Blueberries very easy edible plants. Blueberries are great for your brain. Did I mention easy? Once your plants are established, the trick to growing blueberries is proper pruning. We want to encourage new growth and to do that, we have to remove some of the old growth. This is a great thing to do together on a garden coach appointment. Do mulch around your plant periodically with coffee grounds to increase acidity in the soil (any time of year works for this – you could do it up to ten times per year! ) Don’t use peat moss even if other experts say to do it.
Hamamelis – Witch hazel ‘Jelena’ Foreground, ‘Arnold’s Promise’ in background-photo Carol Lindsay
Don’t miss seeing the bare stems of witch hazel come alive with bright yellow or red orange flowers. I stopped en route to The Oregon Garden last Saturday to take photos of a field of flowering witch-hazel. I could feel the dozens of hummingbirds working these flowers.
Places to go to catch winter color would be Elk Rock Garden, the garden of the Bishop’s Close in Dunthorpe, the Winter Garden in Hoyt Arboretum, and Portland Chinese Garden. See winter color in action and stretch your legs.
Acer Conspicuum, Photo by Treephoria
Don’t miss seeing the thick texture of flowering Heather whose foliage has turned hot colors in winter along with red twig dogwood. Some red twigs like Arctic Fire have 3 colors to their twigs. Hellebores such as Mardi Gras Parade Strain Yellow are just starting to flower and others will soon to burst with color. Some Japanese Maple have red hot twigs in winter but the Red Snake Bark Maple – Acer Conspicuum is even more colorful. Heathers, Hellebores, Red Twig Dogwood, and Nandina pick up hot winter color in the cold. It’s probably wrong to hurry in a garden but hurry and don’t miss all the excitement of winter in the garden.
Check out the Oregonians Best of 2011 which showcases me and Landscape Design in a Day. The article talks about how today’s landscape and garden designers do it all…….a carefully conceived plan just has to encompass layout of hardscape and plant materials compositions….read on o gentle reader…………
“Hi Carol, We just rented our former home to our first tenants. They loved the house, all the remodeling we did paid off. We worked so hard to have everything just perfect. But the yard would have been a sad thing without your design and help. Watching the transformation of our back yard into a very attractive outdoor entertaining area was exciting to see and we think our renters are very lucky!!! Even the inspectors who came out from the City of Portland were very impressed with the design. Burt gave your cards out. Thank you! We love the yard!
– Stacie and Burt W.
I love to work with stone. Placing boulders in a hillside rockery, selecting patio flagstone for a patio, or creating a pathway that weaves through the lawn……..stone anchors the design and brings nature to our doorstep.
Flagstone versus stepping stone=No contest
Use flagstone which is by definition 2″ thick by at least 12″ x 12″. In patios, I prefer a mix of flagstone at 14″ to even 24″ across. Why? It makes better visual impact, and if set into a proper crushed rock base, it won’t move under your feet. Since it is thicker, it’s less prone to crack. Stepping stone by definition are smaller and often end up being precarious. The only thing worse than poorly set, dinky stepping stone is to use pea gravel instead of crushed rock for your base. The pea gravel looks pretty but is not remotely stable, resulting in a mess. It can be an ankle turner as well. No pea gravel!
Select flagstone for how it will look weathered
- When selecting flagstone, keep in mind that over time it will look more weathered than what you see initially at the rock yard. All stone gets a coat of flora and fauna on it, faster in the shade than sun.
- Stone with red or orange areas in it indicates iron. Some types of stone with iron can come off on your shoes. Those colors are wonderful especially for color in the winter. What to do? Ask a professional like Lew or Sherrie at Smith Rock about what types will run.
Low Stone for an Entry Garden
Rustic stone path integrates the 3 garden rooms.
Try something different? Instead of going vertical with your rock, go horizontal!! If we all do this instead of the typical vertical style, 10 years from now I will be saying, let’s try something different and go vertical! It takes longer to wear out an idea in the landscape than interior decor. The Hilton water feature idea would normally have been brought in using a millstone from China. Our final selection was a chunk of local basalt drilled at Smith Rock, a much better environmental choice than shipping stone using up so much precious fuel from so far away.
