Archive for Garden Tips – Page 20

Portland Landscape Designer and Plant Broker Team Up

Posted by Carol

· September 28, 2016

Portland Garden Designer makes plant purchases affordable and easy using Plant Broker Services.

I’m celebrating Roger Miller of Homescaper, his 15+ years of work and contributions to my clients and our industry upon his retirement. I’m introducing Brian Bradshaw to my clients as our new plant broker. First let’s celebrate and commemorate Roger!

Portland Landscape Designers, Carol Lindsay and Roger Miller

Portland Landscape Designer Carol Lindsay with associate Roger Miller, Landscape Designer and Plant Broker of Homescaper.

Our friendship and working relationship started at the Association of Northwest Landscape Designers (ANLD) monthly meeting about 15 years ago. I asked for volunteers to plant a swale at a Willamette West Habitat for Humanity housing development. Next thing you know Roger and I are standing in a muddy ditch planting native grass starts. We talked a lot that day and he told me about his new business, Homescaper. He wanted to become the go to plant source for landscape designers and their clients.

I loved the idea. My planting plans are diverse and carefully planned for maximum beauty and lower maintenance. Any old plant at some big box store will not get my clients the design I created for them. There is a reason designers don’t use a lot of common overused plants. It’s not elitism. Many of the overused plants are not as good as the ones we use.

Plant Broker makes plant purchasing for Portland DIY Landscaping affordable

Roger went to 5 or 6 different growers to complete one of my planting plans – it was still affordable for my DIY clients so it was a perfect match. As any contractor will tell you it’s a little hard on the bottom line when the designer selects plants that have to come from 10 different sources. Going to 10 different nurseries in a week was just normal procedure for Roger.

My DIY clients do an amazing job installing their Landscape Design in a Day. When they cannot find the plants I selected for them I may not recognize the design when I come to visit. This is a problem.

Carol Lindsay of Landscape Design in a Day and Roger Miller of Homescaper delivering new plants.

Before working with Roger what typically happened is this. My DIY client would head out to purchase their plants. Inevitably the local nursery would not have a plant in their design and the clients, pressed for time, would guess and substitute a different plant. This was a big problem that Roger’s services solved.

Roger never subbed one of my plants with a different plant without conferring with me. Because he found and delivered the plants for my clients, they could easily follow my design. I could drive by a year later and recognize the design! My clients loved having all the correct plants delivered instead driving around to different nurseries to get them all.

Garden designers and contractors entrust their plant lists to plant broker

Other designers and landscape contractors noted my enthusiasm or had met Roger through ANLD volunteer projects and one designer referred Roger to another. Homescaper became everything Roger had told me about that day in the ditch, the go to plant source for landscape designers and their clients.

Roger Miller Photography of the Twombley Garden for The ANLD Garden Designers Tour, 2012. Designer Courtney Downing, Green Artisans

The contractors I worked with also began using Roger for their own projects. This is a testiment since contractors purchase plants and mark them up for a reasonable profit. He also had a long list of happy clients from his own landscape design practice and became an excellent garden photographer.

Serving The Association of NW Landscape Designers

Amy Whitworth, Roger and I are members of ANLD. We’ve served on the board in a variety of job positions and often at the same time. Roger was our treasurer and board member for years. During and after his stint as treasurer he helped ANLD with marketing and PR. He spent hundreds of hours photographing our member gardens for the now famous Portland Designers Garden Tour , editing and publishing them for our marketing materials. The postcard, the ticket brochure, posters and website all benefited from his excellent photographic eye.

Amy says, “Roger always made me look good to my DIY clients when I told them they could order directly from Roger and I would work with him directly for any necessary substitutions. It was a win-win. They would get a beautiful order of plants at a cost that was close to retail including delivery without any effort on their part. I always knew I could count on Roger to bring me top of the line plants on time and within budget, making the project run as smooth as silk. I often saw Carol’s client’s plants on the truck as I waved goodbye!”

Dyed Stamped Concrete Patio and Plantings by Landscape Design in a Day

Roger Miller Photograph of Landscape Design in a Day Patio for Garden Tour 2009

I shared many enjoyable years with Roger on the ANLD Board during my time as Secretary and Communications Chair, then liaison to APLD. You could always count on him to pitch in and lend a hand with pretty much any project that involved the organization.”

Roger and I had a lot of plant adventures over the years. Work seems odd now without him although I am enjoying getting to know Brian Bradshaw who Roger trained to take his place. Roger and I worked together to take good care of our clients. I can’t remember any big mishaps that would be funny in the telling. Things always went pretty smoothly.

I had to laugh because Roger knew that when I wrote in Acer Palmatum ‘Shishigishira’, a cultivated variety of Japanese Maple that I actually meant ‘Shindeshojo’.

NW Natural Entry Stairs Milwaukie, Oregon

Roger Miller photo of Landscape Design in a Day client for 2009 Behind the Scenes Garden Tour

They are very different trees. He sure had my back.

Roger and his wife Jan are planning a trip to France in the spring of 2017 and Roger will be building his own guitar at a special workshop, Lutherie School next July. http://whetstoneschooloflutherie.com/

My former clients and I were spoiled by Roger’s Homescaper service and we look forward to working with Brian Bradshaw. Roger taught me in the best way that having a good plant broker as part of my team is indispensable.

My new Portland DIY landscape clients can look forward to saving money on their plants and enjoying the services of my new plant broker Brian Bradshaw. Portland landscape professionals may know Brian because he is also a member of The Oregon Association of Nursery Professionals and owns Bradshaw Nursery. I’ve been using his plants in my designs for years.

Categories : Garden Tips

Tags : plant broker, plant selection

Protecting Our Portland Birch Trees from Bronze Birch Borer

Posted by Carol

· August 24, 2016

Protecting Our Portland Birch Trees from Bronze Birch Borer

NE Portland birch tree marked for removal by the City of Portland due to bronze birch borer.

Birch trees marked for removal by the City of Portland due to bronze birch borer.

Birch Trees Dying from Bronze Birch Borer

Many developers, builders and home owners picked the Himalayan White Birch (also called Jacquemontii,) for its crisply white bark and over planted them. They even planted them in parking strips with no irrigation, in full hot sun, which is not a good place for a birch. My Vancouver client’s neighborhood had over 200 mature infected trees removed. They had already lost 2 birch trees and I made tree replacement suggestions as part of their Landscape Design in a Day.

Back in the 1980’s the Himalayan White Birch was touted as the new success story because it had been hybridized to repel the Bronze Birch Borer (BBB). At that time I was a student learning about trees at a local community college. The European Weeping White Birch had been decimated by the BBB so everyone was very excited about the new Himalayan White Birch. Over the next 20 years, the bronze borer changed its preferences and became attracted to the over planted Himalayan White Birch. It makes sense from an evolution perspective; why not change to fit the food that is available? Smart bug!!!

City of Portland has tagged this borer damaged birch tree for removal

30 years ago Himalayan White Birch was used because it repelled Bronze birch borer.

Recently I have noticed the dreaded yellow tape of death tied around birch trees in the city. I create my Landscape Design in a Day drawings on site so I am in every conceivable neighborhood. The Bronze Birch Borer is now all over Portland and has spread south to Klamath Falls.

Today when I see my client has a birch tree, I give them the current research and it’s mostly bad news. I often include in their design a potential replacement tree for when, not if, their tree is devastated by the Birch Bronze Borer.

Heritage River Birch in winter. River Birch (Betulus Nigra) is a safe replacement tree – Bronze birch borer does not feed on this birch tree.

Protecting Your Portland Birch Tree

My research says watering your trees regularly before they are infected is a huge step toward preventing the disease. If you have a birch tree that is thriving or only has minimal borer damage, consider starting to irrigate it ASAP. Start by deep watering it every week to two weeks starting in early summer into mid to late fall. Don’t let your tree get stressed. (Deep water is a long slow soak with your hose.) Under no circumstances should you water your tree every day – that is not helpful. (See my watering tips blog).

Pesticide treatments

I’m also reading that more people are using a chemical treatment (which will help your tree) than they were initially. I’m not very happy about that because the treatments will harm bees. They are mostly drenches that are systemics (bad for bees) or injections done by tree services which are also systemic in nature (and so bad for bees). Apparently the timing of the treatment and how it is done can make it less lethal to bees but isn’t this backward of saving the bees and therefore our food supply? If it were my tree, given my very strong feelings about protecting bees, I would try watering deeply and regularly and not treat the tree with pesticides. If the tree is too far gone I would have it removed, grieve and plant a new tree that is resistant to disease and insects and prefers little summer water.

Weeping Katsura tree has similar texture to Birch

Katsura tree at Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland, Oregon

In short, if you love your tree, start taking care of it. The first trees that died were neglected, poorly sited and in neighborhoods chock full of white barked birch trees.

Weeping Katsura is my go to birch replacement now since borers have killed so many birches.

Weeping Katsura in one of my clients gardens in Willamette Heights.

Signs of Bronze Birch Borer

The first signs are yellowing foliage in the top of the tree. As the insect infestation continues, small branches and tips die. It moves on into the larger branches. Declining to the point of death usually takes several years. There are other signs of borer; ridges in a lightning pattern and a distinctive D shaped hole in the bark. There can be a kind of stain coming from the holes, a sort of reddish liquid which looks as bad as it sounds.

Katsura tree with beautiful fall color.

New Resistant Varieties-Maybe

I am hesitant to trust that new resistant white barked birch varieties will stay resistant if we over plant them as we did the Jacquemontii/Himalayan white birch. I offer the river birch which has a brown peeling bark and typical birch leaves. Alternatively my favorite replacement for birch trees is the Katsura tree also called Cercidiphyllum. The Katsura has the graceful shape somewhat reminiscent of a birch tree with heart shaped leaves that flutter in the breeze. I feel it is a safer choice since it is not related to birch at all but alas no white bark!

Selecting trees that have the best chance to become mature old trees is my way to contribute to my clients and our community. Keeping up to date on the best trees to use and keeping my selection diverse will make the best urban forest for the future.

Kym Pokorny, (now writing for OSU’s Extension Service), says these are good replacement choices; ‘Heritage’ river birch (Betula nigra ‘Heritage’) and ‘Whitespire Senior’ gray birch (Betula populifolia ‘Whitespire Senior,’ which has the whitest bark of the replacement tree ideas. I suspect if we over plant these borer resistant birch trees, the borer will change its tastes to the available food so the best thing to do is plant lots of different trees.

Katsura ‘Red Fox’ is a smaller tree that is getting used in irrigated parking strips.

I came across a lovely old white birch tree just the other day in the Buckman neighborhood and gave my new client, who had just purchased the home, some information on how to care for the tree. The tree seems untouched by borer and is situated where it gets some afternoon shade. He will start to summer irrigate. Perhaps some birch trees are unique individuals because they were grown from seed and this unique genetic combo may cause them to be unattractive to the BBB. We can only hope that some of these remaining individual trees, if irrigated, will remain to grace our landscapes and homes. In 2010 Kym Pokorny, my favorite garden writer, warned that our graceful white bark birch trees might become a tree of the past in Portland. Boy was she right!!

Categories : Garden Pests, Garden Tips, New Improved Plants, Plants I Recommend, Tree Selection

Tags : birch tree pest, Bronze Birch Borer, disease resistant trees, dying trees, insect infestation, parking strip, small trees, street trees

Lawn Do Over for Portland Landscapes

Posted by Carol

· August 10, 2016

Drought Tolerant, Synthetic & No Lawns Landscaping

Landscape Design in a Day's newly installed drought tolerant RTF grass.

Landscape Design in a Day’s newly installed RTF grass with dry stream bed.

This is the year for rethinking the lawn. As a Portland landscape designer many of my new clients want to make big changes in their landscapes. I am recommending clients replace their old lawns with new and improved grass varieties.

My Lake Oswego clients, George and Marcia, contacted me completely discouraged about their front yard. I met them in the fall after our particularly hot and horrid summer of 2015. They had spent their entire summer watering and watering their lawn. It wasn’t dead on the October day that I came to their home but as you can see it was quite unattractive.

Uplands Neighborhood of Lake Oswego before drought tolerant lawn.

Damaged Lake Oswego lawn

They decided it was time to hire a designer and start over with their landscape. It is a typical Lake Oswego landscape with heavy clay soil, fir trees nearby with thirsty roots, and drainage problems.

Before we even started the landscape design process, I was able to share information about a new lawn grass that uses less water and is more durable than the grass (perennial rye grass blends) we have been using for the last 30 years. Working closely with Kevin Schindler of Autumn Leaf Landscaping Inc. we replaced their old lawn with Rhizomatous Tall Fescue (RTF) grass and designed a naturalistic dry stream bed that also solves the drainage problems. Solving the drainage problems also enhances the health of the grass. Even RTF grass doesn’t do well in a boggy winter soil. George and Marcia are very pleased with the appearance and performance of the new grass. They love their new dry stream bed and how it has pulled together the entire front yard, giving it a dramatic focal point.

They are no longer slaves to watering with drought tolerant lawn.

Installation day at George and Marcia’s Lake Oswego home.

This year several of my clients have taken out their old grass and installed RTF. From a distance it looks like any lawn, in fact it looks more uniform because it grows so thickly that it tends to crowd out weed grasses much better than our perennial rye grass does. My Lake Oswego clients especially appreciate the fact that RTF tolerates more sun and heat and if they did decide to let it go dormant, it will come back beautifully. RTF can even handle a south facing lawn with reflected heat from a sidewalk. This is the most difficult place to successfully grow grass so Portland landscape professionals are embracing this new product.

It is available as a roll out turf product (sod) and as seed. Kuenzi Turf & Nursery

After front lawn of drought tolerant landscaping in Rose City Park.

Rose City Park Neighborhood

No grass lawn for drought tolerant landscaping.

West Portland Park Neighborhood

Other clients want no lawn designs, thinking it will be lower maintenance. No lawn will mean lower water usage but replacing a lawn with paths and plants does not promise low maintenance. Even the fairly new minimalist style using 90% round river rock and 10% plants isn’t as low maintenance as you think. Someone has to blow dust and debris out of the river rock frequently to prevent weeds from building up. Many clients simply don’t want to mow any lawn and are fine with the first two years of extensive weeding that is needed to get a no lawn front yard established. For a lot of people, however, weeding is the least favorite gardening chore.

Synthetic Lawn Installed in front yard for drought tolerant landscaping.

Newly installed synthetic lawn in Parkrose Heights neighborhood

Other clients are installing synthetic lawn. Before you sneer at the idea of fake grass (which I did when I first heard about it), check out these photos of my Southeast Portland clients Bob and Norma Bleid. They gave themselves a retirement gift, front and back synthetic lawn. No water, no chemicals, no fertilizer; it is the ultimate low maintenance landscape lawn.

Early fall is a particularly good time to install a new lawn or landscape. With a good irrigation system landscapes can be installed any time of the year. As a Portland landscape designer I am not fond of July or August installations, I know my clients will be “nervous nellys” seeing their plants’ leaves droop, scorch and burn in the summer sun. The fall rains typically do a beautiful job of providing the moisture needed to get plants (including grass) well established. This eliminates the stress and worry of summer planting.

If you are interested in having your landscaping updated, redesigned or help with a plan – contact us for more information.

Categories : Before and Afters, Fall Gardening, Garden Tips, Gardening Green, Low Maintenance Landscape Examples, New Improved Plants, No Lawn Front Yards, Summer Garden Tips, Synthetic Lawn and Dogs

Tags : drainage problems, drought tolerant grass, dry stream bed, landscape drainage, low watering, mid century modern style, No Lawn, no lawn front yard, synthetic lawn, xeriscape plantings

Portland Landscape Designer’s Advice on Watering

Posted by Carol

· July 26, 2016

Portland Landscape Designer’s Advice on Watering

carol lindsay portland landscape designer with lupe

Portland Landscape Designer Carol Lindsay (with client’s puppy Lupe)

You know how Facebook gives you that reminder about something you were doing a year ago today…………Well! Let me tell you, a year ago today I was sick with worry about my clients’ gardens because of the horrible, everlasting, record breaking, summer of hell. Do you remember? It was unseasonably and unreasonably hot early in our spring and it stayed that way all summer. I grew up here and I was in shock and a kind of grief actually. I missed our normal summer.

As a Portland landscape designer I’m always trying to teach my clients about how to water. Did you know you can train your plants roots to grow more deeply? This has many health benefits and one of them is that the plants will be less stressed in high heat periods, another is they won’t need as much water which is nice for your water bill and for the environment in general.

People who don’t know the tricks of proper watering really struggled with their plants and lawns and had many plant losses. Most were busy watering every day and either rotting their plants or doing such a light watering that the only thing that grew well was their water bill. A big shock for me was the number of clients whose lawns did not come back at all due to the extreme heat. They let their lawns go dormant, something that thrifty Portlanders have been doing for decades. The lawns did not come back with the fall rains. This had never happened to anyone I knew before. The spring of 2016 was very busy for Portland landscape design professionals. People were replacing their dead lawns and remodeling their landscapes. So now it is July of 2016 and it’s just starting to get hot. Whether your landscape is mature or has recently been installed it’s not too late to learn how to water properly and protect your investment.

So it’s time to share my watering tips with you again. SUMMER WATERING TIPS

Categories : Garden Tips, Gardening Green, Summer Garden Tips

Tags : how to water your garden, plant watering tips, root rot, summer watering, sun damaged plants, when to water

Heuchera for Modern Landscape

Posted by Carol

· July 13, 2016

Modern Landscape Design with Portland Designed Heuchera Plant

Portland Heuchera plant great for modern landscape design.

Plethora of Heuchera leaf color and variegation.

Dan Himes, Portland’s own plant designer, of Terra Nova Nurseries took the old fashioned Coral Bell, a simple cottage garden plant that was beloved for pale spring flowers and created the dramatic colorful leaves of the modern coral bell (Heuchera). He didn’t stop there. Over the past 30 years he

‘Lime Marmalade’ Heuchera

has given designers a whole new color palette to create with: leaves of peach, orange, russet, burgundy, amethyst, chartreuse and near black.

Many of the leaves are variegated and create the most amazing patterns. He has also created many different sizes of plants. I can use a Heuchera in the mid border with the top of the leaves at 10 inches tall and 24 inch flowers like ‘Lime Marmalade’ or plants a mere 5 inches tall with 10 inch flowers like ‘Cherry Cola’. In recent years he has also created a diverse selection of flower colors.

‘Cherry Cola’ Heuchera is great at the edge of a pot.

The original garden coral bell bloomed in pale pink, today I can have flowers in hot brick red, coral, hot pink, near orange (no true orange yet) varying shades of yellow and even shocking chartreuse. Some varieties are really all about the leaves and the flowers are a very quiet white or cream with stunning dramatic leaf color and variegation, but the newer varieties can have it all, bold dramatic leaves with the perfect hot flower color to accompany them.

So many choices are exciting to me but can be daunting to a typical home owner. Twenty different varieties can stop a person in their tracks.

‘Blackberry Crisp’ Heuchera

I’m not trying to pick a pretty plant, it would be hard to do as they are all attractive. I always design for function and select a plant for what I want it to do. I use ‘Blackberry Crisp’ because the leaves look good even in the winter. They are perfect for entry pizzazz. Some Heuchera flower for a long time in summer but have no winter interest so I use those near the patio.

There are many varieties I use for shade and some for near full sun. I love to use the new 5 to 6 inch tall plants at the edge of containers. These little guys look great with Spring Heather and Hens & Chicks. Coral Bell can pull a garden together visually by repeating it along a pathway. Their shape softens the potentially harsh lines of a modern minimalist garden plan. No matter what your style, old fashioned, naturalistic or modern they add the dramatic color that every client wants in their landscape.

Heuchera softens the edges of pots beautifully

Dan’s contribution is significant. There are many plant designers in the world and many of them worship at Dan’s feet. I was in the Netherlands visiting a famous garden designer and plant designer named Piet O’Doff who designed the 9/11 memorial garden. After he learned I came from Portland, Oregon he said to me, “why did you come all this way to see me when you live 15 minutes from Dan Himes”?

From a designers point of view Dan’s work is very exciting. His plants give me so many choices to create the perfect planting plan for my clients. True confession: to keep up with Dan Himes, I created a spreadsheet on my favorite coral bells so I can select them for size, foliage color, flower color, foliage height, sun exposure and more. It’s not that easy for me either.

Categories : Garden Tips, New Improved Plants, Plants I Recommend, Spring Gardening

Tags : bold colors, colorful leaves, container plants, easy care plants, Heuchera, spring flowers

Archive for Garden Tips – Page 20

Portland Landscape Designer and Plant Broker Team Up

Lawn Do Over for Portland Landscapes

Drought Tolerant, Synthetic & No Lawns Landscaping

Portland Landscape Designer’s Advice on Watering

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