Christine in Portland » Photos

Mid-spring garden update

Christine — Mon, 10 May 2010 01:27:46 +0000

Last summer, Brooks and I spent quite a bit of time thinking about adding plants to the yard that would result in more continuous blooms from early spring to frost. There are wads of graph paper stashed around the house that are basically hand-drawn Gantt charts of planting and blooming schedules; this, to my mind, is taking my project manager-y-ness to an extreme, but it worked. We did a lot of planting last fall, and some in January and February as well. In all, we have added poppies, Asiatic lilies, day lilies, hyacinths, phlox, ranunculus, irises, tulips, crocuses, dahlias, and other flowers that aren’t coming to mind right now…to a yard that was already well-planted with flowers.

The result has been fabulous. We have had flowers since late January, crocuses by the hundreds, and months of tulips. To balance out the number of bulbs that die back and leave blank spaces, we have also added numerous new flowering plants this spring: a beautiful camellia snagged at Portland Nursery one beautiful February day, a Daphne ‘Carole Mackie” for scent and floral interest in mid- to late spring, an Endless Summer Hydrangea (Blushing Bride) and a couple of Edgeworthia chrysanthae, which stopped me in my tracks with their lovely light yellow blooms in late winter. The incomparable Meg de Hass van Dorsser of Margaret’s Enchanted Gardens, Ltd., helped immensely with recommendations. She also helped legitimize my Hydrangea longings to Brooks, who sort of hates them. And by “sort of,” I mean truly detests them.

Following are some photo highlights. I’ll write more about some of the specific areas we have focused on at a later date.

Irises

Our first irises opened in early March, which actually scared me a bit. That seems too early.

Now, we have many in bloom. Most of the irises we have are the light purple color shown first, as luck would have it:

Daphne “Carol Mackie”

Edgeworthia chrysantha (aka Chinese paper bush)

Garden supervisor, Canis lupus familiaris (common name: Brooks Jr.)

With the exception of the dog’s photo, all of the images are from today–what beautiful weather we have been having!

Oregon Coast photos: April 2009

Christine — Thu, 07 May 2009 02:08:19 +0000

In early April, we went to Coos Bay for a night and then drove back up the coast the following day, following the route below.
View Larger Map

Somehow, the weather god smiled on us and granted sunny, clear skies all day. We stopped a thousand or so times (Brooks was very patient!) and as a result, there are some pictures.

I meandered to the edge of a small bluff and looked over, and what do you know, there the ocean was, straight below me. This is totally unlike the beaches I grew up with, where you could sidle up to ocean over a huge distance of flat land, which is right next to…another huge stretch of flat land.

Highway 101, on this stretch of the coast, often feels like it’s hanging over the ocean. You get these stunning views of sea on one side and forest on the other.

Of course, there are also plenty of places where the FREEZING water is more accessible. Had to fight off the urge to jump right in…

That’s all for now.

St. Johns Bridge

Christine — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:33:49 +0000

(Click image for larger version)

This is from several weeks ago. We were driving over the bridge, and the sky seemed typical of Portland’s sunshine mixed with storm clouds of this time of year.