidly playful to the rigidly formal. Today it seems like a living time capsule from a bygone era overlaid by a more-is-more aesthetic that seems to know no bounds. Like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, Butchart Gardens churns out one treat after another after another. Once you’ve started, you can’t stop. You go from one horticultural confection to the next, and even when you’ve rea...

Before we left Seaside, OR I took a stroll through downtown and along the oceanfront promenade. The public plantings along Broadway Street, the main drag, were remarkably varied. I found quite a few of the foliage and flower combinations to be truly beautiful. Hats off to Seaside for not going the dime-a-dozen route. Public plantings along Broadway St. in Seaside, OR The oceanfront promenade in Seaside has got to be one of the most pleasant places to take a stroll on the Oregon coast. This was one place I wished we’d had more time to explore. The good thing is Seaside is only 80 miles from Portland—an easy add-on to a solo trip to Portland I’m planning for later in the year. Oceanfront promenade in Seaside, OR

On most of our trip, daytime temperatures have been in the 90s, with the Pacific Northwest firmly in the throes of a prolonged heat wave. You can imagine how happy we were when the overcast sky that had greeted us yesterday in Forks, WA was still around today. In fact, it stuck with us for most of the morning. Even as we were driving through sunny inland locations in southwestern Washington, the thermometer never climbed above 71°F. Glorious! Our first stop of the day was the small Quileute community of La Push. If you’re a Twilight fan (I might as well admit that I’m not), this is where Jacob’s pack lived. The last time we were in La Push, five summers ago, movie posters and cardboard cutouts of the Twilight cast were prominently displayed; not so this time. La Push has returned to its unassuming, quiet ways, allowing nature to reclaim center stage. As you can see below, First Beach in La Push is spectacular. Except for two women with a dog, there was nobody else there. First B...

In my last post we were saying goodbye to Victoria, the capital of the Canadian province of British Columbia. Early on July 3 we took the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, WA and from there headed to friends’ house south of Seattle. On the Fourth of July we went to Vashon Island on their boat where we anchored offshore and later that night experienced one of the most spectacular fireworks displays I’ve ever seen. On July 5 we left for Forks, WA on the Olympic Peninsula where we’re spending tonight; if you were a Twilight fan (or foe), you may remember this is where the saga began. But let’s start early on July 3. The ferry from Victoria, BC to Port Angeles, WA left at 6:10 a.m. but we had to be there an hour earlier to go through U.S. Customs and Immigration. That meant getting up very early—not my favorite thing to do. The upside was seeing the sun rise to the left of the Empress Hotel in Victoria’s Inner Harbour.

This morning we visited Butchart Gardens , with close to a million visitors a year one of the most popular public gardens in North America. Located in Brentwood Bay about 15 miles to the northwest of Victoria, the garden was started in the early 1900s by Robert and Jennie Butchart. They made their fortune manufacturing Portland cement for the West Coast building boom. When the limestone deposits in their quarry were depleted, Jennie turned the giant pit into a sunken garden—still the centerpiece of the Butchart Gardens. Over the next 20 years, the Butcharts added the Japanese, Italian and rose gardens. Word about the remarkable gardens near Victoria spread far and wide, and what had started out as the Butcharts’ private wonderland has become a major destination for tourists from all over the world. Often called the Disneyland of gardens, Butchart Gardens definitely appeals to folks who love their flowers frilly and bright. A million (!) bedding plants are grown in 26 greenhouses, and ...

Today is Canada’s birthday. 148 years ago, on July 1, 1867, the British North America Act turned New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the United Province of Canada into one country called Canada. It technically remained under control of the British parliament until 1982 when Canada received its own constitution , which finally eliminated the last traces of British control over Canadian sovereignty. Today we’re in Victoria , the capital of the province of British Columbia. Our hotel is located very close to the Inner Harbour and the city center so we’re able to walk to all the main attraction. That’s a major benefit since the waterfront is packed with people celebrating Canada Day. Here are some photos I took in the early afternoon: Empress Hotel (left), Parliament buildings (rear center), and part of the Inner Harbour Canada Day snaps

We ended our three-day stay in Vancouver with a walk among the trees—75 feet above ground. The Greenheart Canopy Walkway at the UBC Botanical Garden (UBCBG) is a series of suspension bridges that connect platforms attached to trees. The UBCBG website describes it like this: The Greenheart Canopy Walkway will spark your adventurous spirit as you navigate suspended walkways and tree platforms high above the forest floor.  Located in the heart of the UBC Botanical Garden, the 310m long tree top canopy walkway hangs from huge Douglas firs, Red cedars and Grand firs, many of which are over 100 years old. Reaching a height of nearly 20m above the forest floor, the walkway will give you a bird’s eye view of Vancouver’s magnificent coastal temperate rainforest. On paper it sounds like a great nature experience, with a touch of adventure thrown in for good measure. Look at the photos below. Doesn’t it look awesome? Greenheart Canopy Walkway, UBC Botanical Garden Greenheart Canopy W...