Today, I return home from a trip touring nurseries in the Portland, Oregon area, preceded by several days visiting gardens and hiking mountains in Washington’s Olympic National Park (below).  As always returning from this trip, I’m ready to plant, filled with inspiration, no matter that there’s space for only a few of the plans and…

My wife, Barbara, sometimes known as the assistant gardener though she’s been slipping and spending less time in the garden in recent years, is clearly very different in her vision of what the garden should be. She prefers tidy edges, without leaves of hostas and Ostrich ferns extending to obstruct half the path. She wants…

There’s a problem with happy plants. They grow and grow some more. With credit to me due only to my stand back and enjoy attitude, many trees and shrubs in this thirty-four year old garden far exceed the upper end sizes stated by references. Today, I notice two fringetrees (Chionanthus virginicus, above) are growing with…

For better and worse, the splendid blooms of ‘Magician’ deutzia (Deutzia x hybrida ‘Magicien’, below) are tucked into a hidden, back corner of the lower, rear garden. For a moment I wonder if its glorious blooms would be better placed front and center, but the tall, unruly shrub with long, arching branches is probably best…

A year ago, I filmed a video of the back garden, and while editing I was astounded by the volume and number of varied birdsongs I heard as I roamed. Somehow, I had tuned this out, or perhaps I was focused on plants and didn’t allow the distraction. When I’m paying attention to the sights…

While I prefer to let the garden do its thing with minimal attention to detail, some editing is necessary. Happy plants thrive, so branches might stray too far, and seedlings and sporelings occasionally must be weeded out. I think most gardeners interfere excessively, but in this garden less is best. Over thirty-four years, I’ve messed…

Yellow flag irises (Iris pseudacorus, below) are beautiful, but while I monitor to be certain none escape from the koi pond, they have become a bit of a nuisance. Happily, it appears that tall sweet flags (Acorus calamus) have mostly driven the yellow flags from the shallow, bog area of the pond, but today few…

The newly planted rock garden is not quite my ideal, but it’ll do just fine. I imagined an outcropping of boulders spilling down a mountainside. The result is a random collection of much smaller granite boulders on the slope below the greenhouse, but still with some stones that could barely be managed by hand. All…

Often, too often says my wife, I get on a kick and must plant every Japanese maple or dogwood of good size I can get my hands on. Many years, it’s maples and dogwoods, and last year I had a particular urge to add redbuds (Cercis canadensis) to the list. In this already nearly full…

The garden’s native orchids have been slow to emerge through piles of leaves, though the yellow lady’s slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum) is now flowering. Barbara and I have enjoyed abundant pink lady’s slippers (Cypripedium acaule, below) hiking along mountain trails in recent weeks, so the delayed display in the garden is a bonus. Non-native Calanthe orchids…

With the native dogwoods (Cornus florida) fading after a splendid, extended bloom due to cool, early spring temperatures, the next wave of dogwoods is poised to extend the period of flowering that will not end until the middle of June. While several native dogwoods joined redbuds for a glorious month of April bloom, there will…

Amongst many failings that are better not listed, my sense of smell is severely lacking. This is far from a tragic disability, but an inconvenience for a gardener in a garden chock full of delicious scents (I’m told). This moment’s treasures are the various sweetshrubs (Calycanthus), a collection that has expanded in recent years to…